University of Tampa Design and New Media Travel Course

Emily Albracht is a multidisciplinary designer. She develops and maintains the visual design systems and brand guidelines for The Texas Tribune. She first joined the organization in 2014 as a graphic designer. Over these years, she has been crucial in elevating the Tribune brand, keeping it fresh and consistent across all platforms. Before joining The Texas Tribune, she slung espresso and was a freelance creative in the local music and festival industry. Read Articles by Emily Albracht

Rebekah Allen is the politics editor for The Texas Tribune, where she previously served as the news editor. Before joining the Tribune, she worked as a statehouse reporter for The Dallas Morning News. Previously, she was an investigative reporter and statehouse reporter for The Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and an education reporter at the Pensacola News Journal in Florida. Read Articles by Rebekah Allen

Liam Andrew ensures that The Texas Tribune's systems for content management, distribution and analysis align with organizational priorities and user needs. He joined the Tribune in 2015 after completing a master's degree in MIT's Comparative Media Studies program, where he worked with a variety of research groups including the Nieman Journalism Lab, Center for Civic Media and HyperStudio. An Iowa native, Liam earned his bachelor's degree in literature and music at Yale University.

Virginia Arrigucci is the deputy director of RevLab at The Texas Tribune. RevLab is a training and innovation program that shares what the Tribune has learned in its history with other newsrooms on the path to sustainability. Before the Tribune, Virginia spent nine years at The Associated Press where she worked on digital products and audience. She is originally from El Paso.

Carla Astudillo is a news app and data visuals developer with a focus on elections and political data. Previously, she was a data and interactive visuals journalist at NJ.com and The Star-Ledger in New Jersey, where she helped build a database of police use of force in the state as part of a 16-month investigative project. Carla was also deputy data visuals editor at the International Business Times. She got her master's degree from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and her bachelor's degree from the University of Florida. Carla grew up in Florida but is a native of Chile. Read Articles by Carla Astudillo

James Barragán is a politics reporter for The Texas Tribune with a focus on accountability reporting. Prior to joining the Tribune, he worked as a statehouse reporter for The Dallas Morning News and had previous stints at the Austin American-Statesman and The Los Angeles Times. In 2021, he was a finalist for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Local Reporting for his coverage of Texas politics during COVID-19. A Southern California native, he received his bachelor's degree in history from UCLA. Read Articles by James Barragán

Jorge Barrueta is a senior studying computer science at St. Edward's University and the Tribune's fall engineering fellow. He's had two internships for local biotech firm Macromoltek — as a scientific data curator and a software developer. He also worked as a software developer for EMS Serrot LLC.

Morgan Bennett is the Texas Tribune's business administrator, organizing the Tribune's revenue streams and providing general operational support. They are a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where they became interested in nonprofit operations through their work with various student and community organizations. Before joining the Tribune in 2019, they previously worked at their hometown newspaper, the Colorado County Citizen.

John Mathew Bernal (JMAT) serves as the Senior Sponsorship Manager for the Texas Tribune Revenue Team. Born and raised in Austin and a graduate of Texas State University, JMAT has an extensive background in Sales and Marketing. He joins the Texas Tribune team from DoStuff Media, where he successfully designed holistic campaigns for national brands like Jack Daniel's and Budweiser. Before DoStuff, JMAT was part of the Marketing team at SXSW and Brown Distributing Co. For the last five years, JMAT has run an art nonprofit, Chula League, whose mission is to fuel and sustain the arts in East Austin.

Bobby Blanchard runs The Texas Tribune's audience team while strategizing with the newsroom to expand the organization's reach and engagement across all platforms. He strives to ensure the Tribune is a leading voice every day in the conversation online around Texas policy and politics. A graduate of UT-Austin, Bobby spent his first year out of college at The Dallas Morning News as a reporting fellow, covering Texas politics and breaking news. He got his start in journalism in the poorly lit basement of The Daily Texan, followed by internships at the Houston Chronicle, KUT News and, yes, the Tribune. Born and raised in the Houston area, Bobby is a native Texan. He relies on a steady supply of Tex-Mex and Red Bull to survive. Read Articles by Bobby Blanchard

Neelam Bohra is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, and is returning to the Tribune for her second semester as a reporting fellow. She has worked as a national news desk intern for CNN Digital, a news intern for The Austin Chronicle, and in multiple positions at UT's student newspaper, The Daily Texan, including associate news editor. Read Articles by Neelam Bohra

Jacki Brinker is the director & experiential producer for The Texas Tribune's events. A midwest native, she moved to Austin in 2007 to complete a year of AmeriCorps service with all intentions of moving back to her "home." Texas got her good, though — Jacki joined the Texas Roller Derby in 2008, collected an MSSW from The University of Texas at Austin in 2010, and started claiming Texas as her home state by 2011. She brings ten-plus years of experience in event production, relationship building and nonprofit development, most recently producing events and campaigns for Texas Monthly.

