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Maria Benevento

Maria Benevento covers education for The Kansas City Beacon, a nonprofit newsroom focused on in-depth public service journalism. Prior to joining The Beacon, she reported on the Missouri state government as an intern for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jefferson City bureau. While earning her master's at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Benevento worked on the education and state government beats, the graphics desk, and as a teaching assistant on the copy desk for the Columbia Missourian, the school's community paper. Benevento's investigative work for the paper focused on the struggles domestic violence victims face while trying to divorce their abusers. She spent two years as an editorial intern at the National Catholic Reporter in Kansas City before heading off to graduate school. Home for Benevento is Kirksville, Missouri.

Melissa Montalvo

Melissa Montalvo covers childhood poverty in California's Central Valley for The Fresno Bee. Before this, Montalvo, a bilingual reporter, covered the food and agriculture industries, Indigenous issues, and Mexican American culture as a freelancer, with bylines in Civil Eats, L.A. Taco, and more. Montalvo was born in Southern California, raised in the Arizona desert, and identifies as a daughter of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.A. in international relations, minors in business law and French, and Renaissance scholar and Global scholar distinctions. In 2015, she won a Fulbright Award to serve as an English teaching assistant at Mexico's Universidad Tecnologica de Jalisco in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Montalvo is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Rafael Garcia

Rafael Garcia is a journalist for The Wichita Beacon, a nonprofit digital news organization in Wichita, Kansas. He covers local and state education issues, and hopes to focus on the future of education as the state rebounds from the pandemic. Prior to working at The Beacon, Garcia reported on K-12 and higher education for The Topeka Capital-Journal and The Manhattan Mercury in Kansas. His stories on equity-and-access issues, declining enrollment and educator shortages have been published across Gannett Kansas' network of papers. A Kansas native, Garcia's love of donuts helped him win a first place award from the Kansas Press Association for a feature he wrote about an estate sale at the site of a donut shop that closed long ago, but is filled with memories. A first-generation college graduate, Garcia was three-time editor-in-chief of The Kansas State Collegian at Kansas State University.

Tran Nguyen

Tran Nguyen reports for the San Jose Spotlight, a nonprofit, community-supported digital news organization in California. A bilingual data journalist, Nguyen covers the Vietnamese community and other news in the South Bay. Before starting the Report for America position, she interned for Spotlight, where she reported on businesses, schools, city and county government. While pursuing her master's degree in data journalism at the University of Missouri, Nguyen worked as a K-12 education and graphics reporter for the Columbia Missourian, the student-run publication, and as a graduate research assistant studying the user experience of digital versus print journalism. Nguyen was a city hall reporter for the Ashland Tidings and the Mail Tribune in Oregon, and she also holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oregon. Her hometown is Saigon, Vietnam.

Brandon Drenon

Brandon Drenon is a Social Justice and Equity reporter at the IndyStar in Indianapolis, Indiana, covering the black and brown communities of the greater metro Indy area. Prior to Brandon’s arrival in Indiana, he was a video producer for BBC Reel, a digitally native platform of the British Broadcasting Corporation, where he reported on health and wellness topics as well as Black culture. Brandon also worked as a production assistant on the documentary Whose Vote Counts, a PBS Frontline production, which was recently nominated for a Peabody Award. In 2020, Brandon received his master’s in journalism from Columbia University to build upon his writing career as a freelance contributor for the Huffington Post and New York Post.

The Maine Monitor

The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization located in Augusta, Maine. It was founded in 2009 by veteran journalists John Christie and Naomi Schallit to help offset some of the deeper journalism that was quickly evaporating as Maine newspapers slashed staffs. The news organization produces investigative and enterprise journalism on politics, healthcare, the environment and education, and publishes Pine Tree Watch.

The Maine Monitor

The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization located in Augusta, Maine. It was founded in 2009 by veteran journalists John Christie and Naomi Schallit to help offset some of the deeper journalism that was quickly evaporating as Maine newspapers slashed staffs. The news organization produces investigative and enterprise journalism on politics, healthcare, the environment and education, and publishes Pine Tree Watch.

The Maine Monitor

The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization located in Augusta, Maine. It was founded in 2009 by veteran journalists John Christie and Naomi Schallit to help offset some of the deeper journalism that was quickly evaporating as Maine newspapers slashed staffs. The news organization produces investigative and enterprise journalism on politics, healthcare, the environment and education, and publishes Pine Tree Watch.

The Kansas City Beacon

The Kansas City Beacon is a non-profit online news outlet focused on in-depth journalism in the public interest. It launched in March 2020 and is part of The Beacon, a regional nonprofit news network serving Kansas and Missouri. Beacon stories are revelatory, contextual, data-driven and solutions-driven. Our reporting centers around issues in healthcare, education, economics, environment and civic engagement.

The Wichita Beacon

The Wichita Beacon is a nonprofit, digital-only news outlet based Wichita, Kansas, launching in Summer 2021. Our mission: To spur reforms in the public interest by shining light on wrongdoings and abuse by government, businesses and other institutions in the region through in-depth, solutions-driven journalism. The Beacon’s sister newsroom in Kansas City was founded in April 2019 and began publishing in early 2020.