JSK names 11 Community Impact Fellows for 2020-2021

Rachel Dissell — Cleveland, Ohio
independent journalist
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Rachel Dissell is an independent journalist in Cleveland, Ohio. She reported for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland for 18 years. “Reinvestigating Rape,” a series with reporter Leila Atassi, led to the testing of 14,000 Ohio rape kits and indictments in nearly 800 cold cases. “Toxic Neglect,” a series with Brie Zeltner, exposed Cleveland’s poor track record for public health investigations when children were poisoned by lead. The series sparked a community-wide effort to proactively protect children. In 2019, Cleveland passed a law that requires all rental homes to be inspected for lead hazards. “Case Closed,” a series with Andrea Simakis, explored the systemic failures of Cleveland police through the experience of a grandmother who had to solve her own rape. The story won the 2020 Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma. Recently, Dissell has worked to build community-rooted collaborations with more than a dozen websites, newspapers and radio stations. She’s part of The Witness Project, which explores crime witness cooperation. She’s also reporting on the experiences of Clevelanders during COVID-19 in a partnership that provides stories to neighborhood outlets.

Maritza L. Félix — Phoenix, Arizona
independent journalist / Conecta Arizona
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Maritza L. Félix is an independent journalist in Arizona. She is the founder of Conecta Arizona, a news-you-can-use service in Spanish that connects people in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, primarily through WhatsApp and  social media. She is an International Women’s Media Foundation Adelante and Listening Post Collective Fellow and part of Take the Lead’s 50 Women Who Can Change the World of Journalism 2020 cohort. She is an independent journalist whose work appears in Organización Editorial Mexicana, Fi2W, Slate, The Americano, The Copper Courier, Uniradio, Prensa Arizona Univision and Telemundo. She hosted the documentary “Mysteries of Faith” for Discovery Channel and contributed as producer to “The Wall,” a documentary for Rondo Media. She has worked as special project producer for Al Jazeera and Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. Félix has won five Emmys and is the recipient of the inaugural award for Best Chronicle Written in the United States by Nuevas Plumas. She also has multiple awards from the Arizona Press Club. In 2012 and 2013 the Phoenix New Times newspaper named Félix Best Spanish-Language Journalist in Arizona.

Candice Fortman — Detroit, Michigan
executive director, Outlier Media
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Candice Fortman is the executive director for Outlier Media, a Detroit-based service journalism organization, where she is working to build and sustain the business model. Before joining Outlier Media, Fortman was the marketing and engagement manager for WDET 101.9-Detroit’s NPR station. She led the effort to build WDET’s audience and grow its digital communities and content by engaging listeners around news, music, and culture. Before joining WDET, Fortman served as promotions director at Clear Channel Radio (now iHeart Media). She led the promotion and engagement strategy for three radio stations inside the Detroit cluster for more than five years. In 2018 she was selected for Poynter’s Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media. Fortman sits on the board of Cityside, which manages Berkleyside and The Oaklandside community news organizations. She is also an advisory board member for OpenNews, which connects developers, designers, journalists and editors to collaborate on open technologies and processes within journalism. Fortman serves as the board president of the Grandmont Community Association. She is a board member of The Village of Bethany Manor, a senior living community, and she is a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Classical Roots Steering Committee.

Nicole Foy — Boise, Idaho
investigative reporter, Idaho Statesman
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Nicole Foy is an investigative reporter at the Idaho Statesman in Boise, and a 2019-2020 Education Writers Association fellow. For the past three years, she has covered Idaho’s Latino community, government accountability and agriculture. She was the first Latino and Hispanic communities reporter in the state, and her Hispanic affairs beat reporting for the Idaho Press took first place in the Associated Press regional awards in 2018. Nicole speaks Spanish and is a graduate of Biola University. She was raised in California’s Central Valley and began her journalism career at the Orange County Register in Santa Ana, California.

Lyndsey Gilpin — Durham, North Carolina
founder and editor-in-chief, Southerly 
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Lyndsey Gilpin is  the founder and editor-in-chief of Southerly,  an independent, media nonprofit organization that covers the intersection of ecology, justice and culture in the American South. Born and raised in Kentucky and now based in Durham, North Carolina, Gilpin is a reporter and editor who has covered climate change, energy, environmental justice all over the U.S. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, Vice, The Daily Beast, CityLab, Undark, High Country News, FiveThirtyEight, The Washington Post, Hakai, The Atlantic, Grist, Outside, and InsideClimate News. She earned her master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Jimmy Gutierrez — Milwaukee, Wisconsin
engagement manager, News414
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Jimmy Gutierrez is the engagement manager for News414, a collaboration between three nonprofit newsrooms: Wisconsin Center for Investigative Justice, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, and Outlier Media. He is connecting with Milwaukee residents to respond to their information needs and generate news coverage that addresses their concerns. A veteran public affairs journalist, Gutierrez still reports in his current role spotting trends of information gaps during COVID-19. Before leading this service journalism project, he worked at New Hampshire Public Radio for four years. There he was a reporter and radio producer working on broadcast radio as well as their in-house podcasts, including launching, co-hosting and producing “The Second Greatest Show on Earth,” which provided a platform for listener questions and engagement. Gutierrez also worked as a firefighter in Milwaukee’s fire department, where he led a multimedia campaign on firefighter health and wellness.

