2018 Fellows & Editors
SOLEIL HO, San Francisco, California, @hooleil
Soleil Ho is the restaurant critic for The San Francisco Chronicle. In addition to writing about food, she founded and hosted Racist Sandwich, an award-nominated podcast on food and intersectional politics, and hosted Popaganda, the official podcast of Bitch Media. She is also co-writer on a forthcoming graphic novel on entomophagy and queer romance called Meal.
For her fellowship story Soleil reported a radio piece “The Japanese tradition of raising and eating wasps” for The Splendid Table which aired in February 2019.
JAHD KHALIL, Lexington, Nebraska, @jahdkhalil
Jahd Khalil is a journalist from Nebraska. Previously he was The GroundTruth Project’s Middle East Fellow and a grantee with The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Before that, he was an editor of the English weekly Egypt Independent and a co-founder of the independent website Mada Masr. Jahd has reported on business, culture, politics, sports, and technology politics, from the Middle East, Europe, and the US.
For his fellowship story Jahd reported on Somali teenagers who work in meat packing plants in Nebraska. He presented the audio and photographs from his story to thousands of people on a nine city tour with Pop Up Magazine.
EVA HOLLAND, Whitehorse, Canada, @evaholland
Eva Holland is a freelance writer based in Canada’s Yukon Territory. She’s a correspondent for Outside, and her work has also appeared in WIRED, Pacific Standard, The Walrus, Seattle Met, and numerous other publications. Her first book, Nerve: A Personal Journey Through the Science of Fear was published in early 2020.
Eva’s fellowship story about caribou and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was published by Longreads in May 2019. The piece is called “Born to be Eaten.”
DEONNA ANDERSON Berkeley, California @iamDEONNA
Deonna Anderson is an associate editor at Greenbiz and a freelance print and radio reporter with experience covering city government, identity, social issues, and equitable economic development. Her work has been featured in Yes! Magazine, Oregon Humanities and Next City, where she served as a 2017 Equitable Cities Fellow.
Deonna’s fellowship stories “These Indigenous Women Are Reclaiming Stolen Land in the Bay Area” and “How to Fight Climate Change in Your Own Garden” were both published in Yes Magazine.
MYA FRAZIER Columbus, Ohio, @myafrazier
Mya Frazier is a business and investigative journalist based in the Midwest. She is a regular contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek and Columbus Monthly magazines. Her writing has also appeared in Outside, Columbia Journalism Review, The New Republic, Harper’s, and NewYorker.com. She is a former staff writer for American City Business Journals, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Advertising Age. In 2016, she was a fellow with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
Mya’s story on labor organizing in the poultry processing industry is forthcoming.
LEVI BRIDGES, Moscow, Russia @levi_bridges
Levi Bridges is an independent radio producer currently living in Russia. He reporting from Mexico on immigration has aired on PRI’s “The World,” Marketplace, KQED and in Spanish on Radio Bilingüe and NPR’s Radio Ambulante. He is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, an Overseas Press Club Award to work with The Associated Press in Moscow, and a Foreign Language and Area Studies Award to study Russian and journalism at UC Berkeley. Levi spent his childhood on a farm in Maine where five generations of his family have lived.
For his fellowship Levi has several agriculture related stories from Russia forthcoming.
TIM REQUARTH, Brooklyn, New York, @timrequarth
Tim Requarth is a freelance science journalist, as well as Lecturer in Science & Writing at New York University. His writing has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Nation, The New Republic, Slate, Foreign Policy, and Scientific American. He received his PhD in neuroscience from Columbia University, and for nine years he directed NeuWrite, an international network of workshops for scientists and writers. He was a 2019-2020 Brown Institute for Media Innovation “magic grant” recipient, as well as recipient of the National Association of Science Writers 2020 Science in Society Journalism Award. His work has been anthologized in Best American Science & Nature Writing. You can read Tim’s writing at www.timrequarth.com
CLINT RAINEY, Brooklyn, New York, @clintrainey
Clint Rainey has the national food beat at New York magazine’s Grub Street, and also contributes to Businessweek. He’s won a James Beard Award at Grub; yakked on Marketplace, WNYC, and other programs; and been anthologized in The Best American Food Writing 2018.
His fellowship story on McDonald’s is forthcoming.
MALLORY PICKETT, Los Angeles, California, @MalloryLPickett
Mallory Pickett is a freelance journalist with experience covering science, technology, and the environment. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, WIRED, FiveThirtyEight, and other publications. She received her masters in chemistry from UC San Diego and her masters in journalism from UC Berkeley. You can find more of her work at http://mallorypickett.com/
Mallory’s fellowship story on red tides was published in Popular Science in June 2019. Read it here.
STEPH YIN, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, @steph_yin
Steph Yin is a reporter and producer for WHYY’s The Pulse and former writer for the New York Times. As a storyteller she’s interested in interrogating the role science should play in society, bringing forth perspectives not traditionally heard and expanding our definitions of “science” and “scientist.” Last year she was a science-journalist-in-residence at Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, where she examined how knowledge- and science-driven economies can exacerbate social inequality.
GUEST EDITORS
DEIRDRE FOLEY-MENDELSSOHN
Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn is a senior editor at The New Yorker. She was previously the executive editor of The California Sunday Magazine, a senior editor at Harper’s and The Paris Review, and on the editorial staff of The New York Review of Books. Pieces she edited have gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize, the National Magazine Award, the Livingston Award, the George Polk Award, and numerous other honors.
DEBORAH GEORGE
Deborah George is a Senior Editor at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. She’s also a contributing editor with the long-running Radio Diaries series, which airs on All Things Considered (NPR News). She was a staffer at NPR for 20 years. Her documentary work has garnered two Peabody Awards, in 2009 for The Great Textbook War and Clarissa’s Diary in 2012 and five Dupont Awards from Columbia University.
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?”
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