WRITING

Jacob Martin

Jacob Martin covers the criminal justice system and African-American communities in Kansas City, Missouri for The Community Voice, a statewide bi-weekly that reports on Black and African-American news in Kansas and Missouri. Prior to joining The Community Voice, Martin worked as a general assignments reporter with KCUR, where he covered breaking news in Kansas City, and the Shawnee Mission Post, covering COVID-19 trends in the community. Before moving to Kansas City he lived in Brooklyn, New York (by way of Louisville, Kentucky). He holds a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Louisville, where he wrote for The Louisville Cardinal, the student newspaper.

100 Days in Appalachia

A digital news publication, 100 Days in Appalachia has a mission to share the diverse stories of the 13 states that make up this region. Working with local voices to apply a cultural lens to what’s happening here, it shares what that means for the rest of the world.

Ashley Winters

Ashley Winters is reporting for the St. Louis American, covering news impacting African Americans in the St. Louis metro area which includes education, business and entertainment. Winters is from St. Louis, Missouri and attended Columbia College Chicago, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism with a concentration in Magazine Article Writing. After graduation, her roots called her back home to be the watchdog for Black and Brown communities impacted by racial and social/ economic disparities in the St. Louis region. Winters has worked for local media outlets including the Nine Network of Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio, St. Louis Magazine, the St. Louis American Newspaper, and Northsider Newspaper. She is a two-time award recipient of the Excellence in Poverty Journalism Award. In 2019 she published her first children's book, called Memories Of A Bunny Rabbit, and received a Mission Attempt award. She has volunteered for the St. Louis City School District teaching fourth- through sixth-graders journalism, showing the importance of Black voices, and telling stories about our communities. Winters' latest project is gardening; she plans to donate fresh produce to poor Black and brown communities to help fight food apartheid in the St.  Louis region.

Mariah Rush

Mariah Rush covers the South and West sides of Chicago for the Chicago Sun-Times. Originally from South Bend, Indiana, she graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2021. Rush was most recently a national real-time reporter for McClatchy News, covering the midwest region. She has previously reported for the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Tampa Bay Times and has served as the Managing Editor for Notre Dame's independent newspaper, The Observer. Rush has written about everything from news deserts in America, to the policing of Black teens in Illinois, to the phenomenon that is Wordle. In her leisure time, she can be found consuming TV and reading detective novels with her dog, Simi.

Quinn Gablicki

Quinn Glabicki covers environment and the impacts of climate change in Western Pennsylvania for PublicSource. Before joining PublicSource, Quinn worked as a freelance photographer and journalist covering environment, politics and breaking news. He previously worked with PublicSource to publish long-term work documenting the intersection of industrial pollution, public health, and gun violence in Clairton, Pennsylvania. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Quinn graduated from Haverford College with a degree in political science where he focused on populist politics and rising authoritarianism in post-soviet states.

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.

Aaron Bonderson

Aaron Bonderson is a multimedia journalist covering the news in underserved communities for Nebraska Public Media, the state’s NPR and PBS stations. A recent graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism. While there, Bonderson interned as a general assignment reporter at Nebraska Public Media, covering agriculture, business, COVID-19, the environment and more. He has also worked as a sportscaster for KRNU, the university’s radio station, and as a reporter, producer, and sportscaster at KTCH radio in Wayne, Nebraska.

Brittney Miller

Brittney J. Miller covers energy and the environment for The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Prior to this, Miller earned a master’s degree in science writing and communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. There, she wrote about anything science-related —international research, local environmental issues and more—through internships with Nature, Knowable Magazine and the Monterey Herald, and she was named a fellow at The Council for the Advancement of Science Writing and an ARCS (Achievement Rewards for College Scientists) Foundation Scholar. Miller holds bachelor’s degrees in biology and journalism from the University of Florida, where her journalism career began at the college’s digital and radio news outlet, WUFT News. When she’s not typing or taking pictures, Miller loves hiking, gardening and cooking.

Crystal Niebla

Crystal Niebla is an investigative reporter focused on infrastructure and government accountability for inewsource, a nonprofit newsroom in San Diego. A second-year Report for America corps member, Niebla was a multimedia journalist at the Long Beach Post in Long Beach, California. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in sociology from The California State University, Long Beach, where she was the news editor of the student paper. Niebla grew up in South Los Angeles and realized early on that despite growing up in poverty, she could use fearless journalism to influence positive change in society.

Harika Maddala

Harika Maddala is a photojournalist based in Stockton, California, covering the news around San Joaquin County for the Bay City News Foundation and its nonprofit news site Local News Matters. Maddala previously documented the homelessness crisis as a research fellow at the Starling Lab for Data Integrity, which was co-founded by Stanford University and the University of Southern California. Born and raised in India, Maddala is fluent in Telugu, Hindi and Kannada, and moved to the U.S. at age 19. As a staff photographer and photo editor for San Francisco State’s newspaper, the Golden Gate Xpress, Maddala covered police violence, prison transfers and environmental racism, and placed in the top 10 in the Hearst Journalism Awards 2021. Maddala’s work has been displayed at galleries.