JSK Fellowships names Class of 2018-19

Roman Anin — Moscow, Russia
editor of investigations, Novaya Gazeta
Lyle and Corrine Nelson International Fellow

Roman Anin is head of the investigative section of Moscow-based Novaya Gazeta, one of the most famous Russian newspapers in the world. Since 2009, he has worked on cross-border investigations with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). He was a member of the Panama Papers investigative team that received the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2017 and also worked on the Paradise Papers investigation. In 2015, together with his Reuters investigative team, he won an award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in the category of Best in Business, International-Investigative. In 2013, he received the Knight International Journalism Award, and in 2012 he received three prestigious Russian investigative journalism awards: the Artyom Borovik award, the Youlian Semenov award and the Andrei Sakharov Freedom Award. He graduated from Moscow State University, where he studied journalism.

Florencia Coelho — Buenos Aires, Argentina 
new media research and training manager, La Nación
Knight Latin American Fellow

María Florencia Coelho is a lawyer turned digital media innovator and open data enthusiast. Since 2006, she has worked as the new media research and training manager for La Nación, one of Argentina’s major national news outlets. In her role, she fosters the newsroom’s embrace of digital tools for research and reporting. She also co-founded La Nación Data, a project that helped pioneer data journalism in Latin America. From 2010 to 2015, she directed the digital chapter for Universidad Torcuato Di Tella’s master’s in journalism program. She also translated the first Data Journalism Handbook — an original initiative of the Open Knowledge Foundation and the European Journalism Centre — into Spanish. She is a founding member of Hacks/Hackers Argentina, one of the largest chapters in the world. She is a member of the Online News Association and has served as a judge for the Online Journalism Awards.

Peter DiCampo — Seattle, Washington
photojournalist and co-founder, Everyday Africa
JSK Journalism Fellow

Peter DiCampo is a freelance photojournalist and the co-founder of the acclaimed Everyday Africa project. He began his career as a Peace Corps Volunteer living in rural Ghana, and has been working primarily in Africa for over a decade, reporting for the world’s leading publications while also working on long-term projects focused on international development and energy access. In his role as co-president of Everyday Africa, he is a contributing photographer, writer, curator, classroom curriculum designer and co-editor. He is the recipient of grants and awards from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Magnum Foundation, the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, Open Society Foundations and Pictures of the Year International (POYi). His photography has been exhibited internationally, including in solo shows at galleries in London, New York and Rio de Janeiro. He earned a Bachelor of Science in journalism from Boston University. He is based in Seattle and Nairobi.

Laura Hertzfeld — Santa Monica, California
director, Journalism 360, Online News Association
JSK Journalism Fellow

Laura Hertzfeld is an Emmy-winning producer, writer and editor with over a decade of experience helping brands develop online content, engagement and distribution strategies. She is the director of Journalism 360, an immersive storytelling initiative. Other recent projects include producing digital shows for NBC’s 2016 Rio Olympics coverage, creating video strategy for YouTube beauty star Michelle Phan and working with Livestrong.com. Previously, she was a senior producer at Ora. TV, where she worked on “Larry King Now” and the network’s unscripted shows. Prior to joining Ora, she led Entertainment Weekly/EW.com’s L.A.-based writers. She managed PBS.org’s election coverage from Washington, D.C., in 2008 and was an editor on the original Yahoo! News team. Laura has reported on politics, business and lifestyle topics at a variety of outlets, including Rotten Tomatoes, Los Angeles Magazine, Tablet and NPR. She earned a degree in history from Barnard College, Columbia University.

Chris Horne — Akron, Ohio
founder and publisher, The Devil Strip
JSK Journalism Fellow

Chris Horne is the publisher of The Devil Strip, an arts and culture magazine that focuses on connecting residents of Akron, Ohio, to each other and the city by sharing stories about what makes the area unique. He is a 2017-2018 National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow and managed a team that received the 2017 Sister Ignatia Trailblazer Award for its coverage of the opioid epidemic. In 2015, he became a winner of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Cities Challenge for Unbox Akron, which has since become Unbox Advantage. In 2016, he received a Knight Arts Challenge award from the Knight Foundation for the Live at Lock 4 summer concert series. He co-founded Signal Tree Fest and the Crossroads Writers Conference with his wife, Heather. He is a native of Macon, Georgia.
 

