PHOTOGRAPHY

Diego Vargas

Before joining Fresnoland as a Report for America corps member, Diego served as their community correspondent and covered stories in multiple beats, including local government, transportation and elections in Fresno County. He began as a general assignment student writer for Fresnoland in 2023 while serving as editor-in-chief for The Collegian, Fresno State's student-run newspaper. At the paper, he started his journalism career as an Arts & Entertainment editor and was involved in transitioning its weekly newspaper edition to a 24-page print magazine with a focus on long-form stories. He earned his bachelor's degree in digital journalism from Fresno State, speaks Spanish natively and is passionate about photojournalism.

Andy Lusk

Andy Lusk is the mid-cities communities reporter for NPR member station KERA in Dallas. He is a returning Report for America corps member, having spent two years with KUCB, the NPR member station serving Alaska's Aleutian and Pribilof Islands. While in Alaska, Andy was an award-winning general assignment reporter with a focus on local and tribal government. He previously reported for InvestmentWires, a financial trade publication based in New York City. Born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, Andy grew up on Carolina barbecue but is willing to give Texas dry rubs a try. He spends his free time hiking and writing fiction. If you run into him in the wild, tell him about your favorite book. Andy is an alumnus of New York University with a bachelor's degree in sociology.

Grant Ritchey

Prior to joining the Racine County Eye, Grant Ritchey covered K-12 education at Knox Pages in Ohio for three years, writing solutions-journalism-focused stories on Knox County's public schools. He also covered local government and crime at the Ashland Times-Gazette.

Nick Anschultz

Before joining Mainstreet Daily News to cover K-12 and higher education, Anschultz spent three and a half years at the Levy Citizen, where he served as the newspaper's Editor/Reporter. In that role, Anschultz covered everything from government and education to sports and local events. He discovered his passion for journalism while attending the University of Florida, where he earned a bachelor's degree in journalism in May 2021. When he is not typing words on his keyboard, you can usually find Anschultz watching sports - especially his Florida Gators - fishing, or spending time with friends and family.

Jorgelina Manna-Rea

Jorgelina Manna-Rea is an environmental reporter for the Kingsport Times News. Before joining the team in Kingsport, she was a producer at NPR and WAMU's live talk show 1A. There, she produced a variety of conversations ranging from how communities recover from disasters to what it means to love. She also produced and reported at NPR and WBUR’s "Here & Now" and NPR member station WUSF, respectively. While studying at the University of South Florida, she was a staff writer and assistant news editor at The Oracle, the student-run newspaper.

Gerard Edic

Gerard Edic covers the effects of gun violence on LeFlore County in the Mississippi Delta at The Greenwood Commonwealth. This marks his second stint at the newspaper, where he began his journalism career as a general assignment reporter. Most recently, Edic worked at PBS News, where he assisted with research and editorial production for PBS News Weekend and Washington Week with The Atlantic. He also co-produced various segments for PBS News Weekend, including tensions in the South China Sea, gang violence in Haiti, and school lunch junk fees. Edic has also edited pieces submitted by incarcerated writers for Prison Journalism Project and wrote about policy issues at The American Prospect. Edic earned his master’s degree in journalism, focusing on business and economics reporting, at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Edic has won several awards from the Mississippi Press Association’s Better Newspaper Media Contest, including the Bill Minor Prize for General News Reporting for a piece assessing the community impact of record-high homicides in Leflore County in 2020. Edic is an avid runner and loves to cook.

Lia Portillo

Lia Portillo is a recent graduate of Northwestern State University of Louisiana. She has interned at news stations in New Orleans, such as Telemundo 42 New Orleans and WDSU 6 News. As a student journalist, she worked for her student newspaper, The Current Sauce, throughout her college career, starting as a features reporter. In her junior and senior years, she led the newspaper as editor-in-chief.

Christiana Botic

Christiana Botic is a visual journalist for Verite News in New Orleans, Louisiana. Prior to joining Verite News, she received a master’s degree from Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication and worked as a freelancer for a number of publications, including The Washington Post and The New York Times. She also completed internships at the Evansville Courier and Press and the Boston Globe. Her career as a photographer began when she lived with, and documented, her grandmother in Serbia. As a National Geographic-Fulbright Fellow, she explored themes of identity, culture, migration and memory in the Balkans. Her work often investigates the intergenerational impacts of inequity and violence on communities, with a focus on how people challenge systems of oppression—from finding joy and connection in everyday life to forming social movements.

Fabianna Rincón

Prior to joining El Tiempo Latino, Fabianna graduated from American University with her bachelors in journalism, bridging politics and the media working at the School of Communications and studying mis- and disinformation with the University Honors Program. Throughout her time at AU, she worked as a digital journalist for NBC10 Boston and worked with in the student newsroom of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She also received scholarship opportunities from The LAGRANT Foundation, and continued exploring political communications as an intern with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. Raised in a household of Venezuelan journalists, her passion for reporting began at just seven years old when she was first publishing Spanish-language interviews with musicians, politicians, and public figures. She is thrilled to return to Spanish reporting with El Tiempo Latino, and cannot wait to cover the local government and communities that welcomed her into the world of local journalism.

Abe Aboraya

Prior to joining Oviedo Community News, Abe Aboraya's work appeared on NPR, ProPublica, Kaiser Health News and StoryCorps. He spent 2018 investigating post-traumatic stress disorder in first responders, and investigated why paramedics didn't enter Pulse nightclub to bring out victims. In 2018, the Florida Associated Press Professional Broadcasters Contest awarded that series second place in the investigative category and first place in the public affairs category. Aboraya holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Central Florida. His first journalism job in 2007 was covering the city of Winter Springs in Seminole County. A father of two, Aboraya spends his free time reading and writing fiction and enjoying his second home in the Hyrule kingdom.