Celeste Hamilton Dennis
Celeste Hamilton Dennis (she/her) loves the scoop. Growing up in Levittown, New York with a single mother who asked questions at every turn—Who was at the pool today? Her mother ask where I was? How did the Bowmans afford that new porch of theirs?—it seemed inevitable she’d be just like her.
After studying literature at Boston College and University College Dublin, Celeste thought she wanted to be a music journalist and interned at The Long Island Press. While it was awesome to get free tickets to concerts, it wasn’t her thing. So she decided to head to Guyana with the Peace Corps, where she taught reading at a high school and sang a lot of karaoke.
She landed a job at Idealist.org after returning, and stayed for nearly a decade, working at all three of their offices: New York, New York; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Portland, Oregon. At Idealist, she dabbled in community outreach and spent most of her time writing about social entrepreneurs and everyday changemakers. Afterward, she had the privilege of collaborating with community college students to write their narratives and produce video stories.
It seemed natural, then, that Celeste would fall in love with solutions journalism. She actively reports on responses to social issues and believes these stories are necessary to combat the hopelessness and distrust audiences feel right now about media. Her favorite stories to do are those that combine the unexpected. At Berkeley, she hopes to merge solutions and long-form journalism, as well as explore new ways of engaging communities that go beyond the traditional paradigm.
When she’s not being a mom to two little girls, she’s seeking out rad dance parties, planning her next travel destination, and writing about mouthy women for a short story collection set in her hometown.
EDUCATION
Boston College
English Literature
Class of 2002University College Dublin
EMPLOYERS
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Portland Community College, Marketing Specialist
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Idealist.org, Editor
AWARDS & HONORS
Society of Professional Journalists NW Excellence in Journalism, Runner Up in Soft Feature Reporting for “The Unlikely Style Icon Teaching Older Women to be Fashion Rebels,” Narratively, 2019
Society of Professional Journalists NW Excellence in Journalism, Runner Up in Soft Feature Reporting for “What Is Barbershop Therapy?”, YES! Magazine, 2018
PUBLICATIONS & OTHER WORK
"A day in the life of an Oakland Chinatown community ambassador," The Oaklandside, 2023
https://oaklandside.org/2023/05/01/oakland-chinatown-community-ambassador-family-bridges-sakhone/
"Volunteer chefs keep Oakland’s pandemic-era free fridges full of hearty meals,"
The Oaklandside, 2022https://oaklandside.org/2022/12/06/community-kitchens-home-chef-town-fridge-oakland/
‘We’re reattaching people’: Mobile history project connects neighbors in North Oakland," The Oaklandside, 2022
https://oaklandside.org/2022/11/14/hear-here-oakland-history-project-north-oakland/
"Art Teachers Are Teaching Girls to Code," Next City, 2021
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/art-teachers-are-teaching-girls-to-code
"What Happens When Essential Workers Need Childcare," YES! Magazine, 2020
https://www.yesmagazine.org/health-happiness/2020/12/22/covid-child-care-essential-workers
"19 Volunteers Sharing an iPhone are Trying to Support Incarcerated People Through COVID-19," Talk Poverty, 2020
https://talkpoverty.org/2020/08/13/oregon-covid-19-prisoner-hotline/
"The Unlikely Style Icon Teaching Older Women to be Fashion Rebels," Narratively, 2019
https://narratively.com/the-unlikely-style-icon-teaching-older-women-to-be-fashion-rebels/
"How a Stock Photography Project is Confronting Fat Bias," YES! Magazine, 2019
https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2019/12/17/stock-photos-fat-bias
"What is Barbershop Therapy?" YES! Magazine, 2018
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/mental-health/2018/08/24/what-is-barbershop-therapy
"This Contemporary Art Museum is Run by Kids," Artsy, 2017
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-contemporary-art-museum-kids
"Making churches more welcoming for members with dementia: ‘ We don’t want them to think they’re forgotten’ " 2023
https://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/making-churches-more-welcoming-for-members-with-dementia-we-dont-want-them-to-think-theyre-forgotten/
MEMBERSHIPS & AFFILIATIONS
Solutions Journalism Network
Tom Wolfe Mentorship Cohort, 2019Journalists Association for Mental Health
REPORTING INTERESTS
Art Activism, Immigration, Women's Rights, affordable housing, aging, community organizing, fat justice, mass incarceration, mental health, migration, public schools, racial and economic justice, reproductive justice