Kavitha Cardoza is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Richmond and an award-winning reporter whose work centers on education and inequity. She has been a frequent contributor to NPR and The Hechinger Report, and her reporting has appeared in The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, The 19th, The Guardian, and BBC World News, among others. Kavitha previously worked as an education correspondent for PBS NewsHour/Education Week, at NPR affiliates in Washington, D.C., and Illinois, and served as public editor at the Education Writers Association.

She is the recipient of the 2026 American Mosaic Journalism Prize®, the 2021 Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University, and numerous other honors for her reporting. Kavitha has published several academic papers on communication and holds a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master’s degree in communications from Manipal University, India. Her international upbringing and cross-cultural education deeply shape both the topics she covers and the way she approaches storytelling.

Daniel Jones has edited the Modern Love column in the New York Times since it began in 2004 and now works on the various parts of the global franchise it has become: two weekly columns, three books (“Modern Love,” “Tiny Love Stories” and “Love Illuminated”), a weekly podcast with hundreds of millions of downloads, and a streaming series on Prime Video with productions in the United States, India, The Netherlands and Japan. He lives in New York City and the Hudson Valley.

Sahar Fatima is the news editor at Prism, a nonprofit news website led by journalists of color, focused on the intersections of injustice. Sahar was previously an editor at The Boston Globe and has reported in Canada for Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail.

Christina Samuels oversees coverage of early childhood education, as well as K-12 education in the South for The Hechinger Report, a news organization covering education innovation and equity. She started covering education in 2000 at The Washington Post, writing about a fast-growing school district in the D.C. suburbs. After that, she worked at Education Week from 2004 to 2021, when she joined The Hechinger Report in 2021 as an editor.

Frank Bi is a journalist, technologist, educator and nonprofit leader committed to building business models for digital media. He focuses on the intersection of journalism, technology and media business strategy. He is a Product Manager and the Director of Tools & Technology at the Minnesota Star Tribune where he leads the strategy and execution of the Star Tribune's most important products with the goal of delivering impactful journalism and driving audience growth. Frank is currently an Executive MBA candidate at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Nichole Christian is the managing editor at Outlier Media in Detroit. She's a veteran newspaper journalist who's previously worked as a staff writer with The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and the Detroit Free Press. Nichole is a native of Detroit and has written extensively, as a freelancer, about the artists' impact on cities.

Cara Reedy is the Founder and Director of the Disabled Journalists Association (a member organization of Storyline Partners). She's a journalist who spent ten years at CNN producing documentaries as well as writing for various verticals. In 2019, she produced her most recent doc for The Guardian entitled Dwarfism and Me, an exploration of the treatment of Dwarfs in American society. She has spent the last three years studying disability and its coverage in the media.

Dr. Luisa Ortiz Pérez Leads the Media Resilience Network MDrnet.org and is the Executive Director of Vita-Activa.Org, a helpline for journalists and freedom of expression defenders. A creative strategist with over 20 years of experience in mental health, digital rights, and care in media. Author of "A Human Condition, a play about journalism" and a JSK Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. She blossoms when working in inclusive, high-impact global initiatives at the intersection of media, design, and the arts.

Benét J. Wilson is the owner/editor-in-chief of Aviation Queen LLC. She was previously lead credit cards writer for Bankrate and director of the Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellowship for early-career journalists. Before that, she was a senior editor and writer for The Points Guy. She serves on the boards of Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism and the Institute for Independent Journalism. She has served on the Online News Association and the National Association of Black Journalists boards. She graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., with a B.A. in broadcast journalism and resides in Baltimore, MD.

Martina Guzmán founded VERDAD, an AI tool that monitors Spanish and ethnic-language radio for disinformation. A 2023 Stanford JSK Fellow, she directs the Race & Justice Reporting Initiative at Wayne State’s Damon J. Keith Center. She’s an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker covering race, justice, and systemic inequality, and a former Detroit correspondent for The Takeaway. She is a Columbia Journalism School graduate.

