Sara Shipley Hiles
Executive Director | Associate Professor, Missouri School of Journalism
Hiles is an award-winning journalist and journalism educator with almost 30 years’ experience in the field. She specializes in environmental and investigative reporting and is a recognized journalism teacher and editor with a dozen years of teaching experience. She has won awards and recognition for teaching, feature writing, digital journalism and investigative reporting. Hiles also directs the Smith/Patterson Science Journalism Fellowship and Lecture Series and serves on the board of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Dr. Earnest Perry
Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, Missouri School of Journalism
Dr. Perry serves as a project advisor. He served as coordinator of the School’s doctoral teaching program for six years and as chair of journalism studies from 2005-2011 and again during the 2013-14 academic year. He worked for nearly 10 years as a journalist for newspapers in Illinois, Connecticut and Texas. He currently serves as chair of the Publications Committee for the Association on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Chas Sisk
Editorial Director
Sisk is a journalist based in Nashville, Tennessee, with more than a decade’s experience in both print and radio. He’s covered everything from Wall Street mergers to New England town halls, and his passion is local journalism. He was part of the Pulitzer-finalist team that covered the 2010 Nashville flood, has edited several national award winners and led two multimedia collaboratives prior to joining the Ag & Water Desk. He has also completed more than two dozen marathons.
Irina Zhorov
Assistant Director
Zhorov has been reporting on environmental issues for more than a decade. She’s worked at NPR stations in Wyoming, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and has filed stories from Puerto Rico and Russia. Her work has appeared in print and audio outlets such as NPR, Marketplace, Planet Money, 99 Percent Invisible, Noema Magazine, and the Gravy podcast. She’s also written a novel, Lost Believers. She lives in Mobile, Alabama.
Michael Crowe
Operations Manager
Crowe is a filmmaker and photographer who has reported climate and environment stories across the country. A decade in TV news included stops at stations in Iowa, Tennessee and Washington, and he has reported for the Associated Press, High Country News, and Sierra Magazine. He’s been honored with several Emmy and NPPA awards, and was part of teams that won a national Edward R. Murrow and Peabody. He studied English at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and lives with his family in Seattle.
Dr. Kate Rose
Research Faculty, Missouri School of Journalism
Dr. Rose works on the research side of the Ag & Water desk’s grant. She is an assistant professor of strategic communication and science communication in the Missouri School of Journalism. Rose’s research focuses on science and risk communication, addressing the intersection between science, media, and the public. Her work investigates both scientists’ public engagement efforts and public attitudes and understanding of science with respect to controversial scientific and environmental issues.
Click here to learn more about our research.
Jared Whalen
Data Journalist
Whalen works with the Desk’s reporters on data-driven projects, graphics, and investigations. He specializes in data and visual journalism and has worked in newsrooms including Axios, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Delaware News Journal. In these roles, he worked on data investigations, created newsroom tools, and produced interactive web content. His work has received awards from the Society of News Design and the MDDC Press Association. He lives in Philadelphia and is a graduate of Temple University’s journalism program.
Senior Advisors and Expert Journalists
Ag & Water Desk Expert Journalists and Senior Advisors bring decades of experience covering agriculture, policy, land and water use, energy, industry, and coastal issues. They have won some of the highest awards in the field, including the Pulitzer Prize and the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism. They serve as mentors and project leaders for our reporters and help determine the editorial direction of the Desk.
Halle Parker
Expert Journalist | WWNO
Halle Parker is an environment reporter for WWNO, New Orleans Public Radio. Before coming to New Orleans Public Radio, she covered Louisiana’s environment for the Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate and down the bayou for the Houma Courier. She also worked for the National Audubon Society. Some of her past reporting has centered on environmental justice issues and the state’s coastal land loss crisis.