Mandi Cai tells stories with code and graphics as part of the data visuals team. Previously, she created dashboards for scientists at BioBright, a Boston-based biotechnology company, and visualized defense data for Defense Footprint, a project contextualizing the United States' international military presence. She graduated from Brown University in 2017 with a concentration in neuroscience, focusing on the intersection of cognitive science and design. Mandi enjoys murals, freestyle embroidery and animated films. Read Articles by Mandi Cai

Julia Calagiovanni is the grants and awards manager at The Texas Tribune. Before coming to the Tribune, she worked at a disability rights nonprofit and as an editorial fellow at The Atlantic. She graduated from Yale University in 2015 as a Yale Journalism Scholar.

Darla Cameron is the data visuals editor at The Texas Tribune in Austin, where she leads a team of developers at the intersection of graphics and news applications. She loves to use data to hold public officials accountable and create more transparency in the murky world of state politics. Her team's visualizations help readers understand Texas better. Previously, she was a graphics editor at The Washington Post. She began her career in Florida at the Tampa Bay Times after completing a fellowship at the Poynter Institute. Darla is a Colorado native with a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. Read Articles by Darla Cameron

Sewell Chan joined The Texas Tribune as editor in chief in October 2021. Previously he was a deputy managing editor and then the editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he oversaw coverage that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2021. Chan worked at the New York Times from 2004 to 2018, as a metro reporter, Washington correspondent, deputy Op-Ed editor and international news editor. He began his career as a local reporter at the Washington Post in 2000. A child of immigrants, Chan was the first in his family to graduate from college. He has a degree in social studies from Harvard and a master's in political science from Oxford, where he studied on a British Marshall scholarship. He is a member of PEN America, the Council on Foreign Relations and numerous journalism organizations. Read Articles by Sewell Chan

Natalie Choate is an expert strategist and communications specialist with extensive experience of creative problem solving. Throughout her career, she's built resilient systems and frameworks to drive results across a range of domains and industries. Prior to her work leading marketing and communications in nonprofit media, she ran local and regional political campaigns in Texas and drove successful public policy initiatives in the Texas Legislature. As a small business owner, Natalie is driven by the opportunity to build brands and bring big ideas to life.

Lexi Churchill was most recently a Scripps Howard research fellow at ProPublica, where she published an investigation exposing how the Trump administration's quick and quiet crackdown on Idaho's Medicaid procedures created new red tape that kept children with special needs and the state's poorest residents from maintaining insurance. She also led reporting efforts for the "Sins of Omission" project and has been involved in ProPublica's coronavirus coverage over the last few weeks. Before joining ProPublica, Lexi interned at several organizations, including CNBC and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Lexi will report to Katie Zavadski, the research editor at ProPublica. Read Articles by Lexi Churchill

Kiah Collier is an investigative reporter for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative. She previously worked at the Tribune as a reporter and associate editor since 2015, covering energy and environment through the lens of state government and politics. She was a reporter on "Hell and High Water," a Peabody Award–winning collaboration between ProPublica and the Tribune that explored the vulnerability of the Houston area to a large, devastating hurricane. In addition to the Peabody Award, she has been honored with the Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism, the National Edward R. Murrow Award for best investigation, and the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award. Read Articles by Kiah Collier

Vianna Davila is a reporter with the ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit. Previously, she was the editor of The Seattle Times' Project Homeless initiative, which examines the causes and effects of homelessness in the Seattle region. She began with the project in 2017 as a reporter, before becoming editor in 2019. Her work with the team was recognized by the Solutions Journalism Network as some of the best solutions reporting of 2018. She previously reported for the San Antonio Express-News, where over 13 years she produced stories on city politics, regional transportation and criminal justice. Her six-part project "The Next Million" explored gentrification, affordable housing, changing demographics and other urban issues in San Antonio, winning the Best of the West 2017 Journalism Contest for online presentation. She graduated from Rice University with a B.A. in English and master's of journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, with a specialty in documentary film. Her master's thesis film, "In His Blood," about the lives of overnight television news videographers, was named the best documentary short at the 2009 San Antonio Film Festival. She has previously taught journalism at the University of Washington, Texas State University and Texas A&M University-San Antonio. She is a San Antonio native and a 10th-generation Texan. (Photo: Bettina Hansen, The Seattle Times) Read Articles by Vianna Davila

Justin Dehn is a multimedia producer at The Texas Tribune whose focus is video and audio production. He's been shooting and producing news for more than two decades. At the Tribune, Dehn has been behind the camera for Tribune special projects God and Governing, Hurting for Work, Paid to Prosecute and the Emmy award winning documentary 13 Hours to Midnight. He is also the producer and host of the Tribune's daily news podcast The Brief. Read Articles by Justin Dehn

Michael Rey de Leon serves as technical director and audiovisual engineer for Studio 919, as well as providing on-location support for The Texas Tribune's remote event series. Michael Rey joined the Tribune in 2018 after spending years in the field working for organizations including MTV, SXSW, CBS and the University of Texas at Austin. A sixth-generation Texan with familial roots in the Rio Grande Valley, Michael Rey is also an accomplished multi-instrumentalist who has worked with a myriad of recording artists. When he's not wrapping cables, Michael Rey dedicates his time to his family, cooking and curating an extensive collection of musical instruments. Read Articles by Michael Rey de Leon

