2018 Fellows
Lauren Loricchio is a state tax reporter for Tax Analysts, a nonprofit publisher of state, national and international tax news. Before joining Tax Analysts, Lauren covered breakings news, cops and courts and education for the Baltimore Sun Media Group. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a bachelor’s degree in fine arts with an emphasis in photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Stephanie Kelly works as a public finance and municipal bonds reporter at Reuters in New York. She recently graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in June. She previously worked as an intern on Reuters’ public finance team in summer 2016 and has also spent time reporting at an investigative news agency in Cape Town, South Africa.
Hannah Schwarz covers local government and politics for the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, part of the USA Today Network. Most of her time is spent covering the county executive’s office, county legislature, Binghamton mayor’s office, and Binghamton City Council. Before joining the Press & Sun in September 2016, she interned as a metro reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and a features reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Statehouse Reporter Wallace McKelvey covers politics, policing, the environment and city government for PennLive/The Patriot-News. A New Jersey native, he previously reported for the Salisbury (Md.) Daily Times and The Press of Atlantic City.
Andy Mannix is an investigative reporter for the Star Tribune covering city government. He’s previously covered criminal justice, including police shootings, mental health in prisons and the impact of long-term solitary confinement on inmates. Prior to joining the Star Tribune, Mannix worked for MinnPost, City Pages and The Minnesota Daily
Kaitlin Lange is a statehouse reporter for The Indianapolis Star, where she covers Indiana politics, Vice President Mike Pence and state agencies. Previously she was the statehouse reporter for the Evansville Courier & Press. The Cincinnati native graduated from Ball State University with a bachelor’s degree in political science, journalism and telecommunications.
Joey Peters is a freelance reporter based in Minneapolis. In his decade as a journalist, his investigations uncovered a sitting deputy superintendent charged with child molestation, a coordinated state government practice to fraudulently deny food stamp benefits to eligible recipients and a $1 million water discount a city government gave to a wealthy rancher through a handshake deal. He’s served as senior reporter at NM Political Reportand staff writer at the Santa Fe Reporter, both in New Mexico.
Ryan Prete is a state tax reporter for Bloomberg BNA. Prior to joining Bloomberg BNA, he covered cybersecurity-related policy on Capitol Hill. Ryan holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Carmen Castro-Pagan is a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law’s pension and benefit publications. She received a B.A. in political sciences from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus, a J.D. from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico School of Law, and a LL.M. from the American University Washington College of Law. Prior to joining Bloomberg BNA, she worked as an associate attorney in a medium-size law firm in San Juan, Puerto Rico focusing in state and federal employment law.
Michael Shepherd has been a political reporter for the Bangor Daily News in Maine since 2015,covering Gov. Paul LePage, the state’s congressional delegation, the Legislature and campaigns. Before that, he was a reporter at the Kennebec Journal. He is a graduate of the University of Maine and is pursuing a master’s degree at the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine.
Gregory Pratt is a general assignment reporter with a focus on investigative work at the Chicago Tribune. He has worked at alt-weeklies in Phoenix and Minneapolis as well as a Spanish daily in Chicago, his hometown.
Julia Ritchey is a radio journalist and podcaster with nearly a decade of local and international reporting experience. She currently serves as the politics reporter and interim managing editor at KUER News in Salt Lake City, where she focuses on the state legislature and public policy. Her work has taken her to five countries – from the Beijing Olympics to a beer factory in Guinea-Bissau – and earned her three regional Edward R. Murrow awards.
Stephannie Stokes is a reporter at the NPR affiliate in Atlanta, WABE 90.1. She covers the city of Atlanta with a focus on housing and transportation issues. Before that, she worked as a producer at WAMU, the public radio station in D.C., and interned at NPR’s national headquarters. She is originally from Seattle.
Alan Suderman is the statehouse reporter in Virginia for the Associated Press. He’s previously worked at the Center for Public Integrity, the Washington City Paper, the Washington Examiner and the Juneau Empire. Suderman is a former Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa and has short-term work experience as a plumber, ranch hand, fruit picker and fisherman. He’s married with three kids.
Elly Dearman is a reporter for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, a part of the USA TODAY Network, covering courts, crime and politics. She is also a member of the hurricane recovery team for the Caller-Times. Before that she was a legislative reporter for the Quorum Report in Austin. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.
Julie Garcia has worked for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times since March 2015 in a general assignment and breaking news reporter. She’s covered two natural disasters (Wimberley floods and Hurricane Harvey), city-wide emergencies (Corpus Christi’s water crisis in 2016) and a number of environmental and health care-related items.
Trevor Brown is the state capitol reporter for Oklahoma Watch, a non-profit news outlet that specializes in investigative journalism. Brown has covered state and local politics for nearly a decade. He spent five years as the Wyoming Tribune Eagle’s statehouse reporter and previously covered state issues for Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.’s chain of newspapers in Oklahoma. He was the city/county government reporter for the Staunton News Leader in Virginia.
Brandon Formby is the Urban Affairs Reporter for The Texas Tribune. He writes about the challenges facing Texas’ largest metro areas as they experience unbridled growth. He joined the Tribune in October 2016 and is the organization’s first reporter based in Dallas. The Texas Tech University graduate spent more than 13 years at The Dallas Morning News, where he covered transportation, local government and politics.
Marina Villeneuve is the Maine state government and politics reporter for the Associated Press. She focuses on accountability issues using public records requests, data and narratives. She has reported across the Northeast, Canada and Colombia for a variety of outlets from national news organizations, such as the Washington Post, to small investigative nonprofits, such as the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 2013 with a degree in government.
Jeff McMurray is an editor for The Associated Press on its Chicago-based Central Desk, which handles copy for 14 states ranging from the Dakotas to Texas. He helps lead the region’s coverage of politics and government stories and holds annual training sessions for new legislative reporters. McMurray moved to Chicago in 2010 after five years as the AP’s correspondent in Lexington, Kentucky. He previously spent six years covering the Alabama and Georgia congressional delegations from the company’s Washington bureau and has worked as a legislative reporter in Tallahassee, Florida.
Andrew Keatts has been with Voice of San Diego for five years. He’s the paper’s senior investigative reporter and assistant editor, and has covered city hall, land use and urban development, public transportation, elections, public safety and criminal justice. In the last year, he uncovered a major forecasting scandal at the San Diego Association of Governments, a major regional planning body with taxation authority, that led the state legislature to pass a bill reforming the agency and caused the long-time executive director to step down.
Phuong Le is an environment and general news reporter at The Associated Press in Seattle. Prior to joining the AP, she covered investigations, state and local government and other topics for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for nearly a decade.
Erin Adler reports on local government issues and suburban life in Dakota County – Minnesota’s third largest county – at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. She has also covered education and breaking news in her five years at the Star Tribune. A former teacher of middle schoolers and adults learning English, she carried her passion for learning and literacy over into the journalism world.
Jeff Tiberii has been the Capitol Bureau Chief at North Carolina Public Radio (WUNC) since 2015. Prior to that he was a general assignment reporter based in Greenbsoro, NC. And from 2007-2011 he hosted Morning Edition, reported on a range of issues, and produced a weekly sports commentary for WFDD (Winston-Salem). His experience with NPR member stations WUNC, WFDD and WAER (Syracuse) dates back 13 years. Jeff’s work has been recognized with six regional Edward R. Murrow Awards.
Alanna Autler is an Investigative reporter at WSMV in Nashville, TN and delves into topics including taxpayer waste, government accountability and questionable business practices. Prior she was a multimedia reporter at WOWK-TV in Charleston, WV.
