DATA

Rachel Crumpler

Rachel Crumpler reports on gender and prison health and health inequities for North Carolina Health News, a nonprofit news service that covers health care in the state. She is a recent graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, where she majored in journalism and minored in history and social and economic justice. As an intern for The Triangle Business Journal, she wrote daily stories about the economy and businesses in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Crumpler also wrote more than 50 stories on events and developments impacting the campus community for her college newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel. She was named a 2020-21 Hearst investigative reporting award winner for her data-driven story spotlighting funding cuts at local health departments across North Carolina and the impact it had on Covid responses. Crumpler’s work has appeared in The News and Observer, WRAL, Greensboro News & Record, NC Policy Watch and other publications. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys crossing items off her bucket list, such as going skydiving to celebrate her college graduation.

Brittany Brown

Brittany Brown covers workers and labor in Memphis, Tennessee for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, which reports on policy, poverty and power in Memphis and Shelby County. Prior to joining MLK50, Brown reported on the criminal justice system in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana for the Gulf States Newsroom, NPR’s southern news hub. She was the inaugural Emerging Reporters Fellow at Mississippi Today, where she covered the state’s criminal legal system through the lens of justice and equity. Brown’s journalism career began in student media at the University of Mississippi, where she worked as a reporter and editor for the student newspaper, tv station and yearbook. In college she worked as a breaking news intern with The Baltimore Sun and was a reporting fellow with Carnegie-Knight News21 at Arizona State University, where she reported on hate crimes in America. Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and is currently completing her master’s documentary thesis project in Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi.

Mandy Kraynak

Mandy Kraynak covers economic development for The Land, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on in-depth solutions journalism in Cleveland’s neighborhoods. Before returning to northeast Ohio, where she grew up, Kraynak was managing editor at The Daily Orange, an independent, student-run newspaper in Syracuse, New York. She also worked as a culture editor, assistant feature editor, assistant copy editor and staff writer at The Daily Orange, writing feature stories on arts and culture. She has freelanced for publications such as The South Side Stand in Syracuse and The Devil Strip in Akron, Ohio, and studied journalism at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Kavish Harjai

Kavish Harjai is a data reporter based in Los Angeles and covering state government for The Associated Press. Prior to joining the AP, Harjai freelanced for Bay Area publications while earning his master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University. Before heading west, Harjai lived in New York City, where he worked as a news video producer and writer for NowThis. He holds bachelor’s degrees in psychology and French from New York University. In his free time, Harjai enjoys reading (his favorite author is Don DeLillo), playing beach volleyball, listening to house music and making playlist covers.

Rasha Almulaiki

Rasha Almulaiki covers politics, community policy, and business in Detroit, Michigan as the multimedia journalist at the Michigan Chronicle. She is a second generation Yemeniya living in the Detroit diaspora. Prior to joining the Michigan Chronicle, Almulaiki worked as a freelance journalist for The Arab American News, Outlier Media, and Metro Times Detroit, reporting on such diverse community issues as local campaigns and elections, art and culture, community politics, public city meetings, and on building developments, using data-driven research. Her journalism aspirations stem from a decade of work in community-advocacy organizations including global diplomacy, education, criminal justice, and restorative community safety. These experiences on the ground, among others, inspired her to write stories of marginalized and underrepresented communities of color. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies from Wayne State University.

William Perkins

William T. Perkins is a data reporter for the Traverse City Record-Eagle in Michigan. Previously, he was a reporter at the Petoskey News-Review in northern Michigan, covering local government and environmental issues, including concerns surrounding the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline in the Great Lakes. A native of metro Detroit, Perkins holds a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, where he was a news editor at The Post, the student paper, and a Scripps Statehouse news bureau fellow reporting on state government for The Columbus Dispatch.

Andrea Briseño

Andrea Briseño is an investigative reporter at inewsource, a nonprofit news outlet in San Diego, California. She is fluent in Spanish and covers K-12 education with a focus on Latino families. Previously, Briseño was the equity/underserved communities reporter at The Modesto Bee, where she shed light on communities and issues that had gone underreported in Stanislaus County, California. She also partnered with McClatchy Company staffers from across California to produce Spanish written articles and La Abeja, The Bee’s weekly newsletter centered on topics important to Latinos. A Fresno native, Briseño began her journalism career at The Rampage and The Fresno Bee. She is a graduate of Palomar College community college and San Jose State University.

Ari Fife

Ari Fife covers issues of race and equity across the state for Oklahoma Watch, a nonprofit investigative newsroom based in Oklahoma City. A recent graduate of the University of Oklahoma, she holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism with minors in political science and international studies. While there, Fife worked for the OU Daily, the student publication, as a senior reporter, managing editor and summer editor-in-chief, and she interned at The Frontier, a nonprofit investigative newsroom in Oklahoma. Fife has studied Spanish for about seven years and is eager to improve her skills.

Arleigh Rodgers

Arleigh Rodgers covers the Indiana Legislature with an emphasis on K-12 education for The Associated Press. Before joining the AP, Rodgers was a general assignment reporter for the Las Vegas Sun, where she also reported, produced and hosted a podcast, “Heating Up,” which investigated the link between extreme heat and mental health among Las Vegas’ homeless and low-income residents. Holding a bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College, she was a multimedia reporter for the student-run paper, The Ithacan, editor of Year in Review, a magazine and host of “Re:Mixing,” a music podcast. Rodgers’ work has earned awards from the New York Press Association, the Associated Collegiate Press and the College Media Association.

Bennet Goldstein

Bennet Goldstein reports on water and agriculture as Wisconsin Watch’s Report for America representative on the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk—a collaborative reporting network across the Basin. Before this, Goldstein was on the breaking news team at the Omaha World Herald in Nebraska. He has spent most of his career at daily papers in Iowa, including the Dubuque Telegraph Herald. Goldstein’s work has garnered awards, including the Associated Press Media Editors award for an explanatory feature about a police shooting in rural Wisconsin, and an Iowa Newspaper Association award for a series that detailed the impacts of the loss of social safety net programs on Dubuque’s Marshallese community. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.