Berkeley Journalism Quarterly Newsletter: Spring 2025

 

Dear Berkeley Journalism Community,

In these times of extreme challenge to our democratic institutions, academic freedom, and rule of law — times that disproportionately affect those who are already at risk in our communities — UC Berkeley Journalism remains steadfast in our values and mission.

As we prepare the next generation of journalists to graduate at this unprecedented time for the nation, we are doubling down on what we do best: journalism and journalism education. We’ve launched an all-school reporting project — “The Stakes”— a collaboration with our California Local News Fellowship Program reporters statewide to cover the local effects of the stream of executive orders, federal actions and proposed cuts issued since January 20 — actions that touch on research, policy and practice, affecting health and wellbeing, immigration and international travel, the environment, seniors, equity and equal protection in schools, and so much more.

Journalism has never been for the faint of heart and that’s especially true now. I want to extend my gratitude to all of you working in journalism or in related fields for your dedication to our communities, country and free press. And thank you for engaging with and supporting Berkeley Journalism in all of the ways that you do to help us meet this moment and the moments ahead.

Warm regards,

Elena Conis
Acting Dean and Professor

Follow our social media channels to learn more about our community’s important work and accolades in real time. If we have inadvertently left anyone out, please let us know by sending your news to journalism@berkeley.edu.

Awards and Accolades

Alums Katey Rusch (’20) and Casey Smith (’20) and our Investigative Reporting Program continue to receive acclaim for their two-part investigative series “Right to Remain Secret,” — developed in UC Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program and published in the San Francisco Chronicle — unveiling how multiple police agencies in California used secretive legal settlements to mask the misconduct of officers.

Rusch, Smith and the Investigative Reporting Program itself were named 2025 Pulitzer Prize finalists in local reporting. They also won the 2025 IRE Award in Print/Online – Division II for Investigative Reporting, a Polk Award, Selden Ring, Best in Show Newspapers Award and first place in the investigative reporting in top 20 media market category at the National Headliner Awards and the Goldsmith Prize. The project is also a finalist for Excellence in Local/Regional Investigative Reporting in the Scripps Howard Journalism Awards. Read a Q&A with Rusch here.

Professor Jennifer LaFleur, who leads Berkeley Journalism’s data reporting, and alum Steven Rascón (‘22) were part of  The Center for Public Integrity, Reveal, Mother Jones and PRX teams named Pulitzer Prize finalists in explanatory reporting for “40 Acres and a Lie.” The story is about a U.S. government program that gave — and then took away — land titles to more than 1,200 formerly enslaved people in the immediate post-Civil War era. The story also won best podcast in The American Society of Magazine Editors awards and a duPont-Columbia Award in January and won second place in the prestigious IRE Philip Meyer Award at NICAR 2025.

Susie Neilson (’19), a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, was named a 2025 Pulitzer Prize finalist in national reporting for “Fast and Fatal,” a yearlong investigation that found that police pursuits now claim nearly two lives a day across the country. Neilson won a string of awards for the story, including the 2025 Hillman Prize for Newspaper Journalism, the 2025 IRE Award in Print/Online – Division II and a Sidney Award. She was also a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and the Online Journalism Awards’ Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award for the series.

Parker Yesko (’16) and Catherine Winter (’87) were on The New Yorker team that won the Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting for the investigative podcast “In the Dark” about the 2006 U.S. massacre in Haditha, Iraq.

Greg Winter (’00), international managing editor of The New York Times, was an editor on two Pulitzer Prize winning stories: one for explanatory reporting for the investigation that uncovered a campaign of forced disappearances in Afghanistan and another in international reporting for coverage of the ongoing civil war in Sudan.

Serginho Roosblad (’18), a reporter on the Associated Press Global Investigations team and Marian Carrasquero (’19) were part of the AP and “Frontline” teams named finalists in investigative reporting for their work on “Lethal Restraint,” a three-year investigation documenting how many people in the U.S. die after police officers use restraint tactics not meant to kill.