Missy Frederick is the Editorial Director for Eater’s dining team, overseeing a department of editors working on 23 city sites across the country. She has been with the company since 2012, previously working as a Cities Director, Cities Manager, and as the editor of Eater DC, covering the Washington restaurant scene. Her previous employers include The Washington Business Journal (covering the hospitality business), the Washington Examiner, Space News, CD Publications, and the Southampton Press. She is a graduate of the Poynter Leadership Academy for Women (2023). She has also spent 20 years as a professional theater critic for publications such as the Washington Post, DCist.com, and more; her work in arts journalism earned her a fellowship with the National Endowment of the Arts in 2008.

Samia Madwar is a senior editor at The Walrus and has previously held editorial roles at Up Here and Canadian Geographic magazines. Over the past decade, she has judged a number of journalism awards, including the National Magazine Awards, the American Society of Magazine Editors, and the Online News Association. She has served as a mentor for the National Media Awards Foundation and the Canadian Association for Journalists, and guest edited for the Review of Journalism.

Michelle Cyca is a journalist from Vancouver. She is the bureau chief of conservation and fellowships at The Narwhal, a contributing writer to The Walrus, and the incoming Asper Visiting Professor at the UBC School of Journalism, Writing and Media, where she is teaching a new class on freelancing. Michelle is a member of Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6, Saskatchewan.

Elizabeth Rich is the assistant managing editor for opinion at Education Week. She oversees all opinion content, both online and in print, is the founding executive project editor of the annual Big Ideas Report, and manages A Seat at the Table, a live online talk show that convenes researchers and educators. She has produced award-winning documentaries, worked as a public radio producer, taught in D.C. and Oklahoma public schools, and worked in Native education programs in Oklahoma. She has a bachelor's degree in English from Barnard College and a master's degree in cultural reporting and criticism from New York University.

Alyssa Bereznak is GQ’s Wellness & Grooming Director. She previously worked as a Senior Features Editor at the L.A. Times, where she launched the publication’s wellness section, and as a podcaster and Senior Staff Writer at The Ringer, where she reported, hosted, and produced two investigative podcasts: Boom/Bust: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia, and This Blew Up. She lives in L.A.

Brandy Jensen is Culture Editor at Defector. She has previously worked at Gawker, Jezebel, and The Outline. She lives in New Orleans with her two dogs.

Paige DiFiore-Wohr is a Deputy Editor at Business Insider, where she's spent the greater part of the past decade working with hundreds of writers around the globe to tell thousands of stories across lifestyle topics. Born and raised in New York City, she now lives with her husband and two cats outside Philadelphia.

Valeria Fernández is the founder and executive director of Altavoz Lab, where she designs and leads innovative programs to strengthen local journalism ecosystems by investing in community-rooted, bilingual, and culturally grounded journalists. A former Spanish-language local reporter and newsroom leader, Fernández created Altavoz Lab to ensure journalists can build sustainable careers without leaving their communities behind. Her work has been recognized with the Heising-Simons Foundation American Mosaic Journalism Prize and other national honors for investigative reporting centered on underrepresented communities. She was a Nieman Visiting Fellow at Harvard University and a 2025 Fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

Vanessa Hua is the author of the national bestsellers A River of Stars and Forbidden City, as well as Deceit and Other Possibilities, a New York Times Editors Pick. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, California Arts Council Fellowship, and a Steinbeck Fellowship, among others. Previously, she was an award-winning columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She teaches at the Warren Wilson MFA Program and elsewhere. Her novel, Coyoteland, and her memoir, Uprooted, are forthcoming.

KJ Dell’Antonia is the New York Times best-selling author of the novels The Chicken Sisters (a Reese’s book club pick now available for streaming on Hallmark Plus), Playing the Witch Card, In Her Boots, and the non-fiction book How to Be a Happier Parent. She is also the former editor of the New York Times’ parenting section, then called Motherlode, the co-host of the #AmWriting podcast, the creator of #AmReading on Substack and an enthusiastic bookstagrammer (@kjda). She lives in Lyme, New Hampshire with her husband and an ever-evolving cast of children, dogs, cats, chickens, horses and houseguests.

Jeremy Caplan is Director of Teaching and Learning at CUNY's Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. In 2010 he helped launch the school's Entrepreneurial Journalism program, which has since helped hundreds of journalists around the world develop their own niche journalism ventures. A graduate of Princeton and Columbia's Journalism and Business Schools, Caplan was a violinist before working at Time Magazine covering business, tech, and culture. He now writes Wonder Tools, a weekly newsletter helping 80,000+ subscribers discover the most useful tools for creative productivity. He lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters.