Julia Sklar
Expert Journalist | Sierra Magazine
Julia Sklar is the story editor for Sierra Magazine, where she commissions reporting on climate science, public health, and environmental justice. She spent many years prior as an independent science journalist, publishing award-winning reporting on food innovation, neuroscience, and climate change for the Boston Globe, Undark Magazine, and National Geographic. Julia also works as a mentor with Uproot Project and Empowerment Avenue. As a lifelong Bostonian, Julia has always been passionate about water and coastal issues.
Kathleen Davis
Expert Journalist | Science Friday
Kathleen Davis is an audio producer at Science Friday, a public radio show and podcast from WNYC Studios. She leads Science Friday’s “The State of Science” vertical, working with local journalists across the country to elevate their science and environmental reporting to a national audience. Her reporting work has been featured on NPR, Marketplace, and WHYY’s The Pulse. In 2024, she was recognized by the nonprofit news organization Current as a Rising Star of Public Media. She’s based in New York City.
Kristoffer Tigue
Expert Journalist | Minnesota Star Tribune
Kristoffer Tigue is the climate and weather reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune. Tigue previously covered climate change, clean energy and environmental justice for Inside Climate News and holds a master’s degree in journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism.
Michael Hawthorne
Expert Journalist | Chicago Tribune
Michael Hawthorne is a Pulitzer-finalist investigative reporter who focuses on the environment and public health for the Chicago Tribune. He has written extensively about the Great Lakes and Chicago River, the dangers of toxic chemicals in household products and the lingering hazards of brain-damaging lead in homes and drinking water. Hawthorne grew up on a central Illinois farm and raised hogs to help pay for college. He covered state government and the environment for newspapers in Florida, Illinois and Ohio before joining the Tribune in 2004.
Reporters
Our partner newsrooms have hired reporters to cover regional and national projects about agriculture and water issues as part of the Desk, primarily as corps members with Report for America, a national journalism service program. Reporters receive ongoing training, mentorship, and expenses-paid travel to the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, plus other benefits.
Olivia Cohen
The Gazette | Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Cohen is an energy and environment reporter for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, focusing on water quality, endangered species, agriculture and beyond. Prior to working with The Gazette and Ag and Water Desk, Cohen reported for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Chicago Sun-Times, Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg News. Hailing from Minneapolis, she earned a degree in journalism from Columbia College Chicago.
2024 Report for America corps member
Mónica Cordero Sancho
Investigate Midwest | Des Moines, Iowa
Cordero’s work has been published by Univision, Bloomberg Businessweek, La Noticia, Radio Ambulante, NPR, openDemocracy and The New York Times. Born in Costa Rica, she is a graduate of the University of Costa Rica and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Cordero was part of a team that won the 2020 Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award, the most prestigious journalism prize in the Spanish-speaking world, for best investigative reporting.
2022 Report for America corps member
Lucas Dufalla
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | Little Rock, Arkansas
Lucas Dufalla covers the Mississippi River Basin for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. A 2024 graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, he has worked for news organizations in Pennsylvania and New England.
2024 Report for America corps member
Bennet Goldstein
Wisconsin Watch | Madison, Wis.
Goldstein has worked for the Omaha World Herald in Nebraska and daily papers in Iowa, including the Dubuque Telegraph Herald. Goldstein’s work has garnered awards including the Associated Press Media Editors award and an Iowa Newspaper Association award. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2022 Report for America corps member
Madeline Heim
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | Milwaukee, Wis.
Madeline Heim covers public health and environmental issues for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, telling stories about water quality, climate change, the Mississippi River and more. She began her career as a reporter at the Winona Daily News in Minnesota, where a lifelong love for the river was born. She also produced award-winning coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic for the USA TODAY Network in Wisconsin. She holds degrees in journalism and English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2022 Report for America corps member
Illan Ireland
Mississippi Free Press | Jackson, Miss.