Erin Douglas is the environment reporter for the Texas Tribune. She was previously a business and economy reporter at the Houston Chronicle where she covered labor, energy and the environment. She studied journalism and economics at Colorado State University, and her first newsroom job was interning at The Denver Post, her hometown newspaper. Based in Austin, Erin is always planning her next road trip. Read Articles by Erin Douglas

Emily Dresslar is a former journalist who has developed a specialization in working on new ventures in news media, supporting digital innovation teams by managing operations, strategic partnerships and revenue development. Before joining the RevLab, Emily was Head of Business Operations for The Compass Experiment at McClatchy, a Google News Initiative-funded project. Prior to that, she was Head of Strategic Partnerships for Calkins Digital, an innovative technology start-up serving the news media industry. Emily earned a master's degree in Media Strategy from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and she is also a past member of the board of directors of the Local Media Consortium.

Chris Essig is the deputy data visuals editor at the Texas Tribune. He helps lead a team of developers who build charts, maintain public databases and analyze data for reporters to help them hold elected officials accountable. Chris has been a newsroom developer for 10 years and has worked in several local newsrooms. As a native of the Midwest, Chris received his journalism degree from Eastern Illinois University and spent six years in Iowa working at The Gazette in Cedar Rapids and at the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier in Waterloo. Read Articles by Chris Essig

Joshua Fechter is the urban affairs reporter for The Texas Tribune, covering policy and politics in Texas' major metropolitan areas. Before joining the Tribune in August 2021, Joshua covered City Hall for the San Antonio Express-News. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. Read Articles by Joshua Fechter

Mitchell Ferman is a reporter for The Texas Tribune covering energy and the economy from a base in Houston. Before joining the Tribune he was a reporter for The Monitor in McAllen, where he covered cross-border trade, politics and the city of McAllen. He also regularly freelanced from the Rio Grande Valley and beyond for The New York Times, Texas Monthly and Reuters, writing about topics including the family separation crisis and unexpected consequences of the border wall. He graduated from the University of Missouri. Read Articles by Mitchell Ferman

Irma Fernandez is a development officer at The Texas Tribune. She is a graduate of St. Edward's University and received a Fulbright grant to Brazil post-grad. Irma worked in politics for several cycles, spending time in Texas, Florida, and Nevada. She is an overly passionate sports fan, thinks Friday Night Lights is the greatest show of all time, and does it all for her dog named Ramsey.

Brandon Formby studied journalism at Texas Tech University. After graduation, he worked at The Dallas Morning News, where he covered local politics, suburban government and regional transportation. He joined The Texas Tribune (but remained in Dallas) as its first urban affairs reporter in 2016. He became the Trib's night news editor (and moved to Austin) in 2019. He doesn't understand Texas cities' taco wars or the inclination to stay loyal to one restaurant; he believes it's OK to love all tacos. Read Articles by Brandon Formby

Brandyn Friedly

DevOps Engineer

Uriel J. García is an immigration reporter based in El Paso. Before joining the Tribune, he worked at the Arizona Republic where he covered police violence and immigration enforcement. He started his journalism career at the Santa Fe New Mexican where he focused on covering the city's immigrant community and criminal justice issues. Originally from Mexico, he grew up in Phoenix and graduated from Arizona State University. Read Articles by Uriel J. García

Eddie Gaspar is an associate photo editor at The Texas Tribune, a job he took on after working as the Tribune's photo fellow for two semesters. Eddie is a senior at the University of Texas. He has worked as a photo editor at The Daily Texan, a multimedia intern at KUT and a contributor at Do512. He has also worked for Texas Student Television's "Austin Underground" and UT's Cactus Yearbook. Eddie is fluent in Spanish. Read Articles by Eddie Gaspar

Emily Goldstein is the copy chief at The Texas Tribune. Emily previously worked at The Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Observer. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri and her master's degree from the University of North Texas. Read Articles by Emily Goldstein

María Isabel Gonzales is a Peruvian journalist based in Lima producing Spanish reports for The Texas Tribune. She's worked for leading print publications like Grupo El Comercio, La República, and Cosas. In 2021, Gonzales served as a fellow for the International Center for Journalists. In the past year, she developed "Un día a la vez," a podcast focused on the grief of people who have lost loved ones in the pandemic and was part of the team who produced the podcast project "Lisbeth Baquerizo: la historia de una prueba." Gonzales studied at the University of San Martin de Porres in Lima and the Universitat de Barcelona in Spain. Read Articles by María Isabel Gonzales

Michael Gonzalez is a senior at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and the fall photography fellow. He studies mass communication with a concentration in print journalism. Michael has worked as a freelance photojournalist in the Valley since January and has freelanced for The Monitor newspaper in McAllen in addition to the Tribune. Read Articles by Michael Gonzalez

Malú González is the assistant director of events for the Texas Tribune, where she oversees the production and execution strategy of all Tribune events, including the Texas Tribune Festival. Previously, she planned discussions and themed conversations as the first Events Director for the Daily Texan. She has also worked as a business news reporter for the McCombs Center for Global Business and co-founded Save the Drop, an organization that promotes water conservation. A native from Tampico, Mexico, Malú graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2020 and is fluent in Spanish.

