- Core Program Activities
- Applying To the Program
- Eligibility
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Current Fellows
- Former Fellows
- History
Bios of Former Fellows
Bill Adler ('01-'02)
Bill Adler's articles have appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and many other publications. He has also written three books of narrative nonfiction. His latest was published in September 2011, and is entitled The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon. Adler has a bachelor's degree in history from Duke University. He lives in Denver with his wife and son. Contact him at wmadler@gmail.com.
Bruce Barcott ('06-'07)
Bruce Barcott is a contributing editor for Outside magazine, and his work appears regularly in National Geographic, On Earth, Yale Environment 360, and the New York Times. He's a former Guggenheim fellow in nonfiction. His most recent book, "The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw," won the inaugural Gene E. and Adele R. Malott Prize for Community Activism, and was named one of Library Journal's top nonfiction books of the year. He lives with his wife, the writer Claire Dederer, and their two children on Bainbridge Island, Washington. He can be reached at brucebarcott@gmail.com.
David Baron ('98-'99)
David Baron is a journalist, author, and broadcaster who has spent the past 25 years working primarily in public radio. A former environment correspondent for NPR, he currently serves as health and science editor for The World, a daily international news program co-produced by the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. David’s reporting has taken him from Africa to Iceland, Alaska to the South Pole. (Listen to some of his recent stories from Guinea, India, Ivory Coast, and Peru.) In 2009, David received a first-place award from the Society of Environmental Journalists for his special radio series on land use, called "Shifting Ground," that aired on NPR’s All Things Considered. During his Scripps Fellowship, David conducted research on the growing conflict between people and large predators in America. That research led to his book, The Beast in the Garden, which won a 2003 Colorado Book Award. (Learn more about his book here.) Baron can be reached at davidhbaron@comcast.net.
Elizabeth Bluemink ('02-'03)
Elizabeth Bluemink is the communications coordinator for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, which manages an endowment of state-owned land, water and coastal resources that is larger than most countries. From 2004 to March 2011, she was the business reporter for the Anchorage Daily
News, covering oil, mining, Native corporations and other topics. Previously,
she wrote about logging, fishing and mining for the Juneau Empire in
Alaska. In 2011, she won the Society of Environmental Journalists' David Stolberg Meritorious Service Award, after many years of volunteering for the organization. She won Alaska Press Club awards for her environmental stories
in 2004, 2005 and 2008. She also has worked in the past as the environment
reporter for the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, where she wrote about
health concerns, Superfund sites, air pollution and a paper plant. Bluemink
previously worked for The Anniston (Ala.) Star where she broke a number
of stories on PCB, lead and mercury contamination by the Monsanto Corporation
in Anniston, and reported on the multi-million-dollar litigation against
the company. She has a bachelor's degree
in English from the University of Virginia. Bluemink may be reached
at ebluemink@yahoo.com.
Jennifer Bowles ('98-'99)
Jennifer Bowles works as the senior writer/communications strategist
for a major California law firm that specializes in environmental and
water law, subjects she took an interest in when a fellow at CU Boulder
and studying with Charles Wilkinson and David Getches. Previously, she
was the environmental reporter at The Press-Enterprise, in Riverside,
Calif., where for nine years, she covered an area of Inland Southern California
that is a hotbed for endangered species, contentious water supply issues,
earthquakes, pollution and a bevy of public lands issues. She won several
Society of Professional Journalists awards while at The Press-Enterprise,
beginning in 1999. She and two co-workers in 2003 began investigating
the pollution at a missile testing site and its impact on the nearby
residential neighborhood, where many people had developed thyroid illness.
The project won a second-place award for newspapers in California and
Nevada from The Associated Press News Executive Council. She and a co-worker
also received a second-place award in the public service category from
the California Newspaper Publishers Association for their 2001 "Troubled
Waters" series, which revealed that a plume of MTBE, long in the making from a fuel tank farm,
was heading toward a major drinking water well and threatening other wells. She began
her journalism career at The Associated Press in Los Angeles. Recently, she bought a 1923 home in an historic area of Riverside, and fixing it up has put only a slight damper in her hiking and other outdoor activities. Contact
her at jennscribe@netscape.net.
Lisa Busch ('99-'00)
Lisa Busch is the director of the Sitka Sound Science Center, a non-profit organization committed to scientific research and science education in the Eastern Gulf of Alaska. The Center operates a salmon hatchery and a small aquarium. She continues to produce "Encounters," a radio program that combines native ways of knowing with western science. She received her masters in Northern Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Busch can be reached at lisajeanbusch@gmail.com.
Carie Call ('00-'01)
Carie Call is an environmental planner and LEED-certified builder for green buildings and communities. She owns and runs Pine Island Consulting, in Bokeelia, Florida. Call serves on Lee County's Smart Growth planning committee, Lee County's 20/20 land preservation committee, Lee County's Local Planning Agency, the sutainability IFAS committee and is a member of a women's philanthropy group on Pine Island, Fla., where she lives. Call is currently the Mango Queen on Pine Island, a Chamber of Commerce election promoting local organic agriculture and green business. This year was the first-ever green Mango Mania event, with recycling being implemented for the first time. Call writes environmental and socio-economic columns for the local newspapers. In 2011, Call plans to travel to Saudi Arabia where she and her husband, Darin, are working on a LEED airport in Jeddah. She plans to write about the experience for publication. The Florida Press Club honored Call with second place in environmental reporting in 2004, while she took third place in the same category from the Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The Florida Society of Newspaper Editors also recognized her in 2004 with a third-place award for best body of work, environmental reporting. Most recently she garnered a NAMI of Collier County award for Outstanding Media for a 2005 series on the mentally ill. Prior to opening her own firm, Call worked as a reporter for The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press, five associated dailies in neighboring Charlotte County, Fla., and the East Oregonian in Hermiston, Ore. Call can be reached at clcall@live.com.
Karen Coates (10-'11)
Karen Coates, a freelance journalist, author, and media trainer, has covered developing societies in Asia for more than a decade. She is the 2011 T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professor at The University of Montana School of Journalism, where she is teaching a course in the business of freelance journalism. She and her husband, photojournalist Jerry Redfern, are senior fellows at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. The two are working on interactive online applications to complement the print version of their forthcoming book on unexploded ordnance in Laos. Coates also works with journalism training organizations in developing countries. In August 2011, she helped organize and teach a historic three-week course in government reporting, which brought eight Burmese journalists to The University of Montana through a State Department grant. Coates is a correspondent for Archaeology, she writes a food culture column for The Faster Times, and she contributes to publications around the world. She also writes the food blog Rambling Spoon. While at CU, she started a project called AppetiteEARTH.org, which she aims to develop into a global forum on the future of food.
Bebe Crouse ('05-'06)
Bebe Crouse is the Director of Communications for The Nature Conservancy in Montana. Before moving to Montana, Crouse was the Western and Environment Editor for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. Among her journalism honors are the 2003 National Headliner Award for Investigative Reporting for a team-produced look at malfeasance within the U.S. Border Patrol and the 2001 Peabody Award for NPR's team coverage of 9/11. She also received a Casey award for a documentary on the rise and influence of Evangelicals in Guatemala. Crouse's career includes five years at CBS News writing daily news analysis and commentary for Dan Rather and producing other feature and live segments for the network. She spent three years as a Mexico City-based independent producer and reporter. Her work includes award-winning documentaries for television and radio. She earned a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies and Natural Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a Master's Certificate in International Journalism from the University of Southern California/El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City.