Roosblad (’18) and Carrasquero (’19) were also honored with a Selden Ring Special Citation for “Lethal Restraint.”

2025 News & Documentary Emmy Awards nominations: Jeffrey Plunkett (’05), showrunner and an executive producer of “Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller,” received a whopping 29 nominations; Bret Sigler (’03) and Singeli Agnew (’07) for Outstanding Editing – Documentary for “Citizen Nation”, Serginho Roosblad (‘18) and Marian Carrasquero (‘19) for Outstanding Investigative News Coverage – Long Form and Outstanding Research – News for “Documenting Police Use of Force” for the AP and PBS Frontline; Alexis Bloom (’01) for Outstanding Research – Documentary for “The Bibi Files”; “The Grab” was nominated for Outstanding Investigative Documentary: associate producers were JoeBill Muñoz (’19), Mallory Newman (’19), Emma Schwartz (’19) and Yinuo Shi (’21) with additional associate producer/archival producer, and production assistants Christian Collins (’20), Buddy Terry (’23), Myah Overstreet (’23) and Talia Mindich (’20).

The second season of the KQED investigative podcast “On Our Watch” — reported by alum Sukey Lewis (’15) won a 2024 IRE Award for Best Longform Journalism in Audio and a James Madison Freedom of Information Award from SPJ NorCal. Lots of J-Schoolers in the mix: The podcast was scored and produced by Steven Rascón (’22). The senior editor is Victoria Mauleón (’01). Kathleen Quinn (’24), Laura Fitzgerald (’24), Cayla Mihalovich (’24), Julietta Bisharyan (’23), William Jenkins (’23), Elizabeth Santos (’25), Armon Owlia (’23) and Junyao Yang (’23) provided research. April Dembosky (’08) was an editorial consultant. Associate Dean Jeremy Sanchez Rue (‘07) contributed data analysis. Professor David Barstow provided support and guidance.

Mihir Zaveri (’14) of The New York Times is a finalist for the Livingston Awards for local reporting for “The Housing Crunch”, a five-part series on New York City’s affordable housing crisis. The awards honor the best reporting and storytelling by journalists under 35 across all forms of journalism.

UC Berkeley Journalism’s audio concentration was well represented in the Narrative Podcast category at the SPJ regional Mark of Excellence Awards handed out this week in San Francisco: Celeste Hamilton Dennis (’24) won for her audio thesis: a podcast profile of El Daña, which ran on NPR’s “Code Switch.” She will go on to compete for National SPJ recognition.

The finalists included a team of students from this year’s Intro to Audio course: Nava Rawls, Anna Zou, Julia Mayer, Lisa Plachy and Ellie Prickett-Morgan for a podcast broadcast on UC Berkeley’s campus radio station, KALX, focusing on why public transit across the Bay Area is struggling with perpetually low ridership. Each journalist examined how different transportation agencies are trying to fix the problem.

Skylla Mumana (’26) was a finalist in the General News Reporting category of the SPJ regional Mark of Excellence Awards for “Richmond’s renaissance: Collective launches plan to make city a hub for the arts” published in Richmond Confidential. Kelsey Oliver (’25) was a finalist for Breaking News Reporting for “Patients witnessed ‘erratic’ behavior from SLO doctor — one said he was sexually assaulted,” published in The San Luis Obispo Tribune. Celeste Hamilton Dennis (’24) also won the Sports Writing category for “Paddling out with California’s older women surfers” in San Diego Magazine.

Ari Sen (’22) won third place in the IRE Philip Meyer Award at NICAR 2025 for “Bleeding Out,” a story that appeared in The Dallas Morning News and the San Antonio Express-News.

Mara Kardas-Nelson’s (’20) first book, We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky, was shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas book prize.