Amiee Gonzalez Johnson is the Events and Festival Manager at The Texas Tribune. She comes to us from Mondo, the creative arm of the Alamo Drafthouse. During her time there, she produced MondoCon 3-5 and countless other events at San Diego Comic Con, Texas Frightmare Weekend, Thought Bubble and DesignerCon. She loves her cat (Von), traveling, spending time with family, taking in a film festival whenever she can, the San Antonio Spurs and is a little bit of a sneakerhead. Originally from Brownsville, Texas she's called Austin home for the last 20 years. --

Catherine Grooms manages advertising operations at The Texas Tribune. Before joining the Tribune in the fall of 2017, she worked as a clothing designer in New York, where she also attended Parsons School of Design. As a native Austinite, she is glad to be back in her hometown.

Dave Harmon joined the Tribune in January 2017 as the editor for the investigative and projects team. After graduating from the University of Texas with a journalism degree, he started his reporting career in the Rio Grande Valley at The (McAllen) Monitor, covering health care and the environment. After a short stint at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, he returned to Austin and spent 18 years at the Austin American-Statesman as a reporter, assistant metro editor and finally a member of the investigative team. Read Articles by Dave Harmon

Karen Brooks Harper reports on health and human services. An alumna of the University of Missouri-Columbia Journalism School, Karen arrived in Texas in 1995 to join the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, spent several years in Laredo and Mexico covering immigration and the drug war for Knight-Ridder newspapers, and has covered Texas politics for more than two decades for news organizations including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Dallas Morning News and Reuters. Read Articles by Karen Brooks Harper

Ashley Hebler is the engineering manager at The Texas Tribune and enjoys implementing engaging and meaningful experiences for users on the web. She received a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics at Texas A&M University and a master's degree in mass communication with a focus on digital media from Texas State University. Ashley is a native Texan from Galveston and enjoys navigating the beautiful rivers of the Texas Hill Country.

Reagan Hicks is a graphic designer at The Texas Tribune and works to push the Tribune's brand forward in fresh and exciting new ways. Before joining the Tribune, he was a multidisciplinary designer and art director at a small creative agency in East Austin. Originally from El Paso, he attended Texas State University, receiving dual degrees in Communication Design and Photography.

April Hinkle is The Texas Tribune's chief revenue officer. She holds an advertising degree from the University of Texas and is responsible for the Tribune's corporate revenue programs, speakers' bureau and licensing of content. Previously April spent over 20 years at Texas Monthly, as retail advertising director, advertising and marketing director, associate publisher and publisher.

Kalley Huang is our fall data visuals fellow. She is in her final year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, where she studies statistics and journalism. Kalley reports for The Daily Tar Heel and has previously reported for The Dallas Morning News, the El Paso Times and The 9th Street Journal in Durham, North Carolina. Read Articles by Kalley Huang

Bethany Irvine is a graduate student at Georgetown University and the Washington, D.C., reporting fellow. During her three years working in the nation's capital, she has served as a public policy intern and project specialist for the Texas A&M University System's Office of Federal Relations, a national contributing writer for HerCampus.com and an intern for the U.S. House of Representatives. Read Articles by Bethany Irvine

John Jordan does a little bit of everything at The Texas Tribune. From working with our great photographers to editing our directory of elected officials to making fresh guac y queso every Friday, John manages the day-to-day operations at the Tribune and makes sure we have good coffee to drink. Before coming to work at the Tribune, John spent several decades as a touring and recording musician. In 2005, he left the road (well, sort of) to join a statewide political campaign. After that, John joined the Austin bureau of The Dallas Morning News, where he worked for four years before joining the staff at The Texas Tribune. Read Articles by John Jordan

Trinady Joslin is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin and a fall engagement fellow. She has worked as a reporting fellow for The Texas Tribune and as a reporter, section editor and managing editor at The Daily Texan. Trinady is interested in increasing accessibility within online spaces and reporting on health policy and how it impacts Texans with disabilities. Read Articles by Trinady Joslin

Jason Kao is the summer data visuals fellow and a rising senior at Columbia University. Jason has worked as a graphics intern at The New York Times, where he covered U.S. immigration, C.E.O. pay, and protests in Puerto Rico and Hong Kong. He was also a news intern at Bloomberg News, where he reported on the intersection of race, labor and climate. Jason is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association. Read Articles by Jason Kao

Kassie Kelly oversees The Texas Tribune's membership program. She joined the Tribune in 2021 after managing the membership program at the San Antonio Report, a digital-only, local nonprofit news organization. Kassie received a bachelor's degree in music and political science from Trinity University. Before moving to Austin to join the Tribune team, Kassie called San Antonio home for the large majority of her life – and (rightly) believes San Antonio's breakfast tacos are far superior to Austin's.