Sekou Campbell concentrates his practice on intellectual property, technology, and corporate matters, drawing on a unique pre-law background as both an actor and an educator. He routinely counsels clients across four principal sectors—film and television, publishing, arts-related technology, and advertising—and his roster ranges from award-winning individual artists and independent publishers to start-ups, small businesses, and Fortune 500 companies.

Blanca Torres is a producer and reporter for KQED in San Francisco. She mostly works on Forum, a live, daily, news and analysis call in show. Before joining KQED in 2020, she spent 16 years as a reporter and columnist for newspapers including the San Francisco Business Times, The Seattle Times, Contra Costa Times and the Baltimore Sun. In 2022, she was selected for the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Fellowship and produced a series of written and broadcast stories about kids and mental health. She is a lifetime member and former board member for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Alicia Kennedy is a writer from Long Island. She is the author of No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating and On Eating: The Making and Unmaking of My Appetites. She publishes From the Desk and is launching a literary journal of food writing in 2026.

Marisa Kabas is an independent journalist with more than a decade in online print media. Kabas writes and publishes The Handbasket, a site she founded in 2022 that is now a nationally-recognized political news outlet where she takes a human-centered approach to covering America's crumbling institutions. You can find her work at thehandbasket.co and follow her on Bluesky.

Matt Kiser is the founder and curator of WTF Just Happened Today?, a sane, once-a-day newsletter that helps normal people make sense of the daily shock and awe in U.S. national politics. Launched in 2017 as a personal project to establish a healthier relationship with the news, WTFJHT distills the stories that deserve attention into a clear, understandable, and accurate first draft of history. He doomscrolls the news so you don’t have to.

Yashica Dutt is a Dalit journalist and author of the award-winning book on the Indian caste system, Coming Out as Dalit. Most recently, she covered New York's mayoral election from a South Asian lens and was the first journalist to break the story on the South Asian engagement around Zohran Mamdani's campaign. Coming Out as Dalit, Yashica's nonfiction debut memoir is considered among the most significant modern books on India's caste system and was the first English language book by a Dalit author to win India's national young writers award. It was published by Beacon Press in the US in February 2024, and is currently part of curriculum in over 50 colleges, including Harvard, Columbia and Brown. Yashica has written for the New York Times, The Atlantic, Al-Jazeera, New Lines Magazine and Foreign Policy Magazine. She publishes reported pieces, essays and videos on her popular Substack, Featuring Dalits and the Instagram account: @FeaturingDalitsbyYashicaDutt. She is currently working on her second book on caste in the US and lives in Brooklyn.

Dr. Karen Ladley is a published author, researcher, and program director of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. Before joining The Carter Center in 2023, Karen was a broadcast journalist for 16 years. During that time, she produced newscasts, reported on mental health and other topics, and anchored weekend and morning newscasts for stations including WWAY in Wilmington, NC, and WSAV in Savannah, Georgia. After becoming a mom, Karen pursued her master's in education and directed higher education programs focused on student success and retention. She taught student success courses, mentored journalism students, and served as a dean overseeing access and academic interventions. Karen oversees the RCJF fellowship and the Parity Newsroom Collaborative for The Carter Center and collaborated to create an open and free mental health curriculum with the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation and the Poynter Institute.

Jacqueline Stenson is the manager of projects at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, where she collaborates with reporters nationwide on major investigative and explanatory projects. She has worked on staff as a reporter and editor with multiple media outlets, including NBC News/MSNBC, The New York Times Syndicate and Condé Nast Publications. Her freelance work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, NBC News, TODAY, Health, Self and more. She taught journalism and creative nonfiction writing classes for more than two decades at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

Alberto B. Mendoza is managing director of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships. He leads the fellowship recruitment process, working to ensure the pool of candidates reflects the diversity needed in journalism. He also designs programming and coaches fellows in career strategy as well as nonprofit fundraising.

Alberto joined JSK in 2021 from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, where he was executive director for five years. During that time, he increased membership by 200% and diversified the nonprofit’s revenue sources. He oversaw the creation of the Hispanic Cultural Competency Handbook, a guide for newsrooms. He also founded palabra, a multimedia publication that gives freelance journalists the opportunity to tell stories about the Latino community.