Contact Crouse at bcrouse@tnc.org.
Jad Davenport ('08-'09)
Jad Davenport photographs for the National Geographic Image Collection. Contact him at jad@jaddavenport.com.
Paula Dobbyn ('98-'99)
Paula Dobbyn serves as communications director for Trout Unlimited in Alaska. Previously, she worked in print and broadcast journalism for two decades in Central America, Boston, Washington, D.C., Juneau and Anchorage. Her reporting garnered numerous prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists, Society of Environmental Journalists, American Society of Business Editors and Writers, McClatchy Newspapers Presidents Award, Radio and Television News Directors Association, Alaska Broadcasters Association and the Alaska Press Club. She was a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award. Recently, her public relations work took gold and silver prizes in the International Davey Award competition. Dobbyn continues to freelance, particularly for outdoors and sportsman's publications. She has a bachelor's degree in political theory from Hampshire College and a cross-border master's degree in human rights law from Queen's University Belfast and National University of Ireland, Galway. Dobbyn lives in Anchorage with her husband and toddler daughter. Contact her at pauladob@gmail.com.
Leslie Dodson ('06-'07)
Leslie Dodson has worked as a reporter, correspondent, anchor, producer and writer for a network news organizations including CNBC, MSNBC, Reuters and CNN and NHK-Japan. She has been posted to Tokyo, London, New York and throughout Latin America for international broadcasters and has worked in independent production in Sub-Saharan Africa, India, Nepal, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. Dodson's work has focused on international business and economic news and regularly has drawn connections between business and the environment. She was awarded special recognition by Reuters for her coverage of the financial crisis in the emerging. Dodson co-founded The Story Group,
a multi-media journalism consortium covering international development and environmental issues. Currently, she is a PhD student in the ATLAS program in Technology, Media & Society at CU-Boulder. Her area of research is information and communication technology for development (ICTD). Dodson can be reached
at lesliedodson@mac.com.
Sam Eaton ('04-'05)
Sam still resides in Los Angeles where he is beginning work on an environmentally themed documentary film as well as doing freelance radio work and tending to his flock of Araucana hens. He can be reached at sam_eaton@me.com
Erin Espelie ('10-'11)
Erin Espelie is executive editor at Natural History magazine and a filmmaker. At the magazine, she covers the interactions between humans and Earth’s natural processes and writes a monthly column, “The Natural Explanation.” Espelie also makes poetic nonfiction films about environmental issues, and recently premiered new works at the New York Film Festival and the Rotterdam International Film Festival. She has a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology and genetics from Cornell University.
John Flesher ('02-'03)
John Flesher is the northern Michigan correspondent and Great Lakes environmental writer for The Associated Press and is based in Traverse City. He covers general news of regional or national interest within a territory that encompasses roughly half the state, including the entire Upper Peninsula. In 2005, the AP designated him an environmental writer, with responsibility for statewide environmental issues and broader topics affecting the entire Great Lakes region. He was one of six reporters recently selected for an AP national environmental reporting team that will focus on in-depth enterprise and investigative assignments. Since his fellowship, he has developed projects on wetlands, water conservation, mercury contamination, the battle over diverting Great Lakes water to other regions, invasive species and the recovery of gray wolves in the upper Great Lakes states. He previously was the AP's Michigan regional reporter in the Washington bureau. He began his AP career in the Raleigh, N.C., bureau, where he was the statehouse reporter. Flesher was AP's Michigan Staffer of the Year in 1995 and a Great Lakes Environmental Issues Fellow at the Michigan State University School of Journalism in 1997. He was a fellow with the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources in 2004, 2006 and 2009. Flesher was a member of the AP team that reported on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year. The AP team's coverage won an Associated Press Managing Editors award and a George Polk Award. He has a bachelor's degree in English from North Carolina State University. Flesher can be reached at jflesher@ap.org or jeflesher@yahoo.com.
Laura Frank
('09-'10)
Laura Frank is the executive director of I-News, the Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network. I-News delivers in depth multimedia reports to news outlets across the Rocky Mountain region and is a founding member of the national nonprofit Investigative News Network. Frank, a Denver native, has nearly two decades experience at daily newspapers, radio and public television.
She was an investigative reporter at the Rocky Mountain News until it closed in 2009. While there, she worked on multipart stories on Colorado's natural gas rush and the U.S. government's empty promise to provide medical aid to nuclear workers. Frank also has worked at The Tennessean in Nashville, Tenn., the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y., USA Today and the Gannett News Service.
Her stories have won top awards in both print and broadcast, and helped release innocent people from prison, protect abused children, and win aid for sick nuclear weapons workers. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Illinois.
Eric Frankowski ('03-'04)
Eric Frankowski is the energy program director with Resource Media in Boulder, Colo. He works mainly with other nonprofit environmental groups, helping them develop and implement media and messaging strategies. Previously, he was city editor, assistant city editor and a reporter at the Longmont (Colorado) Daily Times-Call. During his tenure, the paper received several prestigious awards, including the Colorado Press Association's General Excellence Award in 2001 and 2002, and the Scripps Foundation's National Environmental Reporting Award in 2004. He also has received individual awards for his science and environment reporting at the Times-Call, where he wrote and edited a bi-weekly science section before moving into his current position. He and a colleague won the Society of Environmental Journalism's top award in 2004 in the 'small Market Reporting-Print" category for their series on the Cotter Corporation, a uranium milling company near Cañon City, Colorado. Eric has a bachelor's degree with a double major in biology and Spanish, and an M.A. in journalism and graduate certificate in environmental policy from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Contact him at efrankowski@gmail.com.
Deborah Fryer ('08-'09)
Fryer is a freelance producer, writer, director, videographer and editor at Lila Films, Inc., an independent production company for educational videos and documentary films. She has created films for PBS, Nova, Frontline, MSNBC, Discovery, History Channel, Turner Broadcasting, HGTV, U.S. Fish & Wildlife and Audubon. Her first independent film, "SHAKEN: Journey into the Mind of a Parkinson's Patient" (completed while Fryer was a Scripps' Fellow) has aired on public television stations around the country to potentially 150 million viewers (www.lilafilms.com/shaken.htm). In the past year, Fryer has produced educational videos for several non-profits, a 21-minute documentary about the intersections of urban gardening and public health (http://dug.org/documentary), and a promo video for the Cool Girls Science and Art Club, an after-school program to get girls interested in science. She continues to develop documentary feature ideas, and has been working on a memoir that may or may not ever see the light of day. In her free time, she enjoys teaching yoga, hiking, and playing Scrabble with any Scripps Fellows who dare. Contact her at deborah@lilafilms.com.
Cate Gilles ('98-'99)
Cate Gilles earned her bachelor's degree at the University of Colorado
at Boulder, where she graduated Cum Laude and was a member of Phi Beta
Kappa. After receiving her master's degree Summa Cum Laude in political
science at Northern Arizona University, she worked as editor of the
Din* Bureau of the Gallup Independent and as a correspondent for the
Navajo Times. In 1994 she received the Bojack Humanitarian
Award for Reporter of the Year. Gilles passed away on August 4, 2001.
At the time of her death, she was editor of the Yaqui Times,
the newsletter of the Pascua Yaqui reservation. A Web
site has been established in her memory.
