WRITING

Emily Allen

Emily Allen covers West Virginia's smaller counties, towns and the people who live there as a community watchdog reporter for Mountain State Spotlight, an investigative and enterprise news site based in Charleston, West Virginia. Allen spent her first two years with Report for America at West Virginia Public Broadcasting, where she reported on government and public affairs in the southern part of the state. Prior to that, Allen was on the city hall beat for the Grand Forks Herald, writing about government and politics for communities in northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota. Allen earned her B.A. from the University of Minnesota. She grew up in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

Laura Brache

Laura Brache is a reporter for The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, covering the effects of changing demographics on minority communities across the region. Brache spent her first year as a RFA corps member in Charlotte, North Carolina covering immigration and the Latino community for both WFAE public radio and La Noticia, a Spanish-language paper. She is a multilingual, multimedia journalist from North Carolina who was born in Massachusetts and raised in the Dominican Republic. Brache led the production of “Believe It, Do It, Earn It,” an award-winning documentary about the twice-undefeated field hockey team at her alma mater, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A recipient of the Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for social media, Brache was part of the news team at WFMY-TV in Greensboro that won for its bilingual coverage of a series of severe weather events. She holds a master’s degree from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Nora Grace-Flood

Nora Grace-Flood reports on government accountability, public policy and neighborhoods in Hamden, Connecticut for the New Haven Independent, a nonprofit, public-interest news organization based in New Haven, Connecticut. Before becoming a Report for America corps team member, Grace-Flood interned with the New Haven Independent and its partner publication, the Valley Independent Sentinel, reporting on a variety of stories. She graduated from Bard College with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and public health in 2021, and studied journalism and interned as an editorial assistant at PEN America, a nonprofit that works to protect free expression in the U.S. and worldwide, as part of the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program in New York City. Nora lives in New Haven, CT.

Sriya Reddy

Sriya Reddy covers South Dallas for The Dallas Morning News, where she had interned earlier. A 2021 graduate of Southern Methodist University, Reddy holds a bachelor's degree and majored in journalism, history, corporate communications and public affairs. She was editor-in-chief of The Daily Campus, the student-run publication, and her in-depth reporting about gentrification in Dallas earned her a first-place award from the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association, and her opinion piece “Local Journalists Pay Attention When No One Else Does” was also honored. SMU recognized her work with an Outstanding Achievement in Digital Journalism award. Reddy grew up in Plano, Texas. She has worked at KERA, a public radio station in Dallas, Central Track, and the Dallas Free Press. In her free time, she loves to journal, buy more books than she reads and spend hours in local museums.

A.V. Benford

A.V. Benford reports on education for CapRadio, Sacramento's NPR affiliate, and for The Sacramento Observer newspaper. A proud native of Chicago's South Side, Benford was a staff writer and web editor for the South Side Weekly before joining Report for America. In addition to journalism, this transdisciplinary multimedia artist is also known for her work as a poet, cultural critic, chef and photographer and says the work is rooted in text and its creative applications for social change. Benford is a National Slam Champion and alum of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is also an alum of The Second City Outreach program, VONA (Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation) and WOW Cafe Theatre. Benford's work has been honored by Chicago magazine, Circle of Voices, the Chicago Reader, the Fresh Fruit Festival and Young Chicago Authors, among others.

Erin Glynn

Erin Glynn reports for The Cincinnati Enquirer, focusing on government accountability in three suburban counties. Before coming to The Enquirer, Glynn covered city government and business for the Manistee News Advocate in Michigan. This former news editor of The Miami Student, the student-run paper at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, studied Mandarin Chinese at Beijing University as part of a study-abroad program, and reported on the expatriate experience in Beijing. When she returned to Ohio, Glynn interned for The Enquirer, and also did an internship at Women of Cincy, a nonprofit that's focused on uplifting women through storytelling. Glynn graduated from Miami in 2020 with degrees in journalism and global politics.

Lautaro Grinspan

Lautaro Grinspan covers Latino and Asian immigrant communities for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Grinspan was previously a Report for America corps member in South Florida, reporting on immigration, the Latino vote and daily life issues among the area's Latin American diasporas. His stories appeared in English in the Miami Herald and in Spanish in El Nuevo Herald. Grinspan has interned at NPR's “Weekend Edition” and at WBUR, Boston's NPR news station, and was an engagement manager at Vox, a news site. As an editorial fellow for Washingtonian magazine, he authored the magazine's first Spanish-language stories. Grinspan grew up in Argentina and France before moving to South Florida as a teen.

Onz Chéry

Onz Chéry covers Miami's Haitian community for The Haitian Times. Chéry started working for the Brooklyn, New York, based paper in January 2020. This Report for America position allows him to continue covering the largest Haitian American community in the U.S. Previously, Chéry covered soccer for Elite Sports NY, Cosmopolitan Soccer League, the Daily Soccer Digest and FirstTouch. Chéry is from Abingdon, Maryland. He holds a bachelor's degree in English and journalism from The City College of New York, where he started his journalism career as a sports reporter for The Campus, the student-run publication. When Chéry isn't writing, he's playing soccer.

Sophie Burkholder

Sophie Burkholder is the lead reporter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for Technical.ly, the technology news network, where she focuses on economic development, equity, and access in the area's tech and innovation communities. A native of Pittsburgh, Burkholder has covered science, health, business and economics through internships and freelance work at Philadelphia Magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer, PublicSource and TechCrunch. Her work has explored various topics, including the economic impact of the pandemic on Philadelphia's small business community, renewed grassroots efforts towards equity in the tech workforce, and the challenges of COVID-19 vaccine access for homebound patients. Burkholder earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees in bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, with an additional concentration in startup operations and entrepreneurship.

Breanna Reeves

Breanna Reeves is a journalist for Black Voice News, a website and weekly paper in Riverside, California, and uses data-driven reporting to cover issues that affect the lives of Black Californians. Before joining Black Voice News, Reeves earned a master's degree in politics and communication from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she wrote for the London Globalist, the student-run international affairs publication. She has worked as a freelancer, covering activism and shining light on social inequality in San Francisco and Los Angeles, her hometown. Reeves honed her reporting skills while covering homelessness, social activism and inequality for the Golden Gate Xpress, the student-run newspaper at San Francisco State University. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in print and online journalism with a minor in international relations.