Alberto serves on the advisory boards of The Pivot Fund and Trans Latina Coalition. He is an alum of the Poynter Institute’s Media Transformation Challenge Executive Fellowship Program and a graduate of California Polytechnic University in Pomona.

Monica Williams is a veteran journalist with editing experience on staff at publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, National Geographic and The Detroit News, among others. After raising money for news outlets and journalists, she built Grants for Journalists, tools to help the news industry more easily find money. She was a 2025-26 fellow at Reynolds Journalism Institute.

Lewis Raven Wallace (they/ze/he) is the Abolition Journalism Fellow at Interrupting Criminalization and the author of The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity and Radical Unlearning: The Art and Science of Making Change from Within. He previously worked in public radio, and is a long-time activist engaged in prison abolition, racial justice, and queer and trans liberation. Lewis, a student of family history, environmental history, and social justice, is white and transgender, and was born and raised in the Midwest with deep roots in the South.

Lygia Navarro is an award-winning bilingual journalist working in long-form narrative print and audio. Lygia has reported on Latine stories from across Latin America, North America and Europe, for outlets including Afar, Al Jazeera magazine, The Associated Press, Business Insider, the CBC, The American Prospect, FRONTLINE/World, Marketplace, The World, Latino USA, The Pulse, Virginia Quarterly Review, Switchyard, Today.com, and the Christian Science Monitor, among many others. 

Lygia is also an essayist and has produced podcasts for Spotify and The Conversation Canada. Her work has received national prizes and awards, and has been supported by multiple grants and fellowships. She holds both a BA and a Master’s (in journalism) from the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to reporting, Lygia is also an editor at palabra, the multimedia outlet of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and a mentor for the Uproot Project’s Environmental Justice Fellows. Together with Rux Guidi, Lygia co-founded Narrative Gigs, now a project of the IIJ. Lygia is a proudly queer, disabled and neurodiverse advocate for inclusion and equity.

Taylor Crumpton is a dynamic music, pop culture, and politics writer from Dallas. Her work, which is known for its sharp cultural critique can be found in the nation’s most revered publications like TIME, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Harper’s Bazaar, The Guardian, and NPR, among others. Crumpton writes about a range of topics from Black Queer advocacy to the underrepresented hip-hop scenes in the southern United States to pop analysis on releases like “Cowboy Carter”, “WAP”, and “Black Is King”. She frequently appears as a guest commentator, panelist, and speaker in the media and entertainment industries.

Soleil Ho is an award-winning food and culture writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Lale Arikoglu is the Articles Director of Condé Nast Traveler and host of the award-winning Women Who Travel podcast. Her reporting has taken her all over the world, from Patagonia to Tokyo to the Amazon Rainforest, and she is fascinated by the ways that travel intersects with style, food, music, nightlife, identity, and politics. She has participated in live events at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, SXSW in Austin, and Feast Portland, is a frequent guest on WNYC and Cheddar, and has been featured in Glamour, The Daily Beast, The Strategist, and more. Her writing has also appeared in New York Magazine, Architectural Digest, and The New York Observer, among other places. She is most at home in an airport departure lounge and only occasionally misses her couch. Find her on Instagram at @lalehannah.

Marquita Brown is an editor and independent journalist with about 20 years of experience in journalism and communications, including work as a reporter at daily newspapers in Mississippi, Virginia and North Caroline. She is also the education editor for Mississippi Today.

Writer and publisher of Revenue Rulebreaker and the Paid Newsletter Playbook. I write about how solopreneurs make money and I host events for creative entrepreneurs around growth and monetization.

Rhysea Agrawal is a multimedia storyteller and environmental communicator. She works as the engagement coordinator for the USC Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communication, and founder and creative director of What The Earth. She was formerly the managing editor of The Xylom, an award-winning nonprofit science publication, and currently serves on its advisory board.

Her work has been published in several outlets, including Los Angeles Times, CalMatters, Sojourners and one5c, and she has appeared on radio stations such as CapRadio, LAist, KCBS and KQED to talk about her reporting.

