2021 Fellows & Editors

KAYLA STEWART, New York, New York @kayla_s_stewart

Kayla Stewart is an award-winning food and travel reporter. She is a columnist at The Bittman Project and Salon, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, Condé Nast Traveler, Southern Foodways Alliance, Eater, Bon Appétit, Civil Eats, Travel + Leisure, Texas Monthly, Texas Highways, HuffPost, and other publications. In addition to her work as a journalist, she served as a Fulbright Scholar in Indonesia, and holds a joint master’s degree in International Relations and Journalism from New York University.

ESTHER HONIG, Denver, Colorado @EstherHonig

Esther Honig has built her career reporting for public radio stations across the Midwest and Colorado. She began her focus on agriculture and farm labor during her time at Harvest Public Media, where she frequently contributed to NPR news covering the impacts of Trump’s trade wars and immigration policy. In late 2019 she became an independent journalist and now spends her time reporting internationally from Mexico and from her home in Denver. A fluent Spanish-speaker, Esther works in audio and print to tell stories about agriculture, U.S. immigration policy, climate change and rural issues. Her work has been featured by The Nation, Mother Jones Magazine, Marketplace, Snap Judgment, PRI’s The World and Latino USA.

ANGÈLICA EKEKE, Berkeley, California @oneworldjournalist

Angèlica Ekeke, is an immersive visual journalist, filmmaker, photographer, composer, and educator. In both her journalistic and commercial work, her vision is to tether between the world of documentary and fine art. Anchored and rooted in social justice, her storytelling focuses on reframing narratives that are often overlooked from those who are despised to those who are seen as highly valued pieces of art. In her freelance career, she has produced and commissioned work for the Sundance Institute,  Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The New York Times,  Vogue Business, the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, and Berkeley Law.  Her national and international work aligns with highlighting and reporting on diasporic trauma and injustices that plague overlooked communities, in order to promote transatlantic conversations and empowerment. Her innate eye and ear for creativity has empowered her to bring innovation and freshness in spaces where educational and interconnected communication is needed most. In an effort to address the desensitization of some of the world’s most pressing issues in the journalistic world, she chose to bridge art and journalism by creating a new form of immersive storytelling called “Visual Symphonies”, a fuse of live journalistic reporting, music, and documentary film, which had its major platform debut at Sundance 2021, headlining for the 2021 Amazon Studios Producer Awards. By deeming herself “ One World Journalist”, her hope is that her storytelling allows viewers to walk away feeling as if they have entered into another’s world, building empathy and understanding among varying communities. She holds a BA from San Francisco State University and an MA from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

DUY LINH TU, Brooklyn, New York, @duylinhtu

Duy Linh Tu is a journalist and documentary filmmaker, focusing on education, science, and social justice. His work has appeared in print, online, on television, and in theaters. He is also the author of “Narrative Storytelling for Multimedia Journalists.”  Duy is an Associate Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he teaches reporting and video storytelling.

BRETT SIMPSON, San Francisco, California @brettvsimpson 

Brett Simpson is a writer and audio producer covering the contradictions embedded in systems we take for granted –– from water policy to street design. As a member of the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism Class of 2021, she helped produce Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting and The Science of Happiness podcast. Her print and audio work has appeared in The New York Times, The Associated Press, The San Francisco Chronicle, Reveal, Bay Nature Magazine, Earth Island Journal, KQED, Yale Climate Connections, and more.

ANGELA BURKE, Chicago, Illinois @burkefandb

Angela Burke is a food writer whose work centers the Black food and beverage community. She’s the creator of Black Food & Beverage, a site that celebrates those who’ve enriched America’s culinary landscape. Angela’s work has been published in Bon Appétit, Eater, Food & Wine, Resy, and others.

CARSON VAUGHAN, Chicago, Illinois @carsonvaughan

Carson Vaughan is a freelance journalist and author from central Nebraska with a focus on the Great Plains and rural America. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Outside, Pacific Standard, VICE, and more. His first book, Zoo Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream, was published by Little A in April 2019 and earned a 2020 Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction from the Nebraska Library Commission. He currently lives in Chicago with his wife and dog.

YVETTE CABRERA, Santa Barbara, California @YCabreraOC

Yvette Cabrera is a senior staff writer at Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization, where she covers environmental justice, health, and policy. Working at the intersection of justice and equity, she examines the impact of systemic disparities, such as environmental pollution and contamination, on marginalized communities throughout the country. Most recently she worked as an environmental justice reporter for HuffPost, and as an investigative reporter for ThinkProgress in Washington, D.C., where she published a five-part series showing how lead exposure is still harming children in complex ways.

BROOKE JARVIS, Seattle, Washington @brookejarvis

Brooke Jarvis is an independent journalist who often writes about the environment. She’s a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, and also writes for The New Yorker, Wired, and other publications. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2015, 2019, and 2021), The Best American Travel Writing (2019), Love and Ruin (2016), and New Stories We Tell: True Tales by America’s Next Generation of Great Women Journalists (2019).

LEAH DOUGLAS, Mount Rainier, MD, @leahjdouglas

Leah Douglas is a staff writer and associate editor at the Food and Environment Reporting Network who covers the business and politics of food and agriculture. Leah’s reporting on food system issues like consolidation, discrimination, equity, and Covid-19 has been published widely, including in the Guardian, the Nation, the Washington Post, Mother Jones, and NPR, and cited in dozens of local, national, and international news outlets. Leah’s reporting has been recognized with awards from the National Association of Agricultural Journalists and the National Farmers Union.

 

GUEST EDITORS

 

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