Daniel Glick ('00-'01)
In 2008, Daniel Glick joined forces with two other Scripps alumni, Leslie Dodson and Ted Wood, to form The Story Group (TSG), a multimedia journalism company. Since TSG’s inception, they have produced multimedia projects for Newsweek.com, the BBC’s The World, audubonmagazine.org, hcn.org (High Country News) and other print, radio and television outlets. Dan continues to freelance for whatever magazines still continue to assign stories, and has published in National Geographic, Smithsonian, PARADE, and many other national magazines. His second book, "Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids and a Journey to the Ends of the Earth," was published in June 2003 by Public Affairs and won the Colorado Book Award in the History/Biography category. The
book is part memoir and part ecological treatise, chronicling the five-month, round-the-world trip that he and his children made in 2001. Glick is also the author of "Powder Burn: Arson, Money and Mystery on Vail Mountain." In 2006 he was named a Knight International Press Fellow and traveled to Algeria with his two children. For more about his books, visit his website: www.danielglick.net. He can be reached at dglick@thestorygroup.org; TSG’s website is www.thestorygroup.org.
Leah McGrath Goodman ('10-'11)
Leah McGrath Goodman is a freelance journalist and author in New York City. Formerly based in London, she has written business, news and culture stories for Condé Nast Portfolio, Forbes, Profile, the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, The Guardian and The Financial Times. McGrath Goodman also worked as a special writer on the energy desk at Dow Jones Newswires for three years, where she covered global energy markets. Her first book, an insider's account of the lives and the times of the traders who built the global oil market, is due out in 2011. She has a B.A. in journalism and political science from St. Bonaventure University.
Dan Grossman ('99-'00)
Dan has been a print journalist and radio and web producer for more than 20 years. He started adult life studying science at MIT, where he earned a B.S. in physics. Later, he earned a Ph.D. in political science—also at MIT, where he studied science policy. During graduate school, he realized that his calling was not academia but that, fortuitously, he had developed the knowledge and skills to pursue the career he discovered was his true passion: science journalism.
He has since reported from all seven continents including from within 800 miles of both the south and north poles. He has produced radio stories and documentaries on science and the environment for National Public Radio, Public Radio International, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; Germany’s Deutsche Welle radio; the BBC; the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; and Radio Netherlands, among other broadcast outlets. He has written for magazines, newspapers and websites, including the New York Times, The Boston Globe, Discover, Audubon and Scientific American and MSNBC. He is coauthor of the book A Scientist’s Guide to Talking with the Media: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Dan has made staying technologically current a hallmark of his work. For instance he produced three extensive micro-websites, all on environmental topics. More recently, he started producing multimedia posts for National Geographic’s NewsWatch blog, for which he is a contributing editor. He produces material in many media, including radio, print, video and photographs.
In 2010 he received several grants to support a book he is writing on the impact of humans on everyday humans around the world. He'll be traveling to Peru, Mongolia and several other places abroad to collect material for this project. The final project will be a book published both in print and electronically, integrated with multimedia material such as short documentary movies. He's also producing a website and some short movies on efforts to forecast how high sea level will rise in the coming centuries. This work is support with a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Dan’s work has received many awards, including from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Science Writers Association (click here for a complete list). He has also been awarded journalism fellowships, including the Alicia Patterson Foundation Journalism Fellowship and the Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism. For more about Dan and his work, visit his website. Dan can be reached at dangrossmanmedia@gmail.com.
Todd Hartman ('98-'99)
Todd Hartman has moved his environmental journalism career into a new phase over the past two years. With the closure of the storied Rocky Mountain News in early 2009, he landed outside his beloved field of 24 years and took his passion for environmental and energy issues into the public sector. He currently resides as the communications director for Colorado's Department of Natural Resources, coordinating with the agencies' nine divisions on matters ranging from state water supplies, to its parks and oversight of the mining and energy development industries. Prior to his role at DNR, he managed media relations for the Governor's Energy Office and Gov. Bill Ritter's New Energy Economy efforts until late 2010. While not journalism, the work is interesting, fast-paced and requires building new skill sets and stretching old ones. And, at its heart, the work still involves educating the public on these important issues. Hartman began his journalism career more than 20 years ago and worked at four newspapers – three of them in Colorado. His work earned 11 national journalism awards, including recognition from the Scripps Howard Foundation, the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, the National Headliner Award and, most recently, from the Taylor Family Award for Fairness, awarded through the Nieman Foundation. Hartman's reporting also garnered five regional prizes for journalism in the West and has won or placed nearly two dozen times in state contests. He is living just outside Denver, married with two children, far too many cats and a border collie mix. He has a B.A. in History from the University of Colorado. Hartman can be reached at toddhartman@mac.com.
Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock ('07-'08)
Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock formerly worked as the host and producer of Independent Native News and as a reporter for the Alaska Public Radio Network. She recently switched gears and is pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University. She spent 2010 in New Zealand writing a Young Adult novel in verse and is currently working on an investigative journalism project in Alaska. She splits her time between Lyons Colorado and Fairbanks, Alaska. She can be reached at hitchcock@alaska.net.
Don Hopey ('05-'06)
Don Hopey is the evironment reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His writing displays a mix of local, state and national investigative stories and issue-oriented outdoor features. He has produced series of articles about pollution caused by the nation's hazardous waste incinerators, shortcomings in Pennsylvania's regulation of longwall coal mining, and an 80-mile canoe trip through the Wild and Scenic sections of the Allegheny River. During the summer of 1995 he participated in and wrote about a through hike of the Appalachian Trail by reporters at five eastern newspapers, and in 1998 he traveled to Central Europe to research and report about a range of air pollution issues. In December 2010 he and fellow reporter David Templeton published an eight-day series titled "Mapping Mortality" (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03001/1108747-209.stm) that detailed significantly higher mortality rates in southwestern Pennsylvania for diseases linked to air pollution and mapped the deaths to show a link to the region's 150 major industrial sources and 16 coal-fired power plants. Previously, Hopey was a general assignment, labor and investigative reporter for the Pittsburgh Press and city hall reporter for the Altoona Mirror. His work has been recognized by a number of local and regional awards. Hopey is an adjunct professor in the University of Pittsburgh' s environmental studies department, where he teaches an environmental issues and policy class and a Western Issues Yellowstone Field Course for the Pitt Honors College. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and studied law at Duquesne University, journalism at Pennsylvania State University and was a Ted Scripps Journalism Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 2005. Contact Hopey at dhopey@post-gazette.com.
Katy Human
('00-'01)
Katy Human has a new job as a "public affairs specialist" for NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in Boulder. She'll be working with scientists and others to get news out about the cool and critical weather and climate research taking place here. She's been with NOAA (and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences) for a couple years already, writing for general public and Congressional audiences. Formerly the Denver Post's science and then medical reporter, Human misses daily journalism and other journalists, but loves her new colleagues and new challenges. She also loves more family time with husband Gregg, son Miles (7) and da0ughter Macy (5). Human can be reached at katyhuman@msn.com.