72nd Scripps Howard Journalism Awards: Nicholas Kusnetz (’09) of Inside Climate News has been named a finalist for Excellence in Environmental Reporting for “Cashing Out: The secretive system disrupting climate action and forcing big payouts to fossil fuel companies”; Bret Sigler (’03) and Singeli Agnew (’07) for Excellence in National/International Video Storytelling and Excellence in Visual Human-Interest Storytelling for “Citizen Nation” for Retro Report on PBS; Katey Rusch (’20) and Casey Smith (’20) of the Investigative Reporting Program/San Francisco Chronicle for Excellence in Local/Regional Investigative Reporting for “Right to Remain Secret”; and associate producers JoeBill Muñoz (’19), Mallory Newman (’19) and Emma Schwartz (’19) for “The Grab” from The Center for Investigative Reporting, Rocklin | Faust, Impact Partners, Magnolia Pictures, Participant Media for Excellence in Business/Financial Reporting. (See full list of J-School community contributors in the News & Documentary Emmy Awards nominations above.)

Nazmul Ahasan (’23), who served as a founding deputy editor at Netra News, was part of the team that won the Shorenstein Journalism Award from Stanford. The judges cited Ahasan’s investigation “Body Count” that revealed 2,597 people killed in 13 years — with data capturing the staggering scale of extrajudicial executions, fatal shootings and custodial torture across Bangladesh. Ahasan won a Sigma Award, which recognizes the best data-driven projects of the past year, for the investigation in 2024.

Celeste Hamilton Dennis (’24) won third place in the Gary Corcoran Student Prize for excellence in reporting on disability, from the National Center on Disability and Journalism for “Counselors help seniors clean up, avoid eviction” published in the San Francisco Chronicle as part of our Investigative Reporting Program’s “Aging in America” series. The story was supported by IRP editor Christine Schiavo and funded through the SCAN Foundation.

Student News

Berkeley News profiled Robert Strauss (‘25), a 73-year-old master’s student who returned this academic year to complete his degree after a 50-year leave of absence.

Dean’s Fellow Sara Martin (’26) won and placed as a finalist for Region 9 SPJ Mark of Excellence awards in both news reporting and investigative reporting. First-place winners will compete at the national level among other MOE winners from the 12 SPJ regions. Martin spent her early career reporting across Colorado on local government and statewide policies.

The Class of 2025 selected students Choekyi Lhamo, Cecil Egbele and Hussain Khan, Professor David Barstow, and lecturer and local news editor Christine Schiavo to speak at the 2025 Commencement on May 17.

Cecil Egbele (’25) was a semi-finalist in the annual Grad Slam. The campus-wide competition showcases graduate student research for a general audience in three-minute talks where finalists compete for a chance to represent Berkeley at the UC-wide championship in Sacramento.

Elizabeth Santos (’25), a data journalist at our Investigative Reporting Program, served on a panel at NICAR 2025 that highlighted her contributions to KQED’s investigative podcast “On Our Watch” and the California Reporting Project. First-year students Ava Hu (’26) and Daniella Jiménez (’26) were awarded NICAR Fellowships to attend the conference. Read the story here.

Riley Ramirez (’26) reports for KPBS on two San Diego nonprofits that are poised to lose promised environmental justice grants. Read the story and an interview with Ramirez here. She also published The Stakes: EPA suspends North Richmond grant for a second time, putting $19 million project in limbo, in Richmond Confidential. The story was also picked up by Bay Nature.

Four first-year students — Daniel Ekonde of Cameroon, James Mawien Manyuol of South Sudan, Victor Ochieng of Kenya and Jennifer Ugwa of Nigeria — are this year’s Mastercard Foundation Scholars at UC Berkeley Journalism, part of a campuswide program in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation that covers the educational costs of students seeking master’s degrees. More than 15 Mastercard Foundation Scholars have earned their graduate degrees at Berkeley Journalism since 2012. Berkeley Journalism is the only graduate-level journalism school in the United States in the partnership. Read about them here.

