DATA

Dylan Wickman

Before joining Today's News-Herald, Wickman was a journalism student at Arizona State University pursuing his Bachelor's. During his time in university, Wickman had many different internships in the journalism industry, such as a breaking news reporter for the Arizona Republic, a photographer at Cronkite News, a marketing communications coordinator at ASU's Educational Outreach and Student Services Department and a content producer for Sport Endorse or Dublin, Ireland. He hopes to continue to be a vessel for people to tell their stories through his [position] here.

Oona Wood Milliken

Before joining The Nevada Independent, Oona Milliken was a student journalist at Columbia Journalism School, where she covered politics, housing and business. Prior to that, she worked as a metro reporter and freelancer in New York City. She holds an undergraduate degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles, where she first fell in love with journalism.

Alexandra Markovich

Ally Markovich is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. Previously, she was an education and enterprise reporter at Berkeleyside, where her data-driven, accountability and narrative journalism earned multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists of Northern California. At Berkeleyside, her investigation into a sexual misconduct case exposed how a school district knowingly kept a predatory teacher employed for over 15 years. Markovich’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post, and The Washington Post, and she has reported internationally from Ukraine. Before journalism, she taught high school English in high-poverty schools in Mississippi, New Jersey and California. She holds a B.A. in Politics from Princeton University and an M.A. in Journalism and Politics from Columbia University.

Amanda Pérez Pintado

Amanda Pérez Pintado covers health for the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI), a nonprofit investigative newsroom. Some of her recent work has focused on Puerto Rico’s prison health care system. Before joining the CPI, she reported on science and politics for El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico’s largest daily newspaper. She previously worked as a reporter for USA Today and as a Report for America corps member at Investigate Midwest, a nonprofit news site based in Champaign, Illinois. Pérez Pintado holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras campus and a master’s from New York University. She has taught journalism courses at her undergraduate alma mater and Sagrado Corazón University. Pérez Pintado is a native of Bayamón, Puerto Rico, and a lover of books and horror movies.

Annie Bresee

Before becoming a Report For America Corp Member, Bresee was the editor of two community newspapers in Georgia and Alabama. While there, she covered issues like the local school boards' efforts to consolidate under a federal desegregation order, citizens protesting a proposed quarry, and abuse in a small town church. Bresee became interested in journalism late in college when she began writing for the university’s newspaper and would later write a long-form feature for her undergraduate thesis. She received her undergraduate degree from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. 

Jolan Kruse

Prior to joining Buffalo's Fire, Jolan Kruse interned with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and WISN Channel 12 News, where she covered Milwaukee schools, breaking news and the Republican National Convention. She most recently reported on Second Look Legislation and Juvenile Life Without Parole laws for the O'Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism. Jolan was part of the Marquette University class of 2025, graduating with honors in journalism and social welfare and justice. She also studied abroad in South Africa where she immersed herself in the local community as a volunteer teaching 4th-grade English while taking classes at the University of Western Cape.

Kori Skillman

Kori Skillman specializes in investigative journalism and visual storytelling. Before joining the Baltimore Beat, she worked on ABC News’ assignment desk, covering breaking news and editing live broadcasts. She also produced video and social media content at McClatchy Publishing. Her passion for social justice reporting—rooted in lived experience—grew during her investigative fellowship in Vermont, where she broke stories on police accountability, including a mishandled 911 call for VTDigger and unethical officer moonlighting for SevenDays. Kori also worked in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office under Alvin Bragg and in the San Diego County D.A.’s Office, covering trials and assisting with media communications. She has written for Black Voice News, focusing on COVID-19’s impact on Black Californians. A Bay Area native, Kori holds a dual B.A. in Journalism and International Business from San Diego State University, with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa, and an M.S. from Columbia Journalism School. She aspires to cover global conflicts.

Owen Racer

Before joining Cascadia Daily News, Racer reported on intergenerational farming in Ecuador and El Salvador for The Guardian, documenting how consumerism, climate change and emigration collide on farms that future generations decide to inherit or leave. In Washington, D.C., he covered the IRS and Congress for Bloomberg. In New York City, he reported on maternal health disparities, riding the city’s subways with mobile mental illness teams to explain how the increasingly popular model of mental health care impacts the workforce. From producing audio stories on mental health for NPR stations WHYY and WVXU in Cincinnati, Ohio, his hometown, to photographing youth impacted by gun violence in New Orleans, his reporting crosses topics and mediums. During the 2024 presidential election, he was the lone U.S. correspondent for The Kyiv Independent, Ukraine’s English-language media outlet, covering campaigns, foreign policy and Congress. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.

Simmerdeep Kaur

Before joining the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Simmerdeep Kaur was the lead reporter at the Redwood City Pulse, where she covered city government and launched the newsroom’s first-ever podcast. The series featured in-depth interviews with Redwood City Council candidates ahead of the 2024 elections. Kaur’s odyssey into journalism began as an undergraduate, working as a part of her university’s editorial team and interning at several newsrooms in India. As a Master’s student at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, she was determined to reinvent herself and go beyond writing. She acquired data skills by learning Python and tools for visualizations to serve as a strong supplement to her stories. Kaur is a firm believer that in an era of growing threats to press freedom, robust journalism is more essential than ever. Over the past three years, she has reported on a wide range of topics, including police brutality, threats to press freedom, AI warfare, and the dangers of lithium-ion batteries.

Adam Smith-Perez

Prior to joining Investigative Post, Smith-Perez produced podcasts, fact-checked and reported for The Nation. Smith-Perez has also worked extensively as a freelance fact-checker for several outlets, including Mother Jones, Ambrook Research, Noema Magazine, and HarperCollins. He started his journalism career reporting on COVID's impact on immigrant communities in his hometown of Boston, where he worked for an immigrant and refugee advocacy non-profit writing newsletters. As a student at Columbia Journalism School, Smith-Perez reported more extensively on the housing and overdose crisis. Following his graduation, he hosted and produced a segment about Hepatitis C for VICE News, and was a fellow at the Columbia Age Boom Academy, where he honed his reporting and research skills on the aging, housing and health beats. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists, and a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.