Rebecca Huntington
('01-'02)
A multi-media journalist, Rebecca Huntington writes for radio, video and print. She is a writer/producer for Assignment Earth broadcast on Yahoo! News and NBC affiliates and This American Land produced for PBS stations nationwide. Covering the Northern Rockies, she's reported on oil and gas drilling, logging, wilderness, sage grouse, zombie subdivisions, grizzlies, wolves, bighorn sheep, recreation and the die-off of the keystone species, whitebark pine. She contributes to High Country News and Wyoming Public Radio. Contact
her at rahuntington@gmail.com.
Recent stories include:
Zombie Subdivisions
Conservation Calculus: Are trade-offs in Wyoming's Johah natural gas field a boon for wildlife?
Rock Creek: A Wilderness?
Protecting Montana's Wild Legacy - Carnivores
Jeff Johnson ('05-'06)
Jeff Johnson is senior editor for Chemical and Engineering News in Washington, D.C. He covers energy, the environment, science policy, chemical accidents and economics for this weekly science news magazine.
The range of topics he has written about include carbon capture and sequestration at coal-fired power plants, solar and wind energy, the electric grid, nuclear energy, and inherently safer design of chemical plants and refineries.
Previously, Johnson worked for Environmental Science & Technology, a monthly environmental science magazine, and before that for the Daily Environment Reporter, a Bureau of National Affairs publication where he covered the environmental activities of Congress. He earned a BS in industrial engineering at California State Polytechnic University and a master's in journalism at the University of Oregon. Contact Johnson at j_johnson@acs.org.
Patrick Joseph ('99-'00)
Pat Joseph lives in Oakland, Calif., with his wife and two kids. He is executive editor of California magazine, the award-winning alumni publication of the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to editing and writing for California, he continues to freelance for various publications. Joseph can be reached at patjoseph@gmail.com.
Joanna Kakissis ('08-'09)
A journalist currently based in Athens, Greece, Joanna contributes to TIME Magazine, NPR, The New York Times, Marketplace, PRI's The World, The Financial Times Magazine and other outlets. She has also written for Al-Jazeera English, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., where she was an award-winning staff writer from 1998-2004. She contributed to a News & Observer series on Hurricane Floyd that was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news.
She has been awarded several fellowships. In fall 2009, she reported on environmental migrants in Bangladesh with the help of a grant from the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Most recently, in 2011, she was awarded a Knight Luce Fellowship from the University of Southern California's Annenberg School to report on religion in migrant communities, especially the Hazara Afghans. Contact her at joanna@joannakakissis.com.
Recent stories include:
Ailing Greece Struggles with an Influx of Illegal Migrants
Greeks Divided On Mosque Construction
Deadly Protests Don't End Albania's Power Play
Anne Keala Kelly ('06-'07)
Anne Keala Kelly is a filmmaker and journalist focusing on Hawaiian political and cultural issues, indigenous peoples and the environment. Keala co-produced “The Other Hawai’i,” a 30-minute television news program for Al Jazeera English’s “Inside USA”; she has filed stories from Kathmandu, Geneva and her home in Hawai’i, and her articles and essays have been published in The Nation, Indian Country Today, American Indian Quarterly, the Honolulu Weekly and other journals. Keala has also produced documentaries and short features for radio, which have aired on the Pacifica Network’s Free Speech Radio News and NPR’s The Environment Report. “Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai’i,” is Keala’s first feature length film. It received the Best Documentary Film Award at the Hawai’i International Film Festival in October 2008, and a Special Jury Prize in 2010 at the Festival International du Film Documentaire Oceanien in Tahiti. Keala is touring with “Noho Hewa” throughout 2010. She can be reached at keala_kelly@yahoo.com.
Keith Kloor ('08-'09)
Keith Kloor is a magazine journalist based in New York City. A senior editor
at Audubon magazine until recently, Kloor has been published as a freelancer
by Audubon as well as Science, Nature, Archaeology and Smithsonian, among others.
His work reflects a multidisciplinary approach to environmental issues,
examining science and public policy through a historical, social, and
political lens. His recent projects include examining the impacts of
environmental constraints on prehistoric Indian cultures. Reach Kloor
at kkloor@msn.com.
Michael Kodas
('09-'10)
Michael Kodas is a photographer, writer and the author of the bestselling book High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed. USA Book News named High Crimes Best Non-Fiction in the National Best Books awards of 2008. Its highest honor, however, was being a question on the game show Jeopardy in November of 2010.
His work has appeared in The New York Times, Suddeutsche Zeitung (the largest newspaper in Germany), Newsweek, Newsweek.com, Outside.com, Geo, and Seasons magazine. From 1987 until 2008 Kodas was a staff photographer, picture editor and reporter at The Hartford (CT) Courant. At The Courant he specialized in adventure/environmental journalism and produced numerous pieces of expedition-style reportage.
He was a member of the Connecticut Everest Expedition, sending a series of stories to The Courant from the Himalaya during the two months that the team was on the mountain. The project also produced the Northeast Magazine cover story, "Implosion." The coverage was awarded a gold medal in the Lowell Thomas Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers, as well as honors from the New England Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Press Photographers Association.
Kodas' work in adventure journalism for The Courant began in 1995, when was one of a team of journalists who hiked the Appalachian Trail for "An Appalachian Adventure," which ran in The Courant, the Atlanta Constitution, the Raleigh News and Observer, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and the Portland Newspapers. The project was syndicated around the world and published as an illustrated book. For other projects at The Courant, Kodas circumnavigated Long Island Sound in a sea kayak, trekked through threatened rainforests in Costa Rica and Brazil, explored mine fields in Vietnam, sailed aboard the Amistad, spent 18-months researching the devastation of New England's marine environment and fishing industry, and climbed to the summit of Ama Dablam, a 22,500-foot-tall peak next to Mount Everest in Nepal. In 2003 Kodas joined a team of forest fire fighters from Connecticut and worked as both a firefighter and a journalist on fires in Wyoming and Colorado.
In 1999 Kodas was among a team of Courant journalists awarded the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the killings of four employees of the Connecticut Lottery by a disgruntled worker. He has also won awards from the Pictures of the Year competition, the National Press Photographers Association, the Lowell Thomas Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society for Newspaper Design, the New England Associated Press News Executives Association and several other professional organizations.
He is a 1984 graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism where he completed the photojournalism and news writing programs and a former Patton Scholar at the Wesleyan Writers Workshop.
John Kotlowski
('03-'04)
John Kotlowski is a Seattle-based freelance photographer and filmmaker. His work explores the cultural landscape and man's relationship to the found environment. He is currently in Australia working on "Balanda People", a photo-based project that takes a critical look at Australia's early colonial history. Other projects in the works, or in post-production, include a photo project on America's national parks, and a video documentary on his brother Lionel, titled "Mr. K". In 2009, Kotlowski was a nominee for the Santa Fe Prize for Photography. His work can be seen on his website www.johnkotlowski.com, and on his 'road blog', www.animastrekk.blogspot.com. Contact Kotlowski at info@johnkotlowski.com.
Suzie Lechtenberg
('09-'10)
Suzie Lechtenberg is the producer of Freakonomics Radio. She's been a public radio journalist for almost a decade, covering politics, the environment, economics and pop culture for outlets like New York Public Radio, Southern California Public Radio, NPR, APM and PRI. In 2010 she was the senior producer of the midterm election series Pop & Politics with Farai Chideya, which was produced by WNYC. She was one of the original producers hired at Weekend America, a magazine show produced by APM, where she worked for almost five years. Her work has been featured on public radio shows like Marketplace, Day to Day, and Studio 360. During the academic year of 2009-2010, she was one of five journalists awarded the Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she reported on a disappearing Kansas town. She started her career at the fashion and pop culture magazines Dazed & Confused and Nylon. Suzie's a Kansas native, currently living in Brooklyn.
