2016 Fellows & Editors

SAM BRASCH, Denver, Colorado @samuelbrasch

Sam Brasch reports on politics and science for Colorado Public Radio. Sam’s fellowship story on kosher slaughter demonstrations ran on KCRW’s Good Food in April 2017 “Food for thought: A kosher slaughter.”   He officially covers the legislature but he’s also managed to carve out another side beat covering meat production. He recently aired a piece on cattle feedlots and water quality.

AUDREY DILLING, San Francisco, California @audrey_dilling

Audrey Dilling is a freelance radio reporter and podcast producer for “Against the Rules” from Pushkin Industries. She’s a former editor and reporter for the news and culture show, Crosscurrents, on KALW public radio in San Francisco. Her work has aired nationally on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and American Public Media’s “Marketplace” and “Marketplace Morning Report”, and internationally on ABC’s “Radiotonic.”

Audrey story on privatized water in California aired on KQED’s The California Report (500,000 weekly listeners, carried on more than 30 public radio stations) in March 2017 “Why This California Town’s Water Costs Three Times the National Average.”

WES ENZINNA, New York, NY @wesenzinna

Wes Enzinna is a contributing editor at Harper’s. He has reported from Syria, Mexico, Kansas, Argentina, and Bulgaria, but his most harrowing assignment was a visit to a library of failed writers in Washington state. He has written for the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK, CALIFORNIA SUNDAY, GQ, and London Review of Books, and was previously a senior editor at Harper’s and a senior reporter at Mother Jones. He is currently at work on a book about California’s housing crisis for Penguin Press. In May 2017, Wes’s fellowship story, a long form piece called “Bizarre and Wonderful” was published by the London Review of Books about Murray Bookchin, an eco-anarchist in Burlington, Vermont who inspired the farming efforts of Kurdish revolutionaries in Syria.

ELOISE GIBSON, Auckland, New Zealand,@eloise_gibson

Eloise Gibson is the Climate Change Editor at Stuff.co.nz in New Zealand. Eloise has covered science, the environment and consumer issues for BBC Future, BBC Earth, Hakai Magazine  the New Zealand Herald, The New Zealand Listener, and Newsroom.co.nz.

Eloise travelled to New York in 2015 to complete an M.A. in science writing at Columbia University. Eloise’s fellowship story about cow belch and climate change ran in the November 29, 2017 issue of Businessweek “Cutting Down on Cow Burps to Ease Climate Change.”

TIENLON HO, San Francisco, California @tienlonho

Tienlon Ho mostly writes about food, environment, technology and where these intersect. She is a frequent magazine contributor and the co-author of Mister Jiu’s in Chinatown (2021), about how Chinese food became American food and the making of a Chinese American chef.  She is also an attorney.

LISA MOREHOUSE, San Francisco, California @cafoodways

Lisa Morehouse is an audio reporter and editor. Her reporting work focuses on food, agriculture, and the people who make both possible. She produces California Foodways, a county-by-county exploration of stories at the intersection of food, culture, economics, history and labor. For that series, she’s won national Edward R. Murrow and SPJ NorCal awards, was named 2016’s Karola Saekel Craib Excellence In Food Journalism Fellow by Les Dames D’Escoffier, San Francisco, and received three nominations for James Beard media awards. Her stories air on NPR’s Morning Edition and Latino USA, PRI’s The World, and KQED’s The California Report. Morehouse is the Senior Editor at KALW’s Crosscurrents.

Lisa’s fellowship story “How a Farmworker ‘Company Town’ Is Taking Shape in the Salinas Valley” aired on KQED’s The California Report in November 2016.

ALEX PARK, Oakland, California @acpark1

 Alex Park is an investigative reporter with an interest in US engagement with Africa. His work on Africa, agriculture, and development has been published by Mother Jones, The Africa Report, and the European Center for Development Policy Management, and has been cited in reports by GRAIN, Food and Water Watch, and in the pages of The New York Times op-ed section. In 2014, his scoop on the Gates Foundation Trust’s investment in a private prison company inspired a petition with more than 10,000 signatures and a protest outside the Foundation’s headquarters. He’s still working on his fellowship story.

DREW PHILP, Detroit, Michigan @drewphilp

Drew Philp’s work has appeared in BuzzFeed, the Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and Spirit Magazine, among other publications. In April 2017 Scribner published  his first book of nonfiction, A $500 House in Detroit: Rebuilding an Abandoned Home and an American City. In addition to nonfiction Drew has been a writer in the film industry, having written two feature length dramas on contract. He lives in Detroit with his dog, Gratiot, in a house he built with his own hands from the shell of one purchased for $500.