Mandy Jenkins — New York, New York
editor-in-chief, Storyful
JSK Journalism Fellow

Mandy Jenkins was the first editor-in-chief at Storyful, where she oversaw an editorial team that worked with newsrooms to find, verify and publish eyewitness media and social insights from around the world. She previously worked as managing editor of the Project Thunderdome newsroom for Digital First Media, which supported more than 200 local newspapers across the U.S. in producing digital journalism projects. Previously, she coordinated the Off the Bus citizen journalism program as a social news editor for politics at The Huffington Post and worked as social media editor for TBD, a Washington, D.C.-area local news startup. She also worked in several digital news roles at the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She serves on the board of directors of the American Society of News Editors and is president of the Online News Association’s board of directors.

Akilah Johnson — Boston, Massachusetts
reporter, The Boston Globe
JSK Journalism Fellow

Akilah Johnson covers the intersection of race, politics, youth and immigration for The Boston Globe. Her work includes stints on the Spotlight investigative team and on-the-ground reporting from Ferguson, Missouri; Charleston, South Carolina; Flint, Michigan; Haiti, and Cape Verde. She contributed to the Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. She has been a key member of the Globe’s politics team, covering Boston mayoral and Massachusetts gubernatorial elections and the 2016 New Hampshire presidential primary. She moderated the first live, televised mayoral debate in 2013 and serves as co-host of GlobeLive. She is an integral part of the multimedia project “68 Blocks,” about one of Boston’s most troubled communities, and she moved into the neighborhood to better understand its families, churches and schools. Before her time at the Globe, she covered education and public safety for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.

Joel Konopo — Gaborone, Botswana
co-founder and managing partner, INK Centre for Investigative Journalism
JSK Journalism Fellow

Joel Konopo is an investigative journalist and managing partner of the INK Centre for Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit newsroom in Gaborone, Botswana. INK Centre’s ambition is to be the premier source of unique in-depth news that champions investigative journalism in the public interest. Prior to establishing INK Centre, he was the editor of the Botswana Guardian newspaper, a flagship business and investigations publication. In 2016, he participated in exposing the offshore dealings of Judge Ian Stuart Kirby, president of the court of appeal in Botswana. He has also worked for Mmegi, the country’s only private daily newspaper. His work on President Ian Khama’s secret vacation home earned him accolades due to the innovative nature of his reporting.

Geraldine Moriba — New York, New York
president and executive producer, Moriba Media
JSK Journalism Fellow

Geraldine Moriba is a documentary filmmaker, broadcast news executive, writer, and founder of Moriba Media. She is the executive producer of two major PBS multiplatform initiatives: “Chasing the Dream” and “Peril and Promise.” Prior to launching her own media business, she held a blended role as an executive producer with CNN’s original program development team and as vice president of inclusion. Under her watch, CNN attained its highest diverse audience levels ever and ranked No. 1 across cable news with black, Hispanic and Asian viewers. She is the director and writer of “Until 20,” an independent documentary about James Ragan, a young athlete diagnosed with a rare cancer. She has received Emmy Awards, an Alfred I. DuPont Award, Peabody Awards, RTNDA-Unity Awards and New York Film Festival awards. She was awarded a Visiting Ferris Professorship of Journalism at Princeton University and is the second recipient of the Anita Hill Gender Justice Award.
 

Katie Palmer — San Francisco, California
senior editor, Wired
JSK Journalism Fellow

Katie Palmer is a science writer and editor. As a senior editor at Wired, she leads coverage of science online, focusing on biotechnology, climate, physics and space. Her reporting focuses on metascience and biology; she has reported for Wired on reproducibility efforts in the sciences, the genetics of marijuana and developing therapies targeting the microbiome. Her writing has also appeared in Discover and IEEE Spectrum. She earned a master’s from New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program, and she earned a bachelor’s at Williams College, where she studied chemistry and neuroscience.

Benjamin Petit — New York, New York
photojournalist and co-director, #Dysturb
JSK Journalism Fellow

Benjamin Petit is the co-director of #Dysturb, a nonprofit formed by photojournalists driven by the desire to make visual information freely accessible to a wider audience by pasting large news images in city streets. He has led campaigns in several city hubs, teaming up with organizations such as the United Nations, the European Parliament, the Magnum Foundation, Foam museum and Instagram. His photojournalistic work is focused on social inequality and climate change-related issues. He covered the Arab Spring aftermath in Yemen and the refugee crisis in Lebanon, and he documented climate refugees in the Dominican Republic. His work has been published in many publications, including The New York Times, Stern, Le Figaro and Paris Match.