Ekonde recently published a report in “Africa is a Country” on Africa’s role in the global AI race. In the story, he argues that while African leaders profess to be harnessing AI for development, they are not investing in the required power, connectivity, and people and therefore risk the West’s entrenchment of ‘digital colonialism.’

Ava Hu (‘26) published a story in The Guardian about nearly 40 students having their visas revoked over minor infractions (for which they had been fingerprinted) amid President Trump’s intensified crackdown on international students. Hu says “Everything happened really fast — students started getting the news on Friday, and there was a lot of panic on social media. In that moment, I felt that maybe, as a journalist, this was something I was meant to do.”

Hu published a follow-up story about how the US restored the legal status of hundreds of students after abruptly revoking visas. Her stories in The Guardian and Daily Californian highlighted how the sudden policy reversal brought relief to some students, but others had already lost jobs or left the country due to deportation risks.

The competitive Jim Marshall Fellowships were awarded to second-year students Denis Akbari (’25) and Walter David Marino (’25). The $6,000 prize, named after renowned photographer Jim Marshall, supports a new generation of photojournalists by helping to reduce the debt burden they carry into their professional lives. The funding is provided by former reporter and legendary ad-man Jeff Goodby and San Francisco-based photographer and Marshall’s long-time assistant and heir Amelia Davis. The fellowships are overseen by Ken Light, the Reva and David Logan Professor of Photojournalism at UC Berkeley Journalism.

Aisha Wallace-Palomares (’25) reports for KQED’s “The California Report” about LA artist Rhyan Lavelle Lowery, who performs as El Compa Negro and sings regional Mexican music in a city best known for rap music.

Kelly Liu (’26) has spent the spring as a Journalism Fellow at the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center for Data Science and Environment at Berkeley producing an explainer video on an open-source platform designed to transform geospatial data collaboration through the Jupyter ecosystem. The video combines expert interviews, b-roll, and visual storytelling to help a broader audience understand how this initiative addresses critical barriers in environmental research. The new fellowship was facilitated by Professor and Knight Chair in Climate Journalism Jason Spingarn-Koff.

First years Seven Wu and Victor Ochieng published a powerful video and print story in Oakland North about an Oakland nonprofit that has been working in neighborhoods to interrupt the cycle of violence that often leads to retaliation and incarceration.

For our special series The Stakes, Haydee Barahona (’26) reports for Local News Matters on how Richmond and Oakland schools are working to protect immigrant families after the Trump administration ended a policy shielding schools from immigration enforcement. The story was co-published with UC Berkeley Journalism news sites Oakland North and Richmond Confidential.

Writer and audio producer Hussain Khan (’25) published a story for KQED’s “California Report” about a San Diego jazz band called ‘Al Akhbar’ that fuses cultures and sounds with Middle Eastern jazz. The show is hosted by alum Sasha Khokha (’04).

Kelsey Oliver’s (’25) 10,000-word, five-part series about primary care and specialty care shortages in San Luis Obispo County and its ripple effects on the healthcare system — reported over the summer during her internship — was published in The San Luis Obispo Tribune.

Taylor Barton (’25) published a story in Richmondside about a Richmond, California, community hub and safe haven for the city’s teens and climate-related emergencies missing out on needed cost savings due to PG&E connection delays.

Two of our students have been awarded competitive Dow Jones News Fund Internships: Ava Hu (’26) will spend the summer asking tough questions, digging into government records and building interactive data visualizations at the Houston Chronicle, and Meg Tanaka (‘25) will work on the tech reporting team in the Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau.

Marion Apio’s (’25) stunningly researched, reported, filmed and edited documentary “Abuse of Journalists in Uganda” is now available to screen on the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley’s YouTube channel. In it, Apio, an investigative journalist and former HRC student fellow, explores the harsh realities faced by journalists in Uganda, shedding light on the systemic abuse, censorship, and dangers that threaten the lives of journalists and press freedom in the country.