Recent stories include:
Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better?
Trashed
Douglas
MacPherson ('02-'03)
Doug MacPherson is a veteran public radio reporter. He currently lives in Cape Neddick, Maine. He served 8 years as a reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio in Concord where he specialized in science and natural resource issues. His stories appeared on NPR's "Morning Edition," "All Things Considered" and "Weekend Edition," and Public Radio International's "Marketplace." Doug started in radio at NPR's Boston affiliate, WBUR. He holds a bachelor's degree is in Literary Studies from Middlebury College in Vermont. Doug can be reached at douglasjmacpherson@gmail.com
Alex Markels
('03-'04)
Alex Markels is an investment research analyst and occasional contributor to National Geographic Magazine. A former Wall Street Journal staff reporter, Markels has also worked as a supervising editor at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., a senior writer at U.S. News & World Report Magazine and a contributing writer at the New York Times. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Contact him at alex@markels.com.
Sean Markey ('07-'08)
Sean Markey is a freelance journalist and photographer. A former staff
writer and editor for National Geographic News, his work has
appeared in the Economist, National Geographic, Discover,
The Washington Post, High Country News and The New
York Times Special Features Syndicate. Prior to his fellowship,
Markey spent several years reporting from New Zealand. He currently
lives with his family in Peacham, Vt. He can be reached through his
Web site, www.seanmarkey.com.
David
Mayfield ('00-'01)
David Mayfield is a copy editor for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk,
Va. He had a story published in the fall 2001 issue of OnEarth
magazine (formerly Amicus Journal) that stems from his Ted Scripps
Fellowship. The story, "A
Farewell to Arms," is about a former Army ammunition plant
in Wisconsin that has become a sanctuary for grassland birds. Mayfield
can be reached at dmzmay@yahoo.com.
Kim McGuire ('03-'04)
Kim McGuire moved to St. Louis in August 2007 to become the science and environment reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch where she covers Mississippi River issues, air quality, biofuels, climate change and maintains the blog, EcoSpeak. Previously, she was the environment reporter at the Denver Post, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and before that worked at two Texas newspapers, the Beaumont Enterprise and the Tyler Morning Telegraph. McGuire has received several awards for her hard- hitting coverage, which has spanned subjects ranging from diminishing Mississippi Delta aquifers to toxic waste and environmental justice issues. In 2008, her series on coal-bed methane wanter for the Denver Post was named a finalist for the James V. Risser Prize. In October 2004, her two-part series on the risk associated with the destruction of chemical weapons, the culmination of her fellowship project, ran in the Democrat-Gazette. McGuire has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Texas A & M University. She and her husband Todd, who is the business editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, are expecting their first child in May 2010. Contact her at kmcguire@post-dispatch.com.
Ron Meador
('01-'02)
After his fellowship Ron Meador returned to his post as an editorial writer at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where he had been employed since 1980 in various editing and management roles. Follwoing sale of the paper to a private equity investment group in early 2007, he resigned to pursue interests in freelance writing and environmental advocacy; in mid 2007 he began work as executive director of the nonprofit Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness. In September 2008 he became director of the Media Center at Fresh Energy in St. Paul, where he led a media relations and journalism training program for an eight-state network of nonprofits and foundations, and created a new online newsmagazine, Midwest Energy News, which was launched in early 2010. In October 2010 he resigned that position to return to a writingediting/teaching career closer to the journalistic mainstream, including creation of a new online environmental news venture in the Twin Cities. His 35-year newspaper career also included stints at The New York Times and The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, and his many awards include the Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing, presented by The Wilderness Society in 2000. Meador holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and sociology from Indiana University. Reach him at ronmeador@gmail.com.
Michael Milstein ('97-'98)
Michael Milstein is a public affairs officer at the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets power from hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River system and funds one of the largest fish and wildlife protection programs in the country. He was formerly an environment and science reporter at The Oregonian in Portland, Ore., where he covered natural resource issues. He covered issues such as salmon fisheries, forest management, wildfires and Klamath Basin water struggles. Before joining The Oregonian, he worked out of his basement in Cody, Wyoming, as the Wyoming Bureau reporter for The Billings Gazette. There he covered science, environment and public lands issues in and around Yellowstone National Park and wrote two books about Yellowstone. Milstein also worked as a freelancer, writing for High Country News and Air & Space, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Astronomy, Earth and others. He lives in Portland, Ore., with his wife and son. Contact Milstein at mmilstein@msn.com.
Jim Mimiaga
('09-'10)
Jim Mimiaga writes about environmental issues, tribal politics and outdoor recreation for the Four Corners Free Press, a news magazine in Cortez, Colo. He recently won a second-place prize in general reporting with editor Gail Binkly and columnist/reporter David Grant Long for a collection of articles about medical marijuana. He is currently working on a book with photographer John Fielder. He has also worked at the Cortez Journal, Inside/Outside Southwest Magazine, The Durango Telegraph, Independent Native News and The Southern Ute Drum newspaper. He recently covered the reintroduction of wolves along the New Mexico-Arizona border and the return of condors to the Grand Canyon. He has won several awards in news and photography from the Society of Professional Journalists and Colorado Press Association. He has a bachelor's degree in political science from Fort Lewis College.
Anne Minard
('09-'10)
Anne Minard is a freelance science journalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic News, The New York Times, the Los Angles Times, Science, Scientific American and High Country News. Her first book, "Pluto and Beyond: A Story of Discovery, Adversity, and Ongoing Education," was published in 2007 and she is a contributing author on two others. Minard formerly worked as the science reporter for the Arizona Daily Star; editor of Mountain Living Magazine; health and science reporter for the Arizona Daily Sun; and environmental reporter for the Idaho State Journal. She has received many honors, including first place in environmental reporting from the Arizona Associated Press Managing Editor's Association and a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for her radio journalism. In 2011 she won second place in the Society of Professional Journalists' environmental feature writing "Top of the Rockies" contest for her story "Goshawks: Caught in the Crossfire," published in the Four Corners Free Press. Minard has a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a master's degree in biology from Northern Arizona University.
Recent stories include:
Fading Fast
Oil in Gulf of Mexico Spells Disaster for Young Birds as Breeding Season Unfolds
When it comes to choosing food, locals are learning ... There's no place like home
Hudson River Fish Evolve Toxic PCB Immunity
Glory in the Sky: New Satellite Set to Monitor the Sun and Reflected Heat to Determine Climate Effects
Rockies Mystery Solved by New Mountain-Creation Theory?
Glory Crash Blow for Boulder Scientists
Is that a Banana in Your Water?
Vicki Monks
('03-'04)
Vicki Monks is a prolific multi-media freelancer who works as a writer, reporter, photographer and radio and TV producer. Her articles and documentaries have tackled global environmental subjects, from the deforestation of Irian Jaya to the problem of plastic trash in the ocean, to industrial contamination of a Native American community in Oklahoma. Her work has appeared on National Public Radio, BBC Radio, CBS' "60 Minutes," PBS Online, and in National Wildlife magazine and the American Journalism Review. Monks is now living in Oklahoma where she is working on a book about Indian Country in Oklahoma 100 years after statehood and reporting on environmental threats to Indian lands. She is also currently working with the Oklahoma City-County Health Department as Community Relations Coordinator.
