WRITING

Sarah Volpenhein

Sarah Volpenhein reports for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where she focuses on the ethnic communities in Wisconsin, such as Native American and Hmong peoples. The focus for this reporter is less geographically oriented, and more critically focuses on diasporas that exist throughout Milwaukee and other parts of the state. Previously Volpenheim reported for the Marion Star in Marion, Ohio, covering business, the courts, and government accountability. She is an Investigative Reporters and Editors member who enjoys working with data. She won several awards from the Ohio Associated Press Media Editors for her reporting in Marion. Before joining the Star in 2017, she was criminal justice reporter for the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota, where she won first place North Dakota Newspaper Association awards for her reporting on the local jail and her breaking news coverage of a train collision with a school bus. She graduated from Ohio University in 2014 with degrees in journalism and Spanish. For the latter, she completed a study abroad program in Cuenca, Ecuador.

Jessica Rodriguez

Jessica Rodriguez is a reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel focusing on the undercovered Spanish-speaking neighborhoods on the city’s south side. Rodriguez has covered crime and breaking news in Naples, Florida, for the Naples Daily News. As a crime reporter, she covered issues that affect Latinos dealing with police and the criminal justice system, such as language barriers farm working communities face when reporting crimes. Prior to that, she interned at the Gainesville Sun as a reporter and photographer. Rodriguez graduated from the University of Florida in August 2018 and was born and raised in Hialeah, a city just outside of Miami. Rodriguez is of Cuban and Honduran descent. She spends most of her free time training in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, a sport she has come to love.

Matthew Martinez

Matthew Martinez is a reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, covering low-income minority neighborhoods in Milwaukee's central city. Martinez is a 2020 graduate of  Marquette University, the Catholic Jesuit university in Milwaukee, where he worked on the Marquette Wire, the student news organization. As the executive editor last year, Martinez wrote a three-part series, “Left Behind,”  detailing a Marquette wrestler’s suicide in 1978. The series uncovered an altered suicide note and evidence of physical discipline against the student by a Jesuit priest. The project recently won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and Wisconsin Newspaper Association for in-depth reporting. Martinez has also edited and contributed to series about homelessness, human trafficking and healthcare, among other things. Last summer, he worked for Milwaukee Magazine as an editorial intern. He also worked in the SPJ newsroom during their Excellence in Journalism Conference in San Antonio last year.

Annika Hom

Annika Hom reports for Mission Local, a digital and investigative news outlet based in San Francisco that covers the entire city. Hom concentrates on inequality in the city’s Mission District.  Hom worked as a freelancer following her experience as a metro journalist at the Boston Globe and a news intern at SF WEEKLY. In December 2019, she graduated from Emerson College in Boston with a degree in journalism and a minor in poetry. She was an editor and reporter for the arts section of Emerson’s independent newspaper, The Berkeley Beacon. A native of Foster City, California, she’s the daughter of a Chinese-American father and Filipina mother. She speaks fluent Spanish.

Shaun Griswold

Shaun Griswold reports for New Mexico In Depth, where he focuses on the Native American population in Albuquerque, the state’s largest metropolitan area. It’s one of the first beats to focus on Native Americans in an urban setting. Griswold is a New Mexico journalist covering issues for southwest Indigenous people. He, himself, is a member of Laguna Pueblo, while also holding family ties to Jemez and Zuni Pueblos. He’s worked as a content producer KUSA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Denver, and on the assignments desk at KOB-TV, part of the Hubbard Broadcasting chain. He attended the University of New Mexico.

Keaton Ross

Keaton Ross covers underserved communities for Oklahoma Watch, a nonprofit investigative news outlet based in Oklahoma City. Ross is a spring 2020 graduate of Oklahoma Christian University where he served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Talon. (He majored in journalism and minored in political science.) In March 2020, Ross’ reporting on an admissions counselor who led a racist activity at an area high school was cited by several national news outlets, including The New York Times. As an intern at The Oklahoman in 2019, Ross covered topics ranging from the national impact of the state’s opioid trial to a 93-year-old man riding his bike across Oklahoma. In 2018, Ross interned with The Norman Transcript.

Crystal Niebla

Crystal Niebla is a reporter for the Long Beach Post in California concentrating on the underreported West Long Beach neighborhood and its large Latino, African-American and Asian communities that are physically and economically isolated from the rest of Long Beach. Before becoming a Report for America corps member, Niebla reported for and mentored young multi-media journalists at VoiceWaves, a youth-led program based in Long Beach. Before that, she freelanced for the Post, interned at San Pedro’s Random Lengths News, and served as the News Editor for the Daily 49er, the student paper at Long Beach State University. One of Niebla’s most notable accomplishments includes reporting about a local refinery expansion project that lacked political attention from Long Beach officials until she released her in-depth story. Early on she realized that coming from a poor family in South Central L.A., she could use fearless journalism to influence positive change in society.

Sebastian Echeverry

Sebastian Echeverry writes for the Long Beach Post in California where he concentrates on North Long Beach, a predominantly working-class neighborhood of almost 100,000 residents, the majority of whom are Hispanic and about one-fourth are African-American. Echeverry comes to the post with considerable experience. He was the acting publisher/ managing editor for the Signal Tribune newspaper in Long Beach in 2020. Before that position, he worked as the design editor/production manager and as a general assignment reporter covering Long Beach and Signal Hill. As an undergraduate at California State University/Long Beach, he was an intern for NBC4 Los Angeles and Telemundo 52. There, he worked with the digital team, uploading content to the website and social media pages. He’s created videos, podcasts and photo slideshows during his time reporting from major sporting events like the Grand Prix of Long Beach to breaking news such as protests and active crime scenes.

Ellen Wagner

Ellen Wagner reports on municipal services and budget cuts for Mahoning Matters, a new collaboration between Google and McClatchy news based in Youngstown, Ohio. Wagner knows Ohio. She covered health, local events, and crime as a metro intern at The Columbus Dispatch last summer. She was the editor-in-chief of The Post, an independent student newspaper at Ohio University and in the college town of Athens in the southern part of the state. Wagner also covered crime, courts and police in Athens during her four years at The Post. She graduated from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in the spring with a major in journalism news and information and a certificate in Italian studies. She is from Westlake, a suburb outside of Cleveland. Wagner, along with the other executive editors of The Post, won Society of Professional Journalists’ 2019 Mark of Excellence Award for editorial writing.

Bennett Leckrone

Bennett Leckrone is a reporter for Maryland Matters, a news nonprofit based in Takoma Park, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. Leckrone will concentrate on state elections, money, and ethics. He is a recent graduate of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, and recently completed an internship at The Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington, D.C.. Prior to graduating, he wrote about state and local governments during internships at The Columbus Dispatch, Dayton Daily News, PennLive.com and his hometown paper in Ohio, The Troy Daily News. Leckrone got his start covering city council meetings for the independent, student-run newspaper at Ohio University, The Post, and eventually became the paper’s long-form editor. Leckrone is a lifelong Ohio resident and has written extensively about Appalachian issues and the opioid epidemic.