Rhysea graduated from USC with bachelor’s degrees in Geological Sciences and English and a master’s degree in Journalism.

Sheena Roetman-Wynn, Lakota, is the education manager for the Indigenous Journalists Association.

Previously, Roetman-Wynn spent six years as director of membership and programs at the Atlanta Press Club, where she also ran APC's annual internship program and assisted in producing debates for local, state and federal races in partnership with Georgia Public Broadcasting and Public Broadcasting Atlanta. She has also spent more than 15 years as a freelance journalist, editor and researcher.

Roetman-Wynn holds a degree in Journalism with a research specialty in American Indian Media from Georgia State University. She is currently based outside Atlanta, Ga. where she enjoys cooking, gardening, yoga and hiking with her husband and their wiener dog.

Taylor Tiamoyo Harris is an investigative journalist, producer, communications consultant and media diversity advocate. Her journalistic approach draws on both legal analysis and on-the-ground reporting, centering the lived experiences of marginalized communities and those most affected by government policy. Taylor is a former Local Investigations Fellow for The New York Times, and has reported for local and national newsrooms in Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Dallas, New York and New Jersey. In addition to newsroom roles, she consults with community organizations on media strategy and equity storytelling, and is a proud graduate of Howard University.

Laura Gonzalez is a journalist, program strategist, and educator working at the intersection of storytelling, community development, business innovation and emerging technology. She began her career as a visual journalist at the Imperial Valley Press and later served as web and multimedia editor at La Opinión. She has led youth media programs at Las Fotos Project, managed equity and cleantech initiatives at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), and serves as a digital editor with the Next Gen Radio Project. Laura also teaches journalism and public relations at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

She has supported policy and economic development projects, such as LA’s Sidewalk Vending Pilot Program, and advises mission-driven organizations on the ethical and creative use of AI for storytelling and strategy. Laura holds a master’s degree in Social Entrepreneurship from the USC Marshall School of Business and is passionate about bridging gaps between communities, industries, and systems to drive lasting change.

Meena Thiruvengadam is a Chicago-based travel writer, Lonely Planet guidebook author and the creator-journalist founder of TravelWithMeena.com. Meena has written about topics including travel and personal finance for a range of publications, including Architectural Digest, Travel+Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Fodor’s Travel, The Washington Post and Teen Vogue. Her background is in business journalism, and she previously worked on staff as a reporter, editor, and audience development strategist for Business Insider, Yahoo, Bloomberg, and Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal.

Jordan Gass-Pooré (she/her) is an award-winning independent podcast producer and investigative journalist with more than a decade of journalism experience. She's the creator of the “Hazard” series of podcasts: “Hazard NJ” examined serious pollution issues for two seasons as a production of NJ Spotlight News, the news division of NJ PBS, and was the outlet’s first podcast; “Hazard NYC” was a limited-run series with THE CITY about the impacts of climate change on Superfund sites in New York City.

“Hazard NJ” has won numerous awards, including the Murrow, PMJA, Association of Health Care Journalists, and The Webby Awards, among others.

Mónica Ortiz Uribe is an independent reporter born and raised in El Paso who writes about the U.S./Mexico border and the American Southwest. Her work has appeared on National Public Radio and the El Paso Times. In 2020, she co-hosted the podcast Forgotten: The Women of Juárez about the disappearance and murder of women in El Paso’s Mexican sister city. The production was listed among the top ten podcasts of 2020 by the Atlantic.

Ellen Kuwana is a trained scientist (MS in neuroscience from the University of California San Francisco) with more than 10 years of basic, clinical, and translational research experience. Her areas of subject matter expertise include neuroscience, molecular biology, cancer biology, and bioethics. She worked at the University of Washington for 14 years and Seattle Children’s bioethics center for 6 years.

She has edited more than 400 scientific articles and dozens of successful grant applications (Ro1, R34, K08, P50, STTR/SBIR) totaling more than $1 billion in funding. She has worked with English as a second language (ESL) authors. She is an expert in plain language, appropriate reading levels, and inclusive language.

She is President of the Northwest Science Writers Association, host of a twice-monthly coffee chat for freelancers for the National Association of Science Writers, and VP of the Congress of Regional Science Writers Groups.