Eleanor Klibanoff is the women's health reporter at The Texas Tribune. She was previously with the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, where she covered sexual assault, domestic violence and policing, among other things. She has worked at public radio stations in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Missouri, as well as NPR, and her work has aired on All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Here & Now. She lives in Austin with her enormous cat, Grover Cleveland. Read Articles by Eleanor Klibanoff

Lomi Kriel is a reporter with the ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigative unit. Previously she was a reporter at the Houston Chronicle covering immigration, often focused on the Texas border. Six months before the Trump administration announced its family separation policy, Kriel uncovered how the government was secretly using the prosecution of illegal entry to detain parents until deportation and send children to federal shelters. Her stories resulted in the release of one mother and helped spur a pivotal American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit largely ending the practice. She received the 2019 George Polk Award for national reporting, in part for her continued work on family separations. Kriel, who was born and raised in South Africa, immigrated to the United States in 1998. She has also worked as a Central American correspondent for Thomson Reuters and a criminal justice reporter for the San Antonio Express-News. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University and speaks Afrikaans and Spanish. Read Articles by Lomi Kriel

Evan Lambert joined the Tribune in October 2019 as chief financial officer. He brings a diverse background and experience in nonprofit financial management, international development, microfinance and public accounting. His previous experience includes working as the CFO of United Way for Greater Austin and as CFO of Pro Mujer International, a New York-based international development org serving more than 250,000 women in Latin America. A native of New York, Evan has bachelor's and master's degrees in accounting from the McCombs School of Business at UT-Austin. He's a father of two, a Peace Corps alum, an avid cyclist and outdoorsman, and fluent in Spanish.

Terri Langford was born in Oceanside, California. Naturalized Texan. Comes by her tough love of government honestly. She majored in it at the University of Texas. First courtroom stories were in the Atticus Finch-like Lowndes County courthouse in Valdosta, Georgia, where two months into that first job for the Jacksonville-based Florida Times Union, she found herself covering a quadruple murder. Eventually moved to Jacksonville, covering social services and began unpacking the conflicted rules of government social work and public housing redevelopment for readers. Joined the Associated Press in Dallas and worked there and in Houston covering some of the state's biggest trials and complicated legal issues including the Branch Davidian standoff with ATF agents and the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas as well as witnessing several state executions. Worked for the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle, where she covered everything from airport security, civil courts and the 9/11 attacks to the strains of the Texas Child Protective Services system, the state's removal of more than 400 children from their polygamist parents in West Texas, the Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme trial and the world of Medicare fraud in Houston's private ambulance networks. Langford was named Texas Reporter of the Year in 2011 for her work on the connection between private ambulances in Houston and the non-regulated mental health clinics there. Before joining the Tribune in March 2014, she tried her hand at public radio, working for WNYC in Trenton, covering New Jersey government. Read Articles by Terri Langford

Ren Larson is a data journalist who comes to the Tribune from The Arizona Republic, where she reported on elections, immigration, environmental contamination and wildfires. Her 2019 project "Ahead of the Fire," which analyzed nearly 5,000 Western communities for wildfire hazard and human vulnerabilities, won a 2019 EPPY award for innovation, the MIT Knight Science Journalism's Victor K. McElheny award and was a finalist for the Philip Meyer Award. She holds a masters of public policy and an M.A. in international and area studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Before entering journalism in 2015, she worked as a city planner, a case manager and a data analyst. Read Articles by Ren Larson

Abby Livingston joined The Texas Tribune in 2014 as the publication's first Washington bureau chief. In this role, she covers members in the Texas congressional delegation and campaigns back in the home state. A seventh-generation Texan, Abby grew up in Fort Worth and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to the Tribune, Abby worked for NBC, CNN, National Journal and Roll Call. At the Tribune, she won the 2017 National Press Club Award for Washington regional reporting and the Society of Professional Journalists' 2018 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Washington correspondence. Abby is a contributing writer to the Almanac of American Politics and frequently appears on MSNBC, CNN and Sirius XM radio. She also had a role on an episode of "The Bold and The Beautiful." In keeping with the Trib's great history of hiring softball stars, Abby is a three-time MVP (the most in game history) for The Bad News Babes, the women's press softball team that takes on female members of Congress in the annual Congressional Women's Softball breast cancer charity game. Read Articles by Abby Livingston

Brian Lopez is the Public Education Reporter for The Texas Tribune. He joined the Tribune in August 2021 after a covering local government at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for a little over a year. The Star-Telegram was his first gig after graduating from the University of Texas at Arlington in May 2020 where he worked for the student-run newspaper The Shorthorn. When not on the job, he's either watching or playing soccer. Read Articles by Brian Lopez

Evan L'Roy is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin and the spring photography fellow. Evan has worked as a video and photography intern for Austin TV station KXAN and as a videographer and photographer for The Daily Texan. He also created promotional videos for nonprofits as part of his 2016 Eagle Scout project. Read Articles by Evan L'Roy

Regina Mack is the off-platform editor at The Texas Tribune, where she runs the daily social operation and works to expand the reach of the Tribune's journalism. An Indianapolis native, she moved to Austin to work as an engagement fellow at the Tribune after graduating from Indiana University, and she later served as the social media editor at Texas Monthly. Read Articles by Regina Mack