She is author of "Amber Waves of Gain," a book that explores how the American Farm Bureau's financial ties with big business drive its lobbying efforts, which often work against the interests of family farmers. Monks has won a long list of national and international awards and was a Professional Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. In 2006, she taught broadcast writing as an adjunct instructor at the University of Oklahoma. And, OU's School of Art honored her with a first place award in the Native American Alumni, Faculty and Student art show. The award was for photographs that will be used in her forthcoming book. A member of the Chickasaw tribe, she has a Bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. Contact her at vicki.monks@gmail.com.
Susan Moran ('01-'02)
Susan Moran lives in Boulder, Colo., where she is a freelance writer and has been a journalism instructor at the University of Colorado's School of Journalism and Mass Communication for several years. She was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT for the 2009-10 academic year. She recently went to Palmer Station, Antarctica, on a Marine Biological Laboratory science journalism fellowship. Her work has been published inThe Economist, The New York Times, Newsweek, Marie Claire and other publications. She covers energy development, climate science, health, and business issues. Susan also co-hosts a weekly science show on KGNU radio, called "How On Earth." Before coming to Boulder, Susan was based in San Francisco, where she was a senior editor at Business 2.0 magazine. Previously she worked with Reuters news agency — in Tokyo, New York and Silicon Valley — and other news organizations. She has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, a master's degree in Asian studies from the University of California at Berkeley, and a bachelor's degree in political science from UC Santa Cruz. E-mail Moran at susankmoran@gmail.com
Emily Murphy ('99-'00)
Emily Murphy is vice president and managing editor of Mother
Nature Network, a mainstream environmental news and information
Web site based in Atlanta. The site launched in January 2009. Previously,
Murphy was multimedia director for The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution website, www.ajc.com. Before moving to Atlanta,
Murphy was part of USA TODAY's Web team that won three awards in the
University of Missouri's Picture of the Year International contest for
their coverage of the Bush Inauguration, Hurricane Katrina and soldiers
in Iraq. Prior to working for USA TODAY, she was a multimedia
producer and editor at nationalgeographic.com and a television producer
at CNN. Murphy can be reached at emilymurphy@rocketmail.com.
Ryan Nave ('10-'11)
Ryan Nave was a staff writer at Illinois Times for five years where he covered politics and state legislative issues as well as the Illinois' coal, nuclear, and biofuels industries. Now a freelance journalist based in Seattle, Nave’s recent stories have focused on the relationship between energy, the economy and the environment. He has won several journalism honors, including a first place award for government-beat reporting from the Illinois Press Association in 2009. Nave has a B.A. in political science from the University of Missouri.
Todd Neff ('07-'08)
Todd Neff is a freelance science, environment, health-care and business writer living in Denver. Prior to his fellowship, he was science and environment reporter at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he covered everything from climate change and air quality to physics Nobel-Prize winners. Neff has a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Michigan and a master's degree in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He wrote From Jars to the Stars: How Ball Came to Build a Comet Hunting Machine, a book about how the Ball jar company came to build a comet-hunting spacecraft, which he largely researched and wrote during his Ted Scripps fellowship. He can be reached via www.toddneff.com.
Rachel Odell ('04-'05)
Rachel Odell is a freelance writer based in Boulder, Colo. She has recently
published stories on the Yellowstone bison management, impacts of a
potential ski area expansion in Crested Butte, and the significance
to Coloradans of Ken Salazar's appointment to Interior Secretary. Her
work has appeared in Backpacker, Skiing, Women's Health
and Forbes Life Mountain Time. Before she became a freelancer,
she was associate editor at Skiing Magazine in Boulder, Colo.
Odell also previously covered environmental issues for The Bulletin
in Bend, Ore. Prior to that, she covered the environment for the
Jackson Hole News in Jackson, Wyo. Odell graduated with a double
major in French and environmental studies from Middlebury College in
Vermont and studied abroad in Madagascar. Reach her at rjodell@gmail.com.
Natalie
Phillips ('02-'03)
Natalie Phillips passed away in September of 2007. Prior to her death,
she served as the associate producer of "The Quiet War, profiles
of women facing advanced breast cancer," a documentary about living
with metastasized breast cancer. The film won first place for documentaries
at the Los Angeles Reel Women Film
Festival. More information available at Affinityfilms.
Natalie retired from her job as a senior staff writer at the Anchorage
Daily News in 2003. Her assignments with the paper had focused
on science and environmental issues including the class action Exxon
Valdez oil spill trial. She was a reporter and assistant managing editor
at the Bozeman (Montana) Daily Chronicle, and a staff
writer at the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph and the Vail
(Colorado) Trail. A recipient of numerous state, regional
and national journalism awards, she also freelanced for a range of publications
including Time magazine, The New York Times and The
Washington Post. Phillips received a bachelor's degree in journalism
from the University of Montana and studied in language programs at the
University of Salamanca, Spain, and Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City.
Anne Raup ('06-'07)
Anne Raup is the assistant photo editor for the Anchorage Daily News and a photojournalist. Recently her main focus has been the continuing evolution of the largest newspaper in Alaska into a multi-platform news outlet. ADN's annual Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race coverage shows how we continue to evolve our journalism onto multiple platforms with varied story-telling methods. Another example of multi-layered story telling is Hooked: One addict's story - a compelling series of stories about a young woman struggling with cocaine addiction. We publish environmental stories of global proportion almost daily including topics on the battle over the whether Pebble (one of the world's largest copper and gold deposits) will be developed, an effort to strip mine coal from an area which is crossed by salmon streams, efforts to develop a geothermal energy source from underneath Spurr volcano (near Anchorage) and a hydro-electric project proposal that would see one of Alaska's largest rivers dammed. Many of these stories are written by another Scripps fellow Elizabeth Bluemink.
During her year as a Ted Scripps Fellow, she worked on a photo project about uranium mining in the American West. Work on that project continues. Raup holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and a bachelor's degree in environmental science from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. She attended Gudlav Bilderskolan in Solleftea, Sweden after graduating high school near Denver, Colorado. When not making or editing photographs, she'll will be found riding her mountain bike, hiking or skiing in the mountains of south central Alaska. Raup can be reached at araup@adn.com.
Bruce Ritchie ('97-'98)
Bruce Ritchie is a senior writer covering growth and the environment for The Florida Tribune, which launched in March 2009. He also is editor of FloridaEnvironments.com, which covers growth and environmental issues from Florida's capital.
Bruce previously covered growth and the environment for the Tallahassee Democrat from 2000 to 2008 and for the Gainesville Sun from 1993 to 1997. He has extensively covered water wars among Alabama, Florida and Georgia, Florida's revision of its growth management laws, coastal development, and nitrate pollution in groundwater and in springs at Florida's state parks.
In June 2006, he co-wrote a three-day series on the threats to Florida's springs. The Tallahassee Democrat received a first-place award from the Society of Environmental Journalists for outstanding reporting on the series. In 2001, his series on competing water needs along the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system in 2001 was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Ritchie can be reached at brucebritchie@gmail.com.