Ellen founded WeGotThisSeattle, a COVID-19 emergency relief project, and has fed more than 56,000 frontline and essential workers since March 13, 2020. She has fundraised more than $125,000 and has helped keep more than 150 Seattle restaurants in business. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Seattle Times, Seattle Met Magazine, CBS This Morning, Mother Jones, High Country News, and has been drawn by David Horsey as one of 2020’s local heroes.

Judy Echavez is a seasoned government communications and public affairs professional with extensive experience spanning federal service, legal research, and broadcast journalism. She served as a national spokesperson and media liaison for the U.S. CPSC. Ms. Echavez built a distinguished career, working as a reporter, anchor, correspondent, and host for outlets including CNN and Fox News. She covered major national and international events, high-profile court cases, and investigative stories, bringing complex issues to the public with clarity and integrity. The Emmy Award-winning broadcaster holds a Juris Doctor and a Master of Laws in Intercultural Human Rights from St. Thomas University College of Law.

Katherine is a science journalist and author based in the Washington, D.C. area who writes about education, equity, mental health, parenting, journalism, and social justice for publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times, Nieman Reports, Parents, and The Washington Post. Her 2018 book The Good News About Bad Behavior grew out of Mother Jones’ most-read article. A biracial woman (Asian American and White), she previously worked as a national correspondent for Newhouse News Service and Bloomberg News.

Ann Marie Awad is an independent journalist with 15 years of experience in the news business. As a host and reporter in public radio newsrooms across three different states, their work has also aired nationally on NPR and Here & Now. Ann Marie has produced, edited and consulted on podcast projects with clients including Audible, SONOS and WAMU.

Karen Attiah is a journalist, editor, and educator known for her incisive work on race, gender, human rights, and international affairs. In 2016, she became The Washington Post’s founding Global Opinions editor, commissioning bold op-eds on global issues and amplifying voices too often excluded from mainstream discourse. She later became an Opinions columnist.

A native of Dallas, Texas, Karen is a former Fulbright Scholar to Ghana and holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She has reported from Nigeria, Curaçao, Ghana, and Germany, and her work has appeared in outlets including the Associated Press.

Karen is the founder and lead instructor of the Resistance Studies Series, an online education platform focused on power, media, and liberation movements. After parting ways with the Post, she built an independent platform through her newsletter and courses, quickly attracting tens of thousands of subscribers and selling out her first class.

Her awards include the 2019 George Polk Special Award, NABJ’s Journalist of the Year, and Washingtonian Magazine’s “Star to Watch.” She is currently working on a book, Say Your Word, Then Leave, about the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Jhodie Williams is an editor at Bloomberg Opinion, where she oversees the US culture coverage. Previously she was an editor at NBC News' opinion vertical, THINK, and at CNN Opinion.

Tony Ho Tran is the Senior Technology Editor of Slate. He was formerly the Senior Innovation for Editor at The Daily Beast and a Staff Writer for Futurism. His work has been seen in Playboy, Outside Magazine, HuffPost, and wherever else fine writing is published. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Joseph is the Associate Director for Bon Appétit and Epicurious, having previously served as research director. Though he leads beverage coverage for both brands, he also produces culture, food, and travel content across the BA universe. Over his nearly two decade journalism career, Joseph has covered food, wine, travel, and culture as a senior editor and features reporter at multiple publications, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chicago Tribune, SevenFifty Daily, Thrillist, and Wine Enthusiast. He's also a former vice- and regional chair for the James Beard Awards Restaurant and Chefs committee, working alongside reporters, editors, and restaurant critics to identify and celebrate the country’s talented chefs, leaders and innovators. Joseph’s freelance work has also been published by Eater, Condé Nast Traveler, and Afar Magazine, among others. Please, don’t call him Joe.

Katie Kingsbury has been at the Times since 2017. Before she was running the desk, she was a deputy editor working on pieces surrounding guns, domestic violence, race, and culture. Prior to that, she worked at The Boston Globe as Managing Editor of Digital. She won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for her series on poor working conditions and pay in the restaurant industry.

Elisabeth Goodridge is the award-winning deputy travel editor for The New York Times. She began her career at The Times in 2008. Previously, she worked at The Associated Press
and the Boston Globe, and earned degrees from Colgate University and the Medill School of
Journalism at Northwestern University. She was a Class of 2023 Fellow at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University.

