WRITING

Elena Bruess

Elena Bruess covers drinking water issues and the environment for the San Antonio Express-News, focusing on development in Texas Hill country and the Edwards Aquifer. Previously, Bruess reported on national and international freshwater issues for Circle of Blue, a nonprofit environmental news organization. As a 2020 reporting fellow for the Pulitzer Center, she covered the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on a primarily Latino neighborhood in Chicago. Bruess has reported on culture, comedy and food as a freelancer. She grew up in Iowa and Greece, and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa's undergraduate writing program. Bruess earned a master's from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, where she was awarded the Comer scholarship for environmental reporting.

Kate Stockrahm

Kate Stockrahm reports on local nonprofits and businesses for Flint Beat, a digital publication that’s focused on government accountability, solutions journalism and filling news gaps for the community of Flint, Michigan. Stockrahm holds a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in Latin from the University of Michigan, and began her career as an event manager in Washington, D.C. before moving to New York City to earn her degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. There, she developed skills in audio and visual storytelling while covering everything from divisive police union endorsements and failing museum diversity initiatives to COVID-19’s impact on local comedy club culture and the future of nuclear fusion as an energy source. Originally hailing from Michigan, Stockrahm says that the only two people more excited about her return to the Great Lakes State are her mom and dad.

Natasha Brennan

Natasha Brennan reports on Indigenous communities in Washington state for The News Tribune in Tacoma, and also provides coverage for other McClatchy newsrooms in the state. Previously, she worked as a freelance journalist and photographer focusing on Native American issues in Southern California. Her work has been published by Indian Country Today, The Associated Press and PBS Native Report. She became inspired to specialize in writing about Native American culture and issues as a child visiting her father's family on the Cahuilla Reservation in Southern California. Brennan, from West Covina, California, holds a master's degree in journalism from the USC Annenberg School, where she was an Annenberg Leadership scholar and Initiative fellow. Her 2019 book, “People of the Willow House,” has been featured in museums and libraries in Southern California, and Brennan says it “aims to dispel the myth that Native people and culture are extinct or ancient.”

Shaun Robinson

Shaun Robinson covers northwest Vermont for VTDigger, a nonprofit daily news organization dedicated to watchdog reporting. Previously, Robinson worked as a statehouse correspondent for the Cape Cod Times, and produced coverage of Newton, Massachusetts for The Boston Globe. He has interned at GBH, Boston public radio, and did a six-month co-op at The Patriot Ledger, a daily paper in Quincy, Massachusetts, where he covered hundreds of stories, from a subway derailment to an 84-day sanitation workers' strike. When Robinson was editor-in-chief of The Daily Free Press, the student-run paper at Boston University, it won the 2019 New England College Newspaper of the Year Award. He earned a bachelor's degree in journalism, summa cum laude, in May 2021. Robinson was born in Seattle but grew up in central New Jersey. He's a lifelong soccer fan, and is steadily improving at solving The New York Times crossword puzzle.

Astrid Kayembe

Astrid Kayembe is a reporter for The Commercial Appeal, a paper based on Memphis, Tennessee, covering South Memphis. Most recently, she was a social media associate for L.A. Taco, a news site, and participated in The New York Times Student Journalism Institute. Kayembe earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in media and social change from the University of Southern California in 2021, where she was a reporter and editor for Intersections South L.A. Kayembe and a team partnered with L.A.Taco and won first place in a student innovation competition hosted by the University of Missouri School of Journalism. For a fellowship, she produced the “Truth Told” video series with a team of journalists as a part of the Google News Initiative. Kayembe calls South Central LA home, and when she isn’t reporting she can be found searching for the best fried plantains in the city (which are probably at her mom’s house).

Elizabeth Thompson

Elizabeth Thompson reports on gender and prison health for North Carolina Health News, a nonprofit news organization in Chapel Hill, North Carolina that covers health care in the state. Thompson has covered Texas politics for The Dallas Morning News' Washington bureau, reporting on the 2020 election and Texans in Congress. Prior to that, she was a freelance journalist and fact checker for The Raleigh News & Observer, covering North Carolina politics. As an intern for GrepBeat, the tech news website, Thompson wrote about startups and businesses in North Carolina's Research Triangle area. This classically trained opera singer is a native of Long Island, New York, but became a Tar Heel when she studied journalism and music at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Katie Hayes

Katie Hayes reports for The Daily Herald in Everett, Washington and covers issues that affect the working class. As a freelance reporter zeroing in on government accountability in the Northwest, Hayes reported on state laws that prohibit private militias. Her work appeared in InvestigateWest and Crosscut, Seattle-based nonprofit news outlets. In 2020, Hayes created a website dedicated to exploring police accountability issues in Olympia, Washington. She wrote in-depth stories and took photos for the site, along with editing stories submitted by other journalists. Hayes is originally from St. Louis and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Missouri–St. Louis. She has reported on issues that affect rural western Washington communities as a reporter for both The Chronicle in Centralia and the Shelton-Mason County Journal.

Neil Strebig

Neil Strebig is a chef-turned-journalist, reporting on local business for Lookout Santa Cruz, a website devoted to covering community news. A former reporter for the York Daily Record in York, Pennsylvania, Strebig focused primarily on food, business, and issues in the hospitality industry. He has written about breaking bread with Amish and refugee families, and restaurant workers' financial struggles and lack of healthcare. His in-depth reporting highlighted problems surrounding the state liquor license laws, and how the state's tourism and restaurant industry can recover after the pandemic. Strebig's work has appeared in USA Today and throughout its network, and earned him an award. He grew up in Easton, Pennsylvania, and was managing editor of The Northside Chronicle in Pittsburgh, which earned its first Golden Quill award from the region's Press Club during his tenure. Strebig holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Pittsburgh's Point Park University.

Sierra Clark

Sierra Clark reports for the Traverse City Record-Eagle in Michigan. Clark is Kichi-wiiwedoong Anishinaabe Odawa, and covers Indigenous stories in her ancestral lands in northern Michigan. She holds a bachelor's degree in freshwater science and sustainability from Western Michigan University, and has worked as a water quality analyst for conservation associations. In June 2020, she began a fellowship with the Mishigamiing Journalism Project, a partnership between the Record-Eagle and Indigenizing the News, a digital news organization devoted to Native American and Indigenous cultures, issues and histories. Through this fellowship, Clark developed relationships with several newsrooms, including NPR, and brought Indigenous representation to their stories. As co-editor of Indigenizing the News, she hopes to continue uplifting voices in her community by doing investigative reporting on contemporary and historical issues regarding the Anishinaabek in her state.

Atavia Reed

Atavia Reed reports on Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods for Block Club Chicago, a nonprofit news site dedicated to covering the city’s neighborhoods. Previously, Reed was a reporter at the Chicago Tribune Media Group covering suburban news for the Pioneer Press, including stories on the pandemic’s effect on senior living and education. A multimedia journalist, Reed says she was once described as “too nosey for her own good” and decided to make a career out of it. She’s covered culture and news for USA Today, VICE, the Chicago Tribune, South Side Weekly and the Chicago Reader. Reed holds a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was the assistant editor for the school’s culture magazine, Buzz, contributed a narrative feature to the local paper and spent a semester studying dramatic writing at New York University.