Liz Ruskin ('04-'05)
Liz Ruskin is a freelancer in Tokyo, Japan. Before moving overseas,
she was the Washington, D.C., correspondent for the Anchorage Daily
News where she covered Alaska issues in the nation's capital including
the debate over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and
logging in the Tongass National Forest. She began her career at Homer
(Alaska) News. She has been a National Press Foundation
Paul Miller Fellow and has won two Best of the West reporting awards
and numerous Alaska Press Club awards. Ruskin has a master's in journalism
from the University of Missouri and a bachelor's in political science
from the University of Washington. She can be reached at liz.ruskin@gmail.com.
Christine
Shenot ('97-'98)
Christine Shenot is working in a variety of capacities to promote sustainability, with a particular focus on walkability, transit-oriented development (TOD) and urban agriculture in her home state of Maryland. She serves as an associate with TND Planning Group, a Baltimore-based planning firm that specializes in integrated land use and transportation planning and innovative civic engagement strategies. Shenot compiles and distributes a weekly e-newsletter for the firm and has helped design a Web site set to be launched in Spring 2011. She also contributes to the firm's planning work, such as a recent effort to help Baltimore City and Baltimore County begin to map out a revitalization strategy for an inside-the-beltway road corridor connecting Downtown Baltimore to its northern suburbs.
Andrew Silva ('04-'05)
Andrew Silva is the environment and transportation reporter at The
Sun in San Bernardino, Calif. He covers a wide range of issues
and has reported in-depth on water pollution, air pollution, the Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste repository, desert ecology and the bark beetle
crisis in the San Bernardino National Forest. He has also written a
column on transportation issues for the paper, a hot topic in his rapidly
growing region. Prior to joining The Sun's staff, Silva covered
government beats at newspapers in Palm Springs, Riverside and Anaheim.
An award-winning writer, he was most recently recognized in 2003 by
the California Newspaper Association for a first-place environmental
story, and by the Inland Empire Society of Professional Journalists
with first place stories in the science and environment categories.
Silva has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Humboldt State University.
Contact Silva at aesilva4@earthlink.net.
Jerd Smith ('06-'07)
Jerd Smith is a writer and editor who specializes in land, water and
climate issues. She was an award-winning environmental and business
reporter at the Rocky Mountain News prior to its closure in early
2009. She led a team of journalists who covered the science, money,
politics and ecology of water in Colorado from 2002-2005. During that
time, her team won awards from the Colorado Press Association, the American
Planning Association and the University of Colorado's Wirth Chair Media
Award for Environmental Coverage. Smith and two colleagues also won
Stanford University's 2005 Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism
for a five-part series titled "The Last Drop." She holds a
bachelor's degree in public administration from the University of Evansville
in Indiana and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University.
Smith can be reached at jerd.e.smith@gmail.com.
Joseph Sorrentino ('07-'08)
Joseph Sorrentino is working as the Development Assistant for the nonprofit Disability Rights Legal Center in Los Angeles doing grant writing and media relations. The center promotes the rights of people with disabilities and the public interest and awareness of those rights through legal and related services. Sorrentino has used his journalism experience to inform the media of the center's high impact cases, including a lawsuit against Disneyland for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act and a class action case brought against the city of Los Angeles to address the city's lack of adequate disaster planning for people with disabilities.
He was formerly managing editor of the Orange County Reporter, San Diego Commerce and Riverside Business Journal in his hometown of Los Angeles. He has covered topics including contaminated industrial "brownfields" in Los Angeles and the growing number of women and children on the city's Skid Row. He has a bachelor's degree in creative writing from the University of California Riverside. Sorrentino can be reached at jhsorren@aol.com.
Greg Stahl ('05-'06)
Greg Stahl is a reporter, editor and photographer who has focused on the politics, people, ecology and economy of the Rocky Mountain West for more than 12 years. Stahl concentrated his fellowship studies in CU's School of Law, with a particular focus on water law, public land law and natural resources law. Before his current position as assistant policy director with Boise-based Idaho Rivers United, he worked as senior editor at Sun Valley Magazine and as assistant editor at the Idaho Mountain Express newspaper in Ketchum, Idaho. As a reporter, he has been recognized with more than 50 awards for his writing and reporting by state and national organizations. His work—professional and otherwise—can be viewed at www.westernperspective.com. He can be contacted at grstahl@gmail.com.
Paul Tolme ('00-'01)
Roving magazine journalist Paul Tolme has been busy learning and writing
about the wildlife of the Northwest following his move to the oceanside
hamlet of Trinidad, Calif., in 2006 after six years in Colorado. Tolme
has recently penned articles about salmon, aleutian geese, oil spills
and seabirds, black oystercatchers, Sierra bighorn sheep, extremeophiles
and the creation of the National Landscape Conservation System. He has
also worked to understand and explain the rapidly evolving renewable
energy economy and its associated technologies, writing about the carbon
offset market, geothermal power, ground-source heating and efficiency,
hydrogen vehicles and smart grid technologies. Tolme's publication list
includes National Wildlife, Defenders, Newsweek,
Popular Mechanics, Wilderness, ClimateEdu, Ski,
Hooked on the Outdoors, Mountain Gazette and FAIR
(Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), among others. Tolme spends much
of the winter months exploring the mountains and ski destinations of
the West as a contributor to Ski, for which he visited Aspen
to write an account of the push to build the world's highest wind farm
above Snowmass resort. He also traveled to Chile to write a breathless--literally--progress
report on the construction of ALMA, the world's highest radio telescope
at 16,500 feet in the Andes. Tolme's freelance work can be work can
be seen at his website, www.journalistontheloose.com. Prior
to launching his magazine career, Tolme was a staff writer for 10 years
for the Associated Press, covering state legislatures, politics and
the environment and outdoors beats in the New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode
Island and Northern Virginia bureaus.
In 2010, National Wildlife will publish Paul's story on "The Myth of Clean Natural Gas," a subject Paul studied while traveling throughout Colorado's Piceance Basin to view the effects on the landscape, water and wildlife due to the nation's growing desire for natural gas. While burning natural gas does indeed pump less CO2 into the atmosphere than coal, the toxic legacy of spoiled groundwater due to hydraulic fracturing fluids shows that gas is hardly clean as it is extracted today. "Switching to gas from coal is like telling a smoker to switch to light cigarettes from unfiltereds," he says. It's slightly better but still dreadfully harmful. Paul's other big adventure for 2010 is a trip to Midway Island to report on a National Wildlife story about the Marine National Monument System, which consists of many remote and often uninhabited islands and atolls in the Pacific. Due to their remoteness and lack of human habitation, these islands have some of the world's healthiest coral reef ecosystems and they are also vital breeding grounds for seabirds. An avid cyclists who rarely drives his car, Tolme has also begun working in bicycling advocacy by producing web videos and content for several bike companies.
He can be reached at ptolme@gmail.com.
Jonny Waldman ('10-'11)
Jonathan Waldman has written about science, culture, and the environment for newspapers, magazines, radio shows and blogs, including The Washington Post, McSweeney’s, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Outside magazine and High Country News. He is a freelance journalist based in San Francisco. He spent the last two years living aboard and refurbishing a 30-year-old sailboat, and wrote about the experience for Outside’s blog. Waldman has a master’s degree in science journalism from Boston University and a B.A. in environmental studies from Dartmouth.