Before joining the MFP, Ireland completed a fellowship at The Futuro Media Group in New York City, taking on projects related to public health, climate change and housing insecurity. Working with Futuro’s investigative unit, he helped uncover significant disparities in mortgage outcomes between white and Latino homebuyers in New Jersey. Ireland holds a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and a master’s degree from the Columbia Journalism School. He’s a native Spanish speaker and proud Mexican American.
2024 Report for America corps member
Avery Martinez
KMOV-TV | St. Louis, Mo.
Martinez has worked in television, radio and newsprint across multiple states and markets. He cut his teeth in smaller family papers, before working in major syndicates and networks. Martinez has been a mental health correspondent, anchor, producer, legal staff writer, immigration specialist, editor, campaign correspondent, columnist—in addition to covering city, state and federal courts and legislatures. He was the first graduate of Fort Lewis College’s Journalism and Mass Media Studies program.
2024 Report for America corps member
Gabrielle Nelson
Buffalo's Fire | Bismarck, North Dakota
Before joining Buffalo’s Fire, Nelson worked as an environmental reporting intern at Bridge Michigan in Lansing, Michigan, covering climate change, renewable energy and the Great Lakes. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University, where she worked as an entertainment editorial assistant and DJ for the college radio station Impact 89FM.
Estefanía Pinto Ruiz
KWQC-TV6 | Davenport, Iowa
Pinto Ruiz previously interned as a culture reporter in Colombia’s most widely read newspaper, EL TIEMPO. She holds a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Florida and worked as an editor at WUFT News, focusing on their Spanish content. She also mentored students in reporting Latin American news in Spanish. She is a proud Colombian, so she is always looking for Colombian food and hosting a listening club for her favorite podcast, Radio Ambulante, to speak her native language to stay connected to her roots.
2024 Report for America corps member
Elise Plunk
Louisiana Illuminator | Baton Rouge, La.
Plunk earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Florida, where she worked as editor-in-chief of Atrium magazine, a narrative nonfiction outlet on campus. She also worked as an environmental communications intern for the Thompson Earth Systems Institute, where she wrote feature stories and produced social media content on environmental topics relevant to Floridians, and as a climate journalist fellow at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.
2024 Report for America corps member
Phillip Powell
Arkansas Times | Little Rock, Ark.
As part of his graduate studies at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Powell previously worked as a reporter on Capitol Hill focused on politics and foreign affairs. At Medill, Phillip is taking part in large investigative projects with ProPublica and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He holds his bachelor’s degree in political science from Hendrix College, where he was a staff writer for The Profile and Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning Aonian Literary Magazine. He graduates from Northwestern in June with a Master of Science in Journalism.
2024 Report for America corps member
Harshawn Ratanpal
KBIA-FM | Columbia, Mo.
Ratanpal previously covered money in politics at OpenSecrets, tracking campaign finance and lobbying data. While attending the Missouri School of Journalism, he covered local government, homelessness and the state legislature for KBIA and the Columbia Missourian and was the news director of the campus student-run radio station KCOU. He holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and economics. His first real-world gig was interning for his hometown newspaper, The San Diego Union-Tribune.
2024 Report for America corps member
Jess Savage
WNIJ-Northern Public Radio | DeKalb, Ill.
Savage is a journalist focusing on environmental and queer topics. They recently graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. They were awarded the Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium Fellowship to report on landscape-scale ecological restoration in England and its effects on local farmers. They studied ecology at the University of Vermont as an undergraduate. Jess is based in Chicago, and they love to ride their bike around the city.
2024 Report for America corps member
Cassandra Stephenson
Tennessee Lookout | Nashville, Tenn.
Stephenson previously covered Metro Nashville government at The Tennessean for nearly three years, chronicling the consequences of policy decisions for residents in one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation. Cassandra’s post-collegiate reporting career began in West Tennessee in 2018 when she moved from her hometown in Ventura County, California after graduating from Pepperdine University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. There, she reported on breaking news and justice for a 13-county region. Cassandra joined The Tennessean as a business reporter in 2020.