Natalie Martinez is the Audience Producer at The Texas Tribune. Previously, she researched and reported on misinformation campaigns on social media and tech platforms for Media Matters for America and MoveOn. Natalie graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2017 with a B.A. in American Culture Studies and Film & Media Studies. Read Articles by Natalie Martinez

Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera is the breaking news editor at The Texas Tribune. He previously worked as a digital editor at KUT.org, breaking news editor at the Austin American-Statesman and content editor at the University of Texas' Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. Before that he worked as a reporter for several English- and Spanish-language publications covering the U.S.-Mexico border, drug violence, immigration, technology and public safety. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from UT, grew up in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and has impossibly high standards when it comes to tacos al pastor. Read Articles by Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera

Matthew McCrary

Senior Full-stack Engineer

Jolie McCullough reports on criminal justice issues and policy for The Texas Tribune, ranging from coverage on policing and courts to prisons and the death penalty. She came to the Tribune in early 2015 from the Albuquerque Journal, and has previously worked at the Arizona Republic. She is a graduate of Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Read Articles by Jolie McCullough

Kate McGee covers higher education for The Texas Tribune. She joins after nearly a decade as a reporter at public radio stations across the country. She most recently covered higher ed at WBEZ in Chicago, but started on the education beat in 2013 at KUT in Austin. She has also worked at NPR affiliates in Washington D.C., New York City and Reno, Nevada. Kate was born in New York City and primarily raised in New Jersey. She graduated from Fordham University. Her work has appeared on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Here and Now, and The Takeaway. Read Articles by Kate McGee

Ed Medeles is a student at the University of Texas at Arlington and a fall engagement fellow. He is completing his bachelor's degree with a concentration in visual communication design. Ed has four years of journalism and art experience and previously worked for UT-Arlington's student publication, The Shorthorn; The Daily Dot; and The Dallas Morning News. Read Articles by Ed Medeles

Marquis Mills-Cooper joined the Texas Tribune in March of 2021 and is the Revenue Lab project manager. Prior to becoming a project management professional in 2020, Marquis enjoyed a 21-year career in the United States Army as an All Source Intelligence Warrant Officer (Chief Warrant Officer 2). He served in multiple countries and supported combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo with timely and accurate intelligence. Marquis originally hails from Queens, New York, is a father of one daughter and likes writing and going to the gym. He's also a collector of edged weapons and does volunteer work in his spare time. He's a student at Austin Community College where he majors in Government. Marquis is happy to be out of uniform and to be here with the Tribune, but will probably still answer to "Hey Chief" if you want to have some fun with him.

Ayan Mittra joined the Tribune after working more than 10 years at The Dallas Morning News. He spent his first seven years there as a copy editor. In 2008, he moved to the political desk, supervising the daily presentations and working with reporters in the field. He then worked as a night city editor, supervising the coverage of late-breaking news. He was also on the editing team for the 2009 and 2011 legislative sessions. A native of Beaumont, Ayan graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Read Articles by Ayan Mittra

Ashley Miznazi is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin and the fall multimedia fellow. She previously worked as a reporting intern for KXAN-TV in Austin and led research at the Dallas-based production company AMS Pictures. She is the co-producer of a podcast about the 2018 Austin bombings for The Drag audio production house at UT-Austin and has experience in the photo and video departments at The Daily Texan. Read Articles by Ashley Miznazi

Reese Oxner is the breaking news reporter for The Texas Tribune. He previously interned on NPR's news desk, was a summer reporting fellow at the Tribune and worked part-time covering Arlington for the Dallas Morning News. He was the editor in chief of The Shorthorn, the University of Texas at Arlington's student-run newspaper, where he earned the 2019 editor of the year award from the Texas Collegiate Press Association. He studied web design in college and really, really likes Korean BBQ. Read Articles by Reese Oxner

David Pasztor

Story Editor

David Pasztor has more than 30 years of experience as a reporter and editor, working at various publications in Texas, Arizona and California.

Darrell Pinontoan is a junior at Northwestern University in Qatar and a spring marketing and communications fellow. Darrell has written for North by Northwestern magazine and is a digital content assistant and reporter for his university's communications and public affairs department. He's also been a peer tutor and teaching assistant for first-year English classes. Read Articles by Darrell Pinontoan

James Pollard is a student at Northwestern University and a fall reporting fellow. James interned this summer on the NBC Owned Television Stations digital team. He has covered his hometown of St. Louis as an intern with the Riverfront Times and reported on President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial for Medill News Service. He has also been managing editor of The Daily Northwestern. Read Articles by James Pollard

Cassandra Pollock is The Texas Tribune's state politics reporter. She joined the Tribune full-time in June 2017 after a fellowship during the 85th Texas Legislature. Pollock spent her first two years at the Trib as an engagement reporter, which meant her name likely landed in your inbox every weekday morning with "The Brief," a newsletter on all things Texas politics and public policy. Pollock is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin's School of Journalism. Read Articles by Cassandra Pollock

Terry Quinn is a sixth-generation Texan and a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. She has worked as a volunteer and professional for over 23 years to raise funds for many nonprofit organizations in Austin and around Texas, most recently The Nature Conservancy of Texas and The Contemporary Austin. For the Tribune, Terry leads the work with the foundations and the individuals whose philanthropic support make the mission of the Tribune possible.

