WRITING

Eileen O’Grady

Eileen O’Grady reports for the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, where she covers education for the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper. O’Grady is the former managing editor of the Scope magazine at Northeastern University in Boston, where she reported on social justice issues, community activism, local politics and the Covid-19 pandemic. She is a native Vermonter and worked as a reporter covering local politics for the Shelburne News and the Citizen, and has had bylines in The Boston Globe, U.S. News & World Report, The Bay State Banner, and VTDigger. She has a Masters in journalism from Northeastern University and a B.A .in politics and French from Mount Holyoke College, where she served as news editor for the Mount Holyoke News from 2017-2018. She is also a traditional Irish fiddle player.

Andrew Tsubasa Field

Andy Tsubasa Field covers the Kansas Legislature for The Associated Press, concentrating on the fallout from the state’s revenue shortfall. Most recently, Field wrote about local government for The Bismarck Tribune in North Dakota’s capital city, where his coverage of the community’s response to a refugee resettlement proposal drew national attention. Prior to joining the Tribune, he had internships at The Tennessean, The Chronicle of Higher Education, St. Louis Public Radio, Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Eugene Weekly. A graduate of the University of Oregon, Field was born in Tokyo and grew up in Singapore, before moving to the Houston area when he was 17. He is a Chips Quinn Scholar and was awarded ProPublica’s Diversity Scholarship. In 2016, He was also awarded a Certificate of Merit for Personality Profile from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.  

Chris Jones

Christopher Jones was a reporter for 100 Days in Appalachia where, as a digital and forensic reporter, he focuses on white supremacists and their disinformation campaigns.  A United States Marine Corps veteran, who served four years in the infantry and as a machine gun squad leader in Afghanistan, Jones was also an EMT in Pittsburgh. As a freelance photojournalist, he’s covered the war in Afghanistan as well as political and breaking news coverage in the U.S. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Village Voice. In 2019 he worked as a monthly contributor for Pacific Standard magazine.

Patricia Nieberg

Patty Nieberg covers the Colorado statehouse for The Associated Press, where she concentrates on energy and environmental issues. She returned to the U.S. recently after completing fellowships with The Associated Press in Jerusalem and Haaretz through the Jerusalem Press Club. She graduated from Northwestern University with a master’s in journalism with a concentration in politics and national security. During graduate school, Nieberg reported from Washington, D.C., and worked with the James Foley Foundation on U.S. hostage policy and journalist safety. Her reporting also took her to swing states for 2018 congressional races, North Carolina to cover Hurricane Florence, and Guantánamo Bay for a military commission hearing, where she focused on the facility’s healthcare system for detainees. She grew up in south Brooklyn and received her bachelor’s degree from Binghamton University.  

Mohamed Ibrahim

Mohamed Ibrahim covers the Minnesota Legislature for The Associated Press where he concentrates on energy and environmental policy. He has worked as an intern at Minnesota Public Radio News, and at the Star Tribune covering St. Paul, Minn. and its surrounding areas. He was a reporter for the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities’s student-run newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, where he covered public safety, city government and the Minnesota Legislature. Born in San Diego, Ibrahim is the child of Somali immigrants and was raised in the suburbs of Minneapolis. He earned his B.A. from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in December 2019.

Sam Metz

Sam Metz covers the Nevada Legislature for The Associated Press with a special emphasis on water, education and health care. Metz most recently covered California politics for The Desert Sun and USA TODAY Network in Palm Springs, Calif. His work on wildfires, criminal justice and agriculture has won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association and IRE. He previously spent two years in Morocco researching and reporting on migration in the Mediterranean as a Fulbright Scholar and his work has also appeared in VICE News, Quartz and The New Republic. He grew up in Illinois, swam at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Trials and graduated from UC Berkeley, where he was part of the Men’s Swimming team that won two NCAA championships.

Michelle Liu

Michelle was a reporting intern for the Toledo Blade, and a general assignment intern for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. As a reporter for the Yale Daily News and a contributing reporter for the New Haven Independent, she shadowed canvassers in New Hampshire and covered labor unions in Connecticut. She was also a program coordinator for Yale’s Summer Journalism Program for high school students. Since joining Report for America, Liu has covered criminal justice for Mississippi Today. The Institute for Non-Profit News named Michelle’s reporting on the spike of prison deaths in Mississippi as one of the “Best in Nonprofit News” in 2018. Her continued reporting on this and other stories not only helped lead the MDOC to invite the FBI to get involved in the investigation of these deaths, but her dogged records requests were cited by the Department of Corrections while asking the Legislature to exempt agencies from parts of the Public Records Act. More recently, the Mississippi Humanities Council invited Michelle to moderate a panel titled, “Locked Up: Criminal Justice in Mississippi.”

Casey Smith

Casey Smith covers the Indiana Legislature with a focus on state elections and education for The Associated Press. Before her time at The AP she focused on the environment, law enforcement accountability and juvenile justice as a graduate research fellow at the Investigative Program in Berkeley, Calif. She has had internships and fellowships at The Indianapolis Star, the Investigative Reporting Workshop in Washington, D.C., The Washington Post, National Geographic, USA Today and other publications. Internationally, she has reported on water quality across South America. Casey holds a master’s degree in investigative reporting and narrative science writing from the University of California/Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She previously earned degrees in journalism, anthropology and Spanish from Ball State University in Indiana, where she also served as editor-in-chief of the school’s independent student newspaper, The Daily News. Her work has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists, the Hoosier State Press Association, the Associated Collegiate Press, the Indiana Collegiate Press Association and the German-American Fulbright Commission.

Piper Hudspeth Blackburn

Piper Hudspeth Blackburn covers the Kentucky statehouse for The Associated Press, where she concentrates on issues affecting Appalachia. Before joining Report For America, Hudspeth Blackburn covered politics in Washington, D.C. for audiences in upstate New York and Texas while a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill D.C. program. She grew up in Burlington Township, New Jersey, and graduated cum laude with a B.A. from the University of Southern California, where she majored in journalism and history, focusing on past and present intersections of policy, race and mass media in downtown Los Angeles. She was designated a Renaissance Scholar by the university and is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. She received a graduate degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern in May 2020.

Anna Nichols

Anna Nichols covers the Michigan statehouse for The Associated Press, concentrating on roads, bridges and other ailing infrastructure in this Rust Belt state. The state capital is familiar terrain for Nichols, a graduate of Michigan State (in East Lansing) where, as a student journalist for the campus paper, The State News, she won national attention for her work on the sexual assault corruption scandal that engulfed USA Gymnastics and led to the conviction of team physician Larry Nassar. She has also covered welfare and criminal justice for the Michigan Advance, where she developed the paper’s human welfare beat. A veteran of local news coverage, Nichols was also a reporting Intern for MLive, and the Saginaw News & Bay City Times. Her awards include the Society of Professional Journalists Detroit Chapter 2018 Lawrence A. Laurain Scholarship, being named Michigan Press Association 2018 Foundation Scholar and winning the National College Media 2018 “Best of Show” print issue centerpiece.