WUDAN YAN, Seattle, Washington @wudanyan

Wudan Yan is an independent journalist based in Seattle, WA. Her work has appeared in The Daily Beast, Discover Magazine, National Public Radio, NewYorker.com, The Scientist, Washington Post, among others. Wudan has reported from the sewers of Boston, to the rural health clinics, mangroves, and palm oil plantations in Southeast Asia. Wudan has a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Brown University, and comes to journalism by way of science.

IRINA ZHOROV, North Carolina @zhorovir 

Irina Zhorov is a freelance radio reporter and formerly an award-winning science and environment reporter for WHYY’s The Pulse. She previously produced stories on silver mines in Bolivia, fake border crossings in Mexico, distressed cities in Pennsylvania, energy in Wyoming, and salt in Appalachia.

Irina’s fellowship story “Russian cowboys learn to wrangle a brand new beef industry” aired on WHYY’s The Pulse in November 2016. A second version aired  on NPR’s Planet Money in November 2016, and a shorter news segment aired on NPR’s Morning Edition in December 2016.

GUEST EDITORS

 

JACK HITT

Jack Hitt is the creator and co-host of the 2018 Peabody Award-winning podcast, Uncivil as well as a regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine and the public radio program This American Life. He is the author of several books most recently Bunch of Amateurs. His first book Off the Road: A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim’s Route into Spain was made into a motion picture “The Way” directed by Emilio Estévez and starring Martin Sheen. His Harper’s report on American anthropology was selected for a collection of the best science writing of the past 25 years The Best of the Best of American Science Writing. His one-man show “Making Up the Truth” is a series of his slightly incredible real-life stories woven in with the contemporary brain science that nearly answers the question “Is any of this true?”

GERALD MARZORATI

Gerald Marzorati was the editor of the New York Times Magazine from 2003-2010. Prior to joining the Times, he was an editor at the New Yorker and at Harper’s Magazine. He is the author of “Late to the Ball,” a memoir about tennis and aging, published earlier this year by Scribner, and writes regularly about tennis for the newyorker.com. He is the senior strategist at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, devoted to helping Americans eat more healthily and farm more ecologically.

WENDY DORR

Wendy Dorr is the Executive Producer of new shows at NYT audio. Before coming to the Times, Wendy worked at Gimlet Media, where she produced the first seasons of Heavyweight & Mystery Show. For many years she worked as an independent producer and editor in public radio, and was a producer at This American Life. During her time there she made several classic episodes of the show including The House at Loon Lake, 24 Hours at the Golden Apple and Somewhere in the Arabian Sea.  Wendy got her start in radio logging hundreds of hours of tape for Radio Diaries.

CLARA JEFFERY

Clara Jeffery became editor-in-chief of Mother Jones in May 2015. Prior to that she was co-editor with Monika Bauerlein. She has spearheaded an era of editorial growth and innovation, marked by the addition of now 13-person Washington bureau, an overhaul of the organization’s digital strategy and a corresponding 15-fold growth in traffic, and the winning of two National Magazine Awards for general excellence. When Jeffery and Bauerlein received a PEN award for editing in 2012, the judges noted: “With its sharp, compelling blend of investigative long-form journalism, eye-catching infographics and unapologetically confident voice, Mother Jones under Jeffery and Bauerlein has been transformed from what was a respected—if under-the-radar—indie publication to an internationally recognized, powerhouse general-interest periodical influencing everything from the gun-control debate to presidential campaigns. In addition to their success on the print side, Jeffery and Bauerlein’s relentless attention to detail, boundless curiosity and embrace of complex subjects are also reflected on the magazine’s increasingly influential website, whose writers and reporters often put more well-known and deep-pocketed news divisions to shame. Before joining the staff of Mother Jones, Jeffery was a senior editor of Harper’s magazine. Fourteen pieces that she personally edited have been finalists for National Magazine Awards, in the categories of essay, profile, reporting, public interest, feature, and fiction. Works she edited have also been selected to appear in various editions of Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, Best American Sports Writing, and Best American Science Writing. Clara cut her journalistic teeth at Washington City Paper, where she wrote and edited political, investigative, and narrative features, and was a columnist. Jeffery is a graduate of Carleton College and Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. She resides in the Mission District of San Francisco.

FELLOWSHIP EDITORS

 

MICHAEL POLLAN

Michael Pollan is the author of seven books, including How to Change Your Mind, Cooked, Food Rules, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire, all New York Times bestsellers. A longtime contributor to the New York Times Magazine, he is also the Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley. In 2010, Time Magazine named Michael one of the 100 most influential people in the world. @michaelpollan

MALIA WOLLAN

Malia Wollan is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine where she writes the weekly Tip column. Her work has also appeared  in The Wall Street Journal, Harper’s, National Public Radio, New York Magazine, the Associated Press and PBS’s Frontline/World. She has lectured at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism,  is a former editor at Meatpaper magazine, and is the director of this fellowship. @mwollan