Alan Henry is Managing Editor at PC Mag in New York City. He was previously Director of Special Projects at WIRED, Smarter Living editor at The New York Times and editor in chief of Lifehacker. He is also the author of the book "Seen, Heard, and Paid: The New Work Rules for the Marginalized."

Julia Edelstein is a features editor at New York, where she commissions and edits ambitious features, columns, and essays that focus on health and parenting, both online and in print. Before joining New York two years ago, she was the Editor in Chief of Parents, the largest parenting publication in America, overseeing the brand through the pandemic and through the publication of its final print issue. She has also held staff editing positions at Health, Real Simple, and Good Housekeeping. She began her career covering the New York City parenting scene for Time Out New York Kids. Julia resides in New York City with her husband, two sons, and their new dog, Rascal.

Louie Villalobos is a veteran journalist of 25 years, which includes years of being a reporter before moving to several editing roles. He has spent the past seven years at USA TODAY, where he started as a politics editor. He is currently the director of opinion for Gannett and runs the USA TODAY Opinion team.

Pavlína Černá has been with Hearst Magazines—Runner’s World, Bicycling, and Popular Mechanics—since August 2021, most recently as senior features editor. In her role, she has edited stories ranging from profiles of famous athletes and in-depth exploration of widespread health issues to DIY projects and the possibility of space becoming the next front for war. When she doesn’t edit, she writes; when she doesn’t write, she reads or translates from or to her native Czech.

Kytja (kee-CHA) Weir, national editor, leads KFF Health News’ state-based coverage. Before joining the organization in 2019, she led the state politics team at the Center for Public Integrity. She previously covered local news for the Washington Examiner, The Charlotte Observer, and The Boston Globe. Work under her leadership has won multiple honors, including from the National Press Club, the Online News Association, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, the Gerald Loeb Awards, and the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Dr. Sunnie R. Clahchischiligi is the Indigenous Affairs Editor at High Country News. Sunnie is an award-winning journalist who has reported for outlets like Navajo Times, the Osage News, The Guardian, USA Today, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. In 2023, she received her PhD in rhetoric, composition, and writing studies from The University of New Mexico. She serves on the board of directors for the Indigenous Journalists Association and teaches at Arizona State University.

Latoya Abulu is an editor who leads Mongabay’s (https://news.mongabay.com/) Indigenous News Desk. Latoya is an award-winning journalist specializing in global stories about Indigenous affairs, human rights, and nature-based solutions. In 2024, she worked on a joint investigation uncovering Indigenous rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo and is currently working on a mapping project of isolated peoples lands. Her work has been featured in The Diplomat, Asia Times, Japan Times, Earth Island Journal, The Ecologist, and others.

Tami Abdollah is a senior editor at Noema Magazine. She was previously a national correspondent at USA TODAY focused on the inequities and disparities of the criminal justice system, among other subjects.

Deborah Jian Lee is an award-winning journalist and radio producer, senior editor at the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, journalism fellow at Harvard Divinity School and the author of Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women and Queer Christians are Reclaiming Evangelicalism (Beacon Press). She has worked as a staff reporter for the Associated Press, taught journalism at Columbia University, and has bylines in Esquire, Fast Company, ELLE, Foreign Policy, TIME, WBEZ and others. Winner of a Newswomen’s Club of New York Front Page Award and the Education Writers Association’s Eddie Prize, she was also named a finalist for the Livingston Awards.

Chris is the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits, the luxury, lifestyle and culture vertical at Bloomberg News. He is also an editor at Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. Previously, he has been an editor at Vanity Fair and New York Magazine.

Based at National Geographic's headquarters in Washington, D.C., I lead a team of editors in ideating and assigning stories across all of our core subject areas, which include history, animals, health, science, and the environment. I have a special love for explainers, particularly in history and health.

Robin Kazmier is Senior Editor of Digital at Science Friday, where she oversees digital journalism in English and Spanish. She got her start in editorial work in Costa Rica, first as a field guide editor, then reporting on wildlife for The Tico Times. She later moved to Boston to pursue a master's in science writing at MIT, and went on to be Science Editor for the PBS documentary series NOVA. Robin is the author of "National Parks of Costa Rica" (Cornell University Press), and her reporting has appeared in MIT Technology Review, Audubon, NOVA Next, and Yale Climate Connections.