Ross Ramsey is executive editor and co-founder of The Texas Tribune, the only member-supported, digital-first, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. He writes regular columns on politics, government and public policy. Before joining the Tribune, he was editor and co-owner of Texas Weekly. He did a 28-month stint in government with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Before that, he reported for the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Times Herald, as a Dallas-based freelancer for regional and national magazines and newspapers, and for radio stations in Denton and Dallas. Read Articles by Ross Ramsey

Kevin Reynolds is a senior at Southern Methodist University and a fall Austin reporting fellow. Kevin has worked as a fellow at The Dallas Morning News, where he wrote features and covered education. He has also interned for The San Diego Union-Tribune, covering the San Diego Padres and college sports. Kevin is the managing editor of his student newspaper, The Daily Campus. Read Articles by Kevin Reynolds

Kailyn Rhone a senior at Florida A&M University, is a fall Austin reporting fellow. Previously, Kailyn was the health, environment and breaking news reporter for the Tampa Bay Times and an engagement intern for California Magazine. Her reporting has also appeared in Teen Vogue and the Tallahassee Democrat. She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. Read Articles by Kailyn Rhone

Alana Rocha is the director of news partnerships for The Texas Tribune, where she previously served as a multimedia reporter after working in television and radio news for eight years. Alana has covered politics for stations in Florida, Kansas and Texas and traveled the country reporting from the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaign trails. She has been the lead reporter on several award-winning projects and launched "The Brief," a daily audio update. A native of Tampa, Florida, Alana received bachelor's degrees in journalism and Spanish from the University of Florida. Read Articles by Alana Rocha

Sumaya Saati is a Development Officer at The Texas Tribune. She earned her undergraduate degree from UT Austin and graduate degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Sumaya has legislative and policy experience including working at the Texas State Senate during the 80th legislative session. She brings nearly 10 years experience in fundraising for organizations including Thinkery and UT Austin's College of Natural Sciences, and earned her Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) credential in 2019. She is a native Austinite, a third-generation Texan, and a long-time fan of the Tribune.

Gustavo San Miguel is the Director of Human Resources for the Texas Tribune. He joined the Tribune in May 2021. A Houston native, Gustavo obtained his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University and pursued his graduate degree from St. Edward's University. Gustavo comes to the Tribune from UT Austin where he was the HR Director for the Moody College of Communication and the HR Manager for the College of Fine Arts. In previous HR positions, Gustavo has worked in locations as diverse as in Afghanistan with the LOGCAP project and the Amundsen-Scott Research Station at the South Pole with the United States Antarctic Project.

Lauren Santucci is a multimedia fellow at the Texas Tribune. Santucci is a visual journalist with the goal of humanizing social issues through personal stories. She received her masters in photojournalism and documentary filmmaking from Ohio University this year and holds an undergraduate degree in international relations and art history from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Santucci's work has been published by FRONTLINE PBS, NPR, The Guardian, and more. Her photography has also exhibited at Photoville in Brooklyn and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Read Articles by Lauren Santucci

Jeremy Schwartz has been an investigative reporter in Texas for nearly a decade, covering issues including voting rights and border security for the Austin American-Statesman and USA Today Network. His work has resulted in the overhaul of Texas' inspection process for farmworker housing, sparked Congressional investigations of a failed Department of Veterans Affairs research program and uncovered misleading border arrest and drug seizure statistics maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Schwartz won the National Association of Hispanic Journalists' Latino Issues award for his 2017 investigation into the political underrepresentation of Latinos in Texas cities and counties, and the Headliners Foundation of Texas Reporter of the Year award, among other honors. He previously served as Cox Newspapers' Latin America correspondent in Mexico City from 2005 to 2009, and before that, he covered the U.S. Border Patrol and immigration at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Read Articles by Jeremy Schwartz

Becca Silvas is a copywriter at the Texas Tribune on the marketing and communications team. Previously, Becca has served as senior communications associate at the World Justice Project in Seattle, WA, and as marketing and communications coordinator at KERA, Dallas' NPR and PBS member station. She earned her master's in mass communication with a concentration in global media from Texas State University in 2016, and a B.A.I.S. in International Studies and B.A. in Spanish in 2014, also from Texas State University. With a longtime passion for public service and writing, Becca has also been a public affairs intern at the U.S. Embassy in London, an AmeriCorps VISTA at the Central Texas Food Bank, and a digital marketing intern at Austin-based firm PR By the Book.