Brittany Harley — Newark, New Jersey
community engagement reporter, WBGO
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Brittany Harley is  a strategist, movement builder and youth organizer committed to creating impactful experiences to inspire and create change. She collaborates with artists, entrepreneurs, and community members to design experiences and launch products and projects into the world. Most recently, she launched Book-A-Youngin, an organization that enrolls mentors for young people and activates local economies to provide paid learning opportunities in alignment with their personal passions. A native of Newark, Harley collaborates with school leaders to develop and design school-based programming for young people with a focus on self-development and thriving. She has supported programming and engagement in more than 10 schools, including Malcolm X Shabazz High School. Harley joined WBGO’s news team in July 2019 as the News Voices Fellow to increase community access and engagement with the newsroom. Currently, as the community engagement reporter, she ensures Newark residents’ perspectives, experiences and expertise are better reflected in news coverage of the city.

Gregory Johnson — Miami, Florida
founder and director, Code for South Florida
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Gregory Johnson spearheads digital transformation for public, private and community sectors through his work as founder of the nonprofit Code for South Florida. As part of his work, he organizes open-source projects for modernizing local government and nonprofits. Before his JSK Community Impact Fellowship, he also worked at Microsoft in the Miami TechSpark program, where he led the civic innovation and technology project. He has more than eight years of experience in helping organizations achieve better digital service experience with cloud computing, agile methodologies, and human-centered design. In 2012, he was the youngest team leader for the Obama campaign in Florida, where he focused on Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act advocacy. In 2013, he joined a healthcare technology accelerator as an entrepreneur-in-residence supporting investment in early-stage startups. Johnson later worked for two venture-backed health technology startups that had successful exits. After the second exit, Johnson started a nonprofit regional effort to modernize government and founded a cloud consulting business to serve clients in Florida. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Florida International University and is a first-generation American and college graduate.

Rashad Mahmood — Albuquerque, New Mexico
co-director, New Mexico Local News Fund
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Rashad Mahmood is an expert storyteller with more than nine years of experience in journalism, grant writing, public relations, mediation and program management. He works to support local journalism in New Mexico as the co-director for the New Mexico Local News Fund, which he joined in August 2019. He has applied for and received over $1.1 million in grants from foundations. Before moving to New Mexico, he worked in international development in Washington, D.C., Egypt and Iraq. He also worked for two years as a business journalist in Egypt. After moving to Albuquerque, he worked as the program outreach coordinator for Generation Justice, and he later joined KUNM 89.9 FM as the program coordinator for the Public Health New Mexico project. Mahmood earned a Bachelor of Arts in peace and conflict studies from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Arts in Arab studies from Georgetown University. 

Kate Maxwell — Ukiah, California
co-founder and publisher, The Mendocino Voice
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Kate B. Maxwell is the publisher and co-founder of The Mendocino Voice, an online local news outlet in Northern California, which is transitioning to community ownership as a membership cooperative. Prior to starting The Mendocino Voice in 2016, she worked as a reporter in Mendocino County in print, online and radio, with her work being published in regional and national outlets. Throughout her work, Maxwell has focused on increasing democratic engagement with and access to local and public media, ranging from libraries to local news. She has also been the co-owner of a co-op bookstore, an archivist, and an oral historian, and she has driven an ice cream truck.

Aparna Mukherjee — Los Angeles, California
co-creator, Sense LA
JSK Community Impact Fellow

Aparna Mukherjee is a civic innovator with more than 25 years of experience. She’s held editorial, strategy, and product leadership roles at The Associated Press, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and CNBC/NBCU. At The New York Times, Mukherjee ran the company’s online education startup, focusing on civic engagement and the relationship between news and democracy building. As a FUSE Corp Fellow in Los Angeles City Hall, she designed the strategy for the city’s Office of Civic Engagement, working to help the city better hear the voices of all Angelenos. In a grant-making capacity, Mukherjee served as the first entrepreneur-in-residence for LA2050, the annual $1 million grants challenge to surface and fund local solutions projects. As a writer, she’s freelanced for organizations around the world, including Businessweek in Asia, The Christian Science Monitor and DeutschlandRadio Berlin in Europe, and The New Yorker in her hometown of New York. Mukherjee earned a dual Master of Arts in journalism and MBA from Columbia University, where she was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in economics and lectured executive MBA students on digital strategy projects.