Cécile Prieur — Paris, France
deputy editor, Le Monde
JSK Journalism Fellow

Cécile Prieur is the deputy editor at Le Monde, one of the leading daily newspapers in France, where she is in charge of digital transformation. She manages the web editors, supervises digital projects, launches new products and transforms workflow in the newsroom. She is responsible for growing paid content and improving the relationship with Le Monde’s subscribers, and she is in charge of investigations in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ). She began her career as a reporter for Le Monde, covering first the judiciary then health issues. She has also headed Le Monde’s national department and supervised coverage of financial scandals and terrorist attacks.

Ronny Rojas — Miami, Florida
data editor, Univision News
JSK Journalism Fellow

Ronny Rojas is data editor for Univision News Digital in Miami and editor of the fact-checking platform “Detector de Mentiras,” the first U.S.-based Spanish-language fact-checking project. He was the winner of a Ortega y Gasset journalism award in 2017 and the Global Shining Light Award from the Global Investigative Journalism Network in 2015. He also led Univision Noticias’ Immigration Lab, a project that received support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Prototype Fund to combat the spread of misinformation. He previously worked with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Costa Rican newspaper La Nación.

Sarah Shourd — Oakland, California
freelance journalist
JSK Journalism Fellow

Sarah Shourd is a journalist, author and educator based in Oakland, California. Over the last five years, her work has focused on exposing the cruelty and overuse of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. She has traveled the country extensively as a public speaker and as a University of California, Berkeley Visiting Scholar. She has conducted more than 75 interviews with prisoners in isolation. Out of this research emerged several works: “The BOX,” a journalistic piece of investigative theater; an anthology, “Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices From Solitary Confinement” and numerous articles and op-eds. In 2011, Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt published “A Sliver of Light,” the memoir she co-authored about her experience being held as a political hostage by the Iranian government from 2009 to 2010. She was awarded the 2016 Community Hero Award by San Francisco’s GLIDE Memorial Church and, as a #LoveArmy Fellow at The Dream Corps, is developing a podcast titled “Of Two Minds.” 

Tom Van de Weghe — Brussels, Belgium
foreign correspondent and investigative journalist, VRT News
JSK Journalism Fellow

Tom Van de Weghe is an award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker for the Belgian public broadcaster VRT, where he analyzes geopolitics. Prior to being based in Brussels, he was the bureau chief of VRT News America in Washington, D.C. As its senior correspondent, he reported on two presidential elections and interviewed both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. He has traveled extensively across the Pacific region and covered events from the 2008 Olympics to the Sichuan earthquake to civil unrest in Tibet, Myanmar and Thailand and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In 2007, he started the first China Bureau for Belgian television and in 2006 received numerous awards for an investigative documentary about Chinese gambling in European soccer. He earned master’s degrees in Slavic philology, communication studies and international politics.
 

H R Venkatesh — New Delhi, India
ICFJ Knight Fellow
JSK Journalism Fellow

H R Venkatesh is an Indian journalist with more than 16 years experience. As an International Center for Journalists Knight Fellow in India, he works on countering disinformation and bias and works to reinvent coverage of critical health and developmental issues. He is also the founder of NetaData, a journalism project that seeks to bridge divides by creating safe spaces for debate. He is the lead organizer of the Hacks/Hackers chapter in New Delhi. In 2015, he was the editor at The Quint, and before that, director of communications at Change.org India. He was also a senior anchor at CNN-IBN for nine years. In 2009, he was a Chevening Scholar at the University of Oxford, where he earned a degree in Indian studies. He also earned degrees from Symbiosis and Bangalore universities. He is a native of Bangalore.

Marina Walker Guevara — Washington, D.C.
deputy director, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
JSK Journalism Fellow

Marina Walker Guevara is the deputy director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). She managed the two largest collaborations of reporters in journalism history: the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. Both investigations involved hundreds of journalists using technology to unravel stories of public interest from terabytes of leaked financial data. Before becoming an editor, Walker Guevara investigated environmental degradation by mining companies, cigarette smuggling by leading tobacco firms and the shadowy world of offshore finance. Her story “Children of Lead” revealed a public health crisis in a Peruvian town caused by an American-owned lead smelting company. She has won and shared more than 40 national and international awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. She earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and also graduated from the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. She is a native of Mendoza, Argentina.