Nikola Skerl is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin and the fall events fellow. Nikola is studying international relations and mathematics with a minor in Arabic. He worked as a senior fellow at the Clements Center for National Security. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he helped found the College Health Alliance of Texas, and he serves as the chair of the Texas Blazers, an honorary service organization acting as official hosts for the University of Texas. Read Articles by Nikola Skerl

Evan Smith is the CEO and co-founder of The Texas Tribune, a pioneering nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news organization whose deep coverage of Texas politics and public policy can be found at its website, texastribune.org, and in newspapers and on TV and radio stations across the state. Since its launch in 2009, the Tribune has won international acclaim and numerous honors, including a Peabody Award, 23 national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association and three general excellence awards from the Online News Association. Evan is also the host of "Overheard with Evan Smith," a weekly half-hour interview program that airs on PBS stations around the country. A native of New York, he's a graduate of Hamilton College and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Read Articles by Evan Smith

Patrick Svitek is the primary political correspondent for The Texas Tribune. Patrick logged countless miles on the 2016 campaign trail, covering the many Texas angles of the momentous presidential race. He previously worked for the Houston Chronicle's Austin bureau. He graduated in 2014 from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He is originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Read Articles by Patrick Svitek

Zahira Torres is the editor for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigative unit, a first-of-its-kind collaboration to publish investigative reporting for and about Texas. Prior to joining the unit, Torres was a senior editor with ProPublica's Local Reporting Network where she worked with reporters in local and regional newsrooms on investigative projects. A native of El Paso, Texas, Torres was the first Latina and second woman to serve as the newspaper's editor in its more than 100-year history. While at the El Paso Times, Torres also served as enterprise editor for the USA Today Network's Texas/New Mexico newspapers. She was part of a team that developed and edited "The Wall: Untold Stories, Unintended Consequences," which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Torres began her career at the Times as a news clerk while attending the University of Texas at El Paso. She later became the Austin bureau chief for the newspaper. During that time, she worked to uncover a cheating scheme at the El Paso Independent School District — the city's largest — that denied many El Paso children the right to a proper education. She later became an education reporter for the Denver Post and Los Angeles Times before returning to her Texas roots. Read Articles by Zahira Torres

Perla Trevizo is a Mexican-American reporter born in Ciudad Juárez and raised across the border in El Paso, Texas, where she began her journalism career. Trevizo spent more than 10 years covering immigration and border issues in Tennessee and Arizona before joining the Houston Chronicle as an environmental reporter. She has written from nearly a dozen countries, from African refugee camps to remote Guatemalan villages, with the goal of broadening readers' understanding of the global issues that impact the local communities where she has worked. Her work has earned her national and state awards including the Dori J. Maynard Award for Diversity in Journalism, French-American Foundation Immigration Journalism Award, and a national Edward R. Murrow for a story done in collaboration with Arizona Public Media. She was also honored as the 2019 Arizona Journalist of the Year by the Arizona Newspaper Association. Read Articles by Perla Trevizo

Alexa Ura is an associate editor and reporter at The Texas Tribune. As the Tribune's demographics reporter, she covers the intersection between politics and race with an emphasis on the state's surging Hispanic population. She also covers voting rights issues for the Tribune, where she started as a reporting fellow in 2013. She's a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. Read Articles by Alexa Ura

Jacob Villanueva manages a team of designers to develop and maintain The Texas Tribune's visual and brand strategy across products, platforms and marketing channels. He integrates his expertise of more than 20 years in design, interactive, video, photography and digital media production. Read Articles by Jacob Villanueva

Allyson Waller is a general assignment reporter at The Texas Tribune. Previously, she was part of the 2020-2021 New York Times Fellowship class where she worked as a general assignment reporter for the publication's breaking news desk. Allyson is a graduate from the University of Texas at Austin, where she majored in journalism. While at UT Austin, she interned at the Miami Herald as a local government reporter and The Texas Tribune as an investigative fellow. When not closely following politics and state policy, Allyson enjoys listening to podcasts, watching documentaries and stocking up on fiction books. Read Articles by Allyson Waller

Matthew Watkins is the managing editor of news and politics for The Texas Tribune. Before becoming an editor, he worked as a reporter at the Tribune, The Dallas Morning News and The Eagle in Bryan-College Station. He earned his bachelor's degree from Texas A&M University. Read Articles by Matthew Watkins

Todd Wiseman previously worked at the Austin School of Film and Synthetic Pictures and interned for director Richard Linklater. At The Texas Tribune, Todd helped develop the Stump Interrupted series, which won a national Edward R. Murrow award. He also co-produced the award-winning documentary "Beyond The Wall." A Fort Worth native, he graduated from the University of Southern California with a dual degree in film and English. Read Articles by Todd Wiseman

Andrew Zhang is a junior at the University of Texas at Austin and a fall engagement fellow. A lifelong Texan, he grew up in College Station before moving to Austin to attend school. Previously, Andrew was a breaking news reporter at The Daily Texan covering everything from student life to UT's response to the coronavirus. Read Articles by Andrew Zhang

Isabella Zou is a summer reporting fellow at The Texas Tribune. She is a rising junior at Yale University, where she studies Ethnicity, Race and Migration and is a Yale Journalism Scholar. Isabella has worked as an inequity and disparity reporting intern for the CT Mirror and an intern for the Austin American-Statesman's Westlake Picayune. She serves as editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News Magazine, a monthly publication for narrative journalism, fiction, poetry and the arts. An Austin native, she enjoys dancing, singing and eating all tacos. Isabella is fluent in Mandarin. Read Articles by Isabella Zou

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Source: https://www.texastribune.org/about/staff/

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