Isabelle Kohn is a senior editor for Slate's Life section. She specializes in sex, relationships, gender, and, randomly, work. She used to freelance for VICE, Playboy, Harper's Bazaar, and many, many more. It was hard.

Maddie Oatman is a senior editor and writer at Mother Jones. She edits features and manages the magazine's culture and food sections. Stories she has edited have won honors such as James Beard Awards and National Magazine Awards. Her writing has also appeared in Outside, the Rumpus, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing, among others.

Tyler Huckabee, managing editor of Sojo.net, has written for the Washington Post, the Week, Religion News Service, and Sojourners, largely about the intersection of faith, justice, and pop culture.

Jenny Splitter is an award-winning journalist and the Editor-in-Chief of Sentient, the only nonprofit newsroom reporting on factory farms and alternatives to the status quo. Prior to joining Sentient, she was a freelance journalist reporting for outlets including The Guardian, Vox, The Washington Post, Popular Mechanics and others. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband, two kids and pets.

Corinna Wu is a science journalist and editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She currently manages Undark’s opinion section and edits features. Prior to joining Undark, she spent nearly a decade as a news and features editor for Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) and was a 2005-06 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. Corinna has a background in materials science and engineering and is a graduate of the science communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Betsy Ladyzhets and Miles Griffis and the co-founders and lead editors of the Sick Times, a website devoted to chronicling Long COVID from all angles. Based on opposite coasts, Ladyzhets and Griffis founded the Sick Times in 2023 to continue providing critical coverage of the ongoing pandemic after many publications seemed to move on. While the Sick Times is only a couple of years old, they are open for freelance pitches!

Bernice Yeung serves on the board of directors for The Fund for Investigative Journalism. She is also the managing director of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley Journalism. Previously, she was a reporter for ProPublica and Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. Her work has also appeared in The New Yorker, PBS FRONTLINE and The New York Times, and she has been a member of investigative teams that have received a George Polk Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. She is the author of In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers (The New Press, 2018), which received a PEN America Award and was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize.

As Director of Innovation Kat Duncan leads RJI’s innovative initiatives, programs and workshops. This includes the Student Innovation Competition, the Professional Fellowship program and the Student Innovation Fellowship program. She founded the Community-Centered Symposium and the Women in Journalism Workshop. She manages the innovation team, student staff and leads partnership projects with local newsrooms, organizations and individuals. She also teaches Emerging Tech & Innovation at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Her mission is to move journalism forward through collaborations that can provide free, accessible, open source, practical and timely resources for journalists, newsrooms and the communities they serve.

Marina Walker Guevara is the Pulitzer Center's executive editor. Before joining the Center, Walker Guevara was deputy director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). She managed two of the largest collaborations of reporters in journalism history: The Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers, which involved hundreds of journalists using technology to unravel stories of public interest from terabytes of leaked financial data.

Walker Guevara was instrumental in developing the model of large-scale media collaboration, persuading reporters who used to compete with one another instead to work together, share resources and amplify their reach and impact.

Joe Hong is an education journalist based in Brooklyn. As a current O'Brien Fellow in Public Service Journalism, he's writing a series of articles about the past, present and future of math education. He's also writing a book about Asian Americans and the racial politics of learning math in the United States. Previously, he covered education for a variety of newsrooms in California, including CalMatters, KPBS and The Desert Sun.

Mark A. Stein was the editor at Next Avenue. Over the course of his career, he has been a reporter at the Los Angeles Times, an editor at The New York Times and Bloomberg News in London, and started a website for Conde Nast Publications.

Frida Garza is an editor of special projects at the Guardian US, where she commissions stories on climate, environment, labor, and more. Before that, she was a senior staff writer at Jezebel, covering culture and politics. She is from El Paso, Texas.

Emanuele came to This American Life from Gimlet Media. There she worked on several shows including The Nod, Undone and StartUp. Previously, Emanuele worked as a public radio reporter in Michigan and Missouri. Emanuele is a 2014 AIR New Voices Scholar. She is also the recipient of a 2015 Fulbright award to Macau, Chinaem