Our 6th annual Media Mayhem Career and Networking event in March, co-hosted by the school’s National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) student chapter, connected more than 120 recruiters with students and recent graduates about jobs and internships across the news industry. Bravo to Director of Career Development Betsy Rate for another wildly successful event.

Fifty-five students from our Class of 2026 will soon be off to internships across the country, from the Tampa Bay Times to Mississippi Today/the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.

Anna Zhou is headed to Northern California Public Radio, Jennifer Ugwa to Inside Climate News, Nava Rawls will be the Food and Wine Intern at the San Francisco Chronicle and Jack Hildebrand is joining UNTOLD and Stardust Frames Productions as a production intern, supporting the production of Netflix’s acclaimed character-driven sports documentaries.

Meanwhile the Class of 2025 heads into the world for their post-graduation internships: Hailey Wang will be on the Los Angeles Times data and graphics team; Iris Qiu on graphics and data viz at Bloomberg Law; Cecil Egbele will be at Bloomberg News; Edison Wu heads to The Texas Tribune; Denis Akbari was awarded a fellowship at PBS Station KVIE in Sacramento; and Julia Haney is heading to Reveal.

Faculty News

Acting Dean Elena Conis published We Need a Reminder of What the Pre-Vaccine Era Was Like in New York Times Opinion in March. “For people who’ve never seen them, the worst manifestations of some of these preventable diseases are almost unimaginable,” she wrote. Conis is a historian of medicine and public health and the author of “Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization” wrote.

Ken Light was interviewed in The Guardian about once having one of his photos of presidential candidate John Kerry manipulated as part of a rightwing smear campaign focused on his military record.

Bill Drummond was interviewed on Univisión by alum Marcos Martínez Chacón (’20) about the new administration’s relationship with the press and the makeup of its press conferences.

Adam Hochschild published “America was at its most Trumpiest 100 years ago. Here’s how to prevent the worst,” in The Washington Post Opinion section in April. The celebrated historian writes that it is easy to imagine that constitutional rights are under greater threat today than ever in the past, but history suggests otherwise. He also reviewed Douglas Waller’s new biography, The Determined Spy, for The Nation.

Nick Romeo published “Affordable housing is in short supply across the US. Atlanta may have found a way forward,” in The Guardian.

Diana Diroy edited Standing Above the Clouds, screening at CAAM Fest in San Francisco on May 11. More info here.

Dean Geeta Anand will take leave from UC Berkeley to become editor-in-chief of VTDigger, a nonprofit publication that is the biggest newsroom in Vermont. She will be based in Montpelier, beginning July 1. Anand — who spent four years early in her career at Vermont’s Rutland Herald — says she’s looking forward to contributing to local journalism at a perilous time for the field and to being closer to family on the East Coast. “This job is really coming full circle for Greg and me,” Anand said in the Vermont Digger announcement, referring to her husband Greg Kroitzsh, who was raised in Vermont. “It has always been our dream to come back to Vermont, and this job gives us the chance to do that in a way that is truly meaningful as a journalist and journalism leader.” Acting Dean Elena Conis, a professor of journalism and history, led the school this academic year. A new dean is expected to be named in the coming weeks.

Alumni News

Kathleen Hennessey (’04) has been named editor of The Minnesota Star Tribune. Hennessey joins the media platform after spending the past three years at The New York Times as a deputy politics editor. She spent much of her career in Washington, where she covered politics, Congress and the Obama White House, initially for the Tribune newspapers and then for The Associated Press. She began her editing career in 2016 as AP’s White House Editor and was quickly elevated to deputy Washington chief.

Misha Kapany Schwarz (’24) and Maarya Zafar’s (’24) thesis documentary “When the Smoke Clears” was published by the LA Times in February. The 21-minute documentary follows two first-responders as they explore how experimental treatments could offer a potential solution for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sachi Kitajima Mulkey (’24) has been named to the 2025–26 New York Times Fellowship class focusing on covering climate.