Chris Welsch ('08-'09)
Chris Welsch is a freelance photographer, writer and editor who is now working on contract at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. His labor of love is an environmental history of Minnesota's boreal forest, which continues to be a work in progress (the forest and the book). Before leaving for Paris he was working as a photographer for Minnesota Public Radio, the New York Times and other clients. Contact Welsch
at photocw@gmail.com.
Andrea Welsh
('05-'06)
After a decade in journalism, Andrea Welsh now works on climate and carbon policy issues in Washington, DC. She is currently outreach manager for the VCS Program, one of the most widely used programs for accounting for carbon credits in voluntary markets. As outreach director, Welsh develops online and print communication strategies and materials to engage a range of global policy makers and carbon market participants. Previously Welsh worked as international media director for Environmental Defense Fund, where she influenced media coverage of international climate talks. Before that she worked as environmental correspondent for Reuters in Brasilia, writing about Brazil's role in global climate talks and its efforts to slow Amazon destruction while easing poverty in the rainforest. In her decade as a journalist, Welsh covered economic, political, environmental and social issues as a correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires in Mexico, Chile and Brazil. She also covered international energy markets for Petroleum Argus, a trade publication covering the politics and economics of the global oil trade. Welsh holds a bachelor's degree in communications from Temple University in Philadelphia and a master's in Latin American studies and communications from the University of Texas at Austin. Contact Welsh
at andreawelsh@yahoo.com.
Dan Whipple
('97-'98)
Dan Whipple is the editor of the Natural Hazards Observer, published by the University of Colorado's Natural Hazards Center. Most of his non-work writing is directed toward literary efforts—he's completed one novel and has two others in the works. His 2002 novel, "Click," published by the University Press of Colorado, was one of three finalists for the Colorado Book Award and was selected as a "best mystery" that year by the Rocky Mountains News. New Scientist ran a piece by Whipple in its "Histories" section that was based on his fellowship work. He is currently residing most of the year in Nairobi, Kenya, with occasional extended stays in Boulder. He's married to Kathleen Bogan, who is the group design editor for East Africa's Nation Media Group—hence the Nairobi address. Reach Whipple at dan.whipple@colorado.edu
or danwhipple@comcast.net.
Nadia White ('04-'05)
Nadia White is an assistant professor at the University of Montana's School of Journalism. Prior to her fellowship, she was state editor at the Casper Star-Tribune, where she oversaw development of statewide news through bureaus across Wyoming and in Washington, D.C. She currently teaches a variety of classes including advanced reporting, sports reporting and environmental reporting. Her environmental reporting class last spring provided live blog and Twitter coverage of the criminal prosecution of W.R. Grace Co. on charges including knowingly endangering the people of Libby, Mont., through the mining of asbestos- contaminated ore. The project was a groundbreaking use of new media coverage using old media values. White has a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's in psychology from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. She can be reached at white_nadia@hotmail.com.
Florence Williams ('07-'08)
Florence Williams is a freelance writer and a contributing editor for Outside Magazine. She writes regularly for Slate and is working on a book about the environmental health of breasts for W.W. Norton, due out in 2012. She is also a board member for High Country News where she worked as a staff writer. Her work is now focused on toxins, endocrine disruptors and environmental health. She has earned awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors and other organizations. Williams has a bachelor's degree in English from Yale University and a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Montana. Williams can be reached through her website at www.florencewilliams.com.
David Wilson
('02-'03)
David Wilson lives in Boulder, Colorado. After ten years of journalism work, David changed career paths in 2005. Inspired in part through the courses he took while a Scripps Fellow, David decided to go to law school. Today, he works as a patent attorney at Holland & Hart LLP. He has also worked in Denver at one of the nation's leading intellectual property firms, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, where he worked with inventors, drafting patent applications based on their inventions, and get the applications issued as patents, both in the U.S. and internationally. He works with numerous clients including several local companies that focus on alternative energy and smart grid technologies.
David studied law at the University of Colorado, where he continued to develop his interest in federal Indian law. During law school, David had the opportunity to study more under Charles Wilkinson, Sarah Krakoff and Rick Collins. David also was editor-in-chief of the Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law. He received the Silicon Flatirons Writing Competition Award in 2008 for his paper "Weaving the Navajo.Net: Advanced Telecommunications Services, Cultural Adaptation, and the Navajo Nation's "Internet to the Hogan"Technology Plan." The article was published in volume 7 of the JTHTL.
During David's journalism career, he freelanced as a radio producer focusing on science and environmental issues. He produced more than 100 news stories and documentaries that have appeared on programs such as "Soundprint," "Marketplace," "Living on Earth," "High Plains News" and "Pacifica Network News," as well as on Boulder's community radio station, KGNU. In 2005, he worked as a capitol reporter, providing daily news coverage of the Colorado state legislature for 12 community radio stations in Colorado. He was previously managing producer at Alternative Radio after several years filing in as substitute news and public affairs director for KGNU. His "Exploring the Universe" program was awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Whitaker Award for best radio documentary series in 2000.
David taught both mathematics and journalism at the University of Colorado, along with overseeing KGNU's training program. David holds both a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a juris doctorate from the University of Colorado and earned both a bachelor's and master's in physics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. David continues to keep a hand in radio as a member of KGNU's board of directors, along with being involved with CU's Silicon Flatirons telecommunications program. David also regularly hosts KGNU's Kabaret, featuring local musicians, which airs each Monday from 7 to 8pm. David may be reached at david.wilson@colorado.edu.
Ted Wood ('01-'02)
Ted Wood is an award-winning photojournalist, who specializes in natural
history and environmental stories. He wrote, "I am now an officially
censored photojournalist in Wyoming!!" The project he started during
his Ted Scripps Fellowship on the coal-bed methane boom in Wyoming bore
fruit, as well as notoriety, for Wood. An exhibit of his photos opened
in early 2007 at the gallery of the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming's Powder
River basin. The show, "The New Gold Rush: Images of Coalbed Methane,"
which featured his work and that of three other photographers, was scheduled
to travel to the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, Wyoming's largest
museum. But after pressure from the energy industry, the museum cancelled
the show. This created a huge press interest, says Wood, and the effort
backfired. The show is now booked two years out, and will travel throughout
the Rockies and to the coasts. Recent projects have included shoots
for Vanity Fair, Outdoor Life and The Nature Conservancy
Magazine, the latter spread part of a story on a cooperative bison
ranch in South Dakota. Wood also shot a February 2003 feature story
by Jim Robbins in the Los Angeles Times Magazine on environmental
impacts of coal-bed methane extraction in Wyoming, the subject of Wood's
fellowship project. He traveled to Mongolia in the summer of 2003, where
he and Institute on the Environment alum Jeremy Schmidt are launching
a nonprofit venture called Conservation
Ink. The organization will develop interpretive publications for
national parks and ecological preserves in third world countries that
are financially unable to produce support materials on their own. Wood
took a group of patrons on a trip to Hovsgol National Park in Mongolia
in association with the project, which is funded with a grant from National
Geographic magazine. He headed back to Mongolia in July 2007, where
he put the final touches on a second set of map/guides and postcards
to promote responsible tourism in Mongolia's national parks. He is also
an author/photographer of nine children's books that feature nature
and environmental themes. He has a master's degree in journalism from
the University of Missouri and a bachelor's degree in psychology from
the University of California at Berkeley. His work can be seen on his
Web site. Contact Wood at
twood@thestorygroup.org.