WRITING

Daniel Casarez

Daniel Casarez reports for the Visalia Times-Delta in Visalia, California, where he covers the state's Central Valley south with a focus on Tulare County. A multimedia journalist, Casarez has reported on evictions during the pandemic for Retro Report, a nonprofit news organization that publishes short-form documentaries. For years he reported for Vida en el Valle, a bilingual publication serving California's Central Valley. His fellowship at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism resulted in coverage of the effects of asthma on Latino children living in rural communities, and he was a multimedia contributor to a series on Valley fever, a lung infection. A graduate of Fresno Pacific University, Casarez has earned awards from the California News Publishers Association and the National Association of Hispanic Publications. He grew up in a farm-working family in Calwa, located in Fresno County, part of the Central Valley.

Joseph De La Cruz

Joseph De La Cruz reports for The Riverdale Press, covering housing in New York City's Riverdale neighborhood in the Bronx. De La Cruz was born and raised in Brooklyn, and still calls it home. This multimedia journalist has written for online news outlets, including Bklyner, Kings County Politics and NBC News, primarily covering politics and culture. For over two years he was an associate video producer for MSNBC's “Morning Joe” and before that, he worked at the cable channel's “Live Weekends,” “Politics Nation” and “Kasie DC” as an associate video producer. De La Cruz holds a bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College, where he double majored in journalism and TV and radio. Husband and father, De La Cruz enjoys shooting video around Brooklyn when he gets a chance.

Megan Sayles

Megan Sayles is a business reporter for The Baltimore Afro-American paper. Before this, Sayles interned with Baltimore Magazine, where she wrote feature stories about the city's residents, nonprofits and initiatives. Her love of music inspired her to be a writer. At a young age she realized it was not the melody that she was so infatuated with, but the lyrics that made up the song and connected with listeners. Sayles grew up in Pasadena, Maryland, and is a 2021 graduate of the University of Maryland, where for her senior capstone project she reported on how the coronavirus and inequality intersected in Baltimore. She also worked as a staff writer and copy editor for campus publications, including Stories Beneath the Shell and The Black Explosion. Sayles teamed up with a partner to report on how the pandemic had put many more responsibilities on the oldest child in families. The Associated Press and other news organizations picked up her story.

Sam González Kelly

Sam González Kelly is a metro reporter at the Houston Chronicle, focusing on communities of color and issues most affecting historically marginalized people. Prior to this, Kelly spent two years on the breaking news desk of the Chicago Sun-Times, his hometown paper, covering everything from crime and weather to police violence and social justice movements, in addition to pitching and writing features on music, labor, education and sports. After graduating from Pomona College in 2018, where he majored in media studies and minored in music, Kelly reported on arts and culture in Chicago’s West Side for Free Spirit Media. He is a native Spanish speaker who enjoys reporting in Spanish, especially on stories where sources may otherwise be overlooked due to a perceived language barrier.

Greta Jochem

Greta Jochem reports for The Berkshire Eagle, a daily publication based in Pittsfield and serving western Massachusetts. She covers North Adams, and contributes to investigations. Jochem got her start in local news by reporting on Northampton, Massachusetts for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, where she covered topics like growing homelessness, city politics, and LGBTQ issues. Jochem is a graduate of Tufts University where she was an editor of the student magazine, the Tufts Observer. As a fellow at Grist, a nonprofit news organization devoted to covering climate solutions, she reported on climate change, and has written about science as an NPR intern. Jochem grew up in Wisconsin and outside of work, she can be found biking.

Ari Snider

Ari Snider reports on Maine's refugee communities for Maine Public, a nonprofit based in Portland with radio, TV, educational and Web services. Snider grew up in Maine, and returns by way of far west Texas, where he hosted Morning Edition at Marfa Public Radio. Before that, Snider was in Southeast Alaska, reporting and hosting at public radio stations KCAW in Sitka and KFSK in Petersburg. He got his start in audio as an undergrad at Brown University and through internships at radio stations in Vermont and Rhode Island. Over the last several years, Snider has covered everything from a labor strike to a ferry-funding crisis to renewable energy initiatives in remote Alaska towns. His reporting has won three Alaska Press Club awards, and has aired on radio stations throughout Alaska, Texas, and New England. When looking to get out of town for a weekend, Snider has a special fondness for the islands of Penobscot Bay and the lakes and mountains of the North Woods.

Dora Totoian

Dora Totoian reports on issues affecting agricultural workers in the mid-Willamette Valley for the Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon. Before coming to the Statesman, Totoian covered city government for the News-Register in McMinnville, the heart of Oregon's wine country. She reported on land use, housing, and the disproportionate effects of the pandemic. Totoian was born in Romania and grew up in southern Oregon. She graduated from the University of Portland with a B.A. in Spanish and political science in 2020, but credits her work as a reporter and later the opinion editor at The Beacon, the student newspaper, as having the biggest impact on her.

Julia Shanahan

Julia Shanahan covers the changing nature of public services for the Rappahannock News and Foothills Forum in Washington, Virginia. A 2021 graduate of the University of Iowa with bachelor degrees in journalism and political science, Shanahan was the politics editor at The Daily Iowan, the student-run paper. It was named the Iowa Newspaper Association's Newspaper of the Year in 2020 and 2021, with Shanahan earning awards for her reporting. She was a finalist for national Reporter of the Year from the Associated Collegiate Press in 2020, and has interned with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents' Association. Shanahan, of Naperville, Illinois, hopes to one day report from the White House.

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.

Savannah Tryens-Fernandes

Savannah Tryens-Fernandes reports on child wellness and mental health for the Alabama Education Lab, part of AL.com, a site devoted to Alabama news and based in Birmingham. Tryens-Fernandes earned her master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2021, where she was a fellow at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and worked on the “Missing Them” project for The City, a nonprofit news site in New York City, documenting the impact of COVID-19 in vulnerable New York communities. Prior to this, Tryens-Fernandes worked at Human Rights Watch, covering xenophobic violence in South Africa. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and government from Villanova University and is fluent in French.