Jimmy Tobias (’16) recently launched a news desk on Substack called Public Domain to produce investigative reporting on public lands, wildlife and resources. Subscribe here.

Hanisha Harjani’s (’23) published “Rape under wraps: how Tinder, Hinge and their corporate owner chose profits over safety,” an investigation in The Guardian.

Niema Jordan (MJ/MPH ’16), who studied under former doc Professors Jon Else and Orlando Bagwell, is a producer on the six-part HBO documentary series “Eyes on the Prize III: We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest 1977–2015.” Else is a series advisor, Rafael Roy (’18) is director of photography for Episode 5 and Katie Bernstein (’21) was lead assistant editor and post-supervisor across the series.

The Cal Alumni Association profiled Emmy-nominated filmmaker Sara Maamouri (’00): “In a world starved for depth and authenticity, Maamouri’s cinematic canon reminds us that truth-telling isn’t just powerful — it’s essential.”

Williamena Kwapo (‘23) has been selected for the inaugural Ida B. Wells Society Reporting Fellowship. Kwapo is a reporter at the Sacramento Observer in the first cohort of the California Local News Fellowship, a state-funded local news initiative based at UC Berkeley Journalism.

After 18 years at the Washington Post covering Latin America, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and DHS, Nick Miroff (’06) has joined The Atlantic. In the announcement, Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg called Miroff “one of America’s foremost reporters on immigration” who “knows more about the innermost workings of the Department of Homeland Security than, quite possibly, the department itself.”

Lisa Pickoff-White (’09), director of research for the California Reporting Project based out of the Investigative Reporting Program, was interviewed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation​​.

Izzy Bloom (’22), a reporter at KQED public radio and the producer of Political Breakdown, has been awarded the 2025 Ferriss-UC Berkeley Journalism Fellowship. The Fellowship, funded by leading podcaster and bestselling author Tim Ferriss through the Saisei Foundation, offers ten $10,000 reporting grants per year to journalists reporting in-depth print and audio stories on the science, policy, business and culture of this new era of psychedelics. Read about all the fellows here.

Recent Event Highlights

 

Our Ocean’s Stories Symposium: Science, Stewardship and Sustainability in March was a fantastic day of lightning talks, panels and keynotes from scientists and journalists focused on storytelling about the health of our oceans. Professor Jason Spingarn-Koff (’01) spearheaded the event. Watch the talks on our YouTube channel.

The Fourth Biennial Reva and David Logan Photobook Symposium was held on April 12 at UC Berkeley’s International House. The biennial event, hosted by Professor Ken Light and launched in 2017, brought together photographers, academics, students and collectors to celebrate the photographic book.

This year’s alumni reunion in March celebrated graduates who focused on print, long-form, or narrative journalism at Berkeley Journalism. The day was aimed at both working journalists and those who have moved on to a new field. It featured three panels featuring J-School alumni and faculty. The day closed with a fireside chat with Tasneem Raja (‘10), editor-in-chief of The Oaklandside.

A Request

This is a pivotal moment for journalists to stand up and confront the threats facing democracy and our shared future, both at home and globally. At Berkeley Journalism, we’re equipping the next generation of reporters to take on this critical mission. And it’s not just about what our students learn here — it’s about the difference they’re already making. From covering elections and local news to producing in-depth investigative stories, they’re shining a light on the issues that matter most. Your gift helps train fearless journalists who dig deeper, ask the hard questions, and tell stories that truly make an impact. Donate — and watch a new video about the IRP — here.

About this communique: The Dean’s Letter is a quarterly email newsletter sent to alumni, donors, students, faculty, media partners and others in Berkeley Journalism’s broad community. If you’d like to follow ongoing developments in real-time, find us on Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, X and LinkedIn. Have alumni news or accomplishments to share? Please send it, along with a high-res headshot to journalism@berkeley.edu. Are you hiring? Please reach out to career.services@berkeley.edu. Want to learn more about donating to the school? Contact stevekatz@berkeley.edu.