2024 Report for America corps member
Eva Tesfaye
WWNO | New Orleans, La.
Eva Tesfaye covers the environment for WWNO’s Coastal Desk. Before joining WWNO, she reported for the Ag & Water Desk at Harvest Public Media, based at KCUR 89.3 in Kansas City, Missouri. She was also a producer for NPR’s daily science podcast Short Wave. A graduate of Columbia University, she started her journalism career as an NPR Kroc Fellow. She grew up moving around Africa and has lived in Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, South Africa and Kenya.
Contributing reporter
Advisory Council
Formed in 2023, our Advisory Council is made up of leaders who can advise us in their areas of expertise. Council members may give input or suggestions, but are not responsible for editorial or policy decisions.
Kia Breaux
Regional Director | The Associated Press
Kia Breaux is an award-winning journalist and media executive with 30 years’ experience in the news industry. As regional director at The Associated Press, Breaux oversees content licensing, business development and strategic partnerships with AP members and subscribers across all formats. A graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, Breaux began her AP career in 1997 as a reporter in the Kansas City, MO, bureau. She also served as AP’s southwest Virginia correspondent and news editor for Nebraska operations before being promoted to bureau chief roles in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa. Prior to joining AP, Breaux worked for Knight-Ridder Financial News and Bridge News. She holds a master’s degree in management from Baker University in Baldwin City, KS. She is a member of the Missouri Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Pam Fine
Professor Emerita | University of Kansas
Fine is a veteran journalist, educator and consultant. Most recently, she was the Midwest regional manager for Report for America. She is a professor emerita and former Knight Chair in News, Leadership and Community at the University of Kansas. Earlier, she held news management positions at the Indianapolis Star, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Fine is a former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, a four-time Pulitzer Prize judge and a former Poynter Institute Ethics Fellow.
Erin Jordan
Associate Professor of Practice, University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Jordan was previously an Ag & Water Desk Expert Journalist and Senior Advisor. As an award-winning investigative reporter for The Gazette in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa, she covered topics that include water quality, agriculture, state government spending and gender equity in sports. She was a 2018-19 O’Brien Fellow In Public Service Journalism at Marquette University with a project focused on water quality in the Mississippi River watershed. Before joining The Gazette, Erin was the Iowa City Bureau reporter for the Des Moines Register from 2003 to 2009.
Dr. Cristina Mislán
Associate Professor | Missouri School of Journalism
Mislán teaches courses in cross-cultural journalism, gender and media, qualitative research methods, and critical theory. Her research focuses on areas of media history, critical/cultural studies, and transnational/globalization studies. Mislán has published in several journals and her research has won a number of awards from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the American Journalism Historians Association. Mislán holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Louisiana State University and received her doctoral degree at Pennsylvania State University.
Meaghan Parker
Public Policy Fellow | The Wilson Center & Chair, Future Council | Society of Environmental Journalists
Parker was the executive director of the Society of Environmental Journalists from 2018-2023. Previously, she was the senior writer/editor and partnerships director for the Environmental Change and Security Program and the Global Sustainability and Resilience Program of the Wilson Center, where she worked for 15 years. She was a founder and editor-in-chief of the award-winning New Security Beat, a daily blog covering environment, health and security. She currently serves on the board of The Uproot Project and on the advisory council of Planet Forward, a project of George Washington University.
Mark Schleifstein
Senior Advisor | The Times-Picayune
Mark Schleifstein is an environmental reporter at The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate | NOLA.com in New Orleans. Schleifstein contributed to the award-winning “Polluter’s Paradise” series on the state’s petrochemical industry, published in the paper and online on NOLA.com and ProPublica. His stories on Hurricane Katrina were among the Times-Picayune’s stories honored with 2006 Pulitzer Prizes for Public Service and Breaking News Reporting. He’s the co-author of the 2006 book Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms,” about Katrina.