ProPublica Data Institute 2017

Andrew Wang (@andrew_L_wang) is a small-business writer at NerdWallet. He’s been a reporter for  11 years and has worked at the Chicago Tribune and Crain’s Chicago Business. He is also a graduate of the Minority Editorial Training Program at the Los Angeles Times. Andrew has a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Duke University, a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University and an MBA, also from Northwestern. He lives in Pasadena, Calif.

April Ehrlich (@AprilEhrlich) covers city government, housing and homelessness in southwestern Oregon for The News-Review. She focuses on in-depth enterprise pieces that investigate poverty in rural Oregon while also producing daily updates on local government policies. She previously covered Idaho's new oil and gas industry and studied the energy industry as a fellow with the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. She spends her free time reporting for Jefferson Public Radio, hiking through nearby forests with a rambunctious border collie, and reading fiction at home with her two favorite cats.

April Joyner (@aprjoy) is a writer and editor fascinated by the intersection of business, technology and culture. She writes regularly for Technical.ly Brooklyn and has also contributed to Fast Company, Marie Claire, The New Yorker, OZY, and The Week. Before beginning her freelance career, she was a senior reporter at Inc. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, but remains a Virginian at heart.

April Simpson (@aprilleticia) is the associate editor of Current where she reports on funding and innovation in public media. Prior to moving to Washington, D.C., April was a South-Florida-based journalist, a web producer for the Seattle Times and a reporter for the Boston Globe. April has reported from the Democratic Republic of Congo on a fellowship with the International Women's Media Foundation. She has also reported from Botswana on a Fulbright fellowship. April earned her B.A. from Smith College and MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Ellis Simani (@emsimani) is an aspiring journalist and developer from Seattle, Washington. A recent graduate of Claremont McKenna College, Ellis spent his time outside of the classroom reporting for the South Seattle Emerald and serving as a Digital Scholarship Fellow within the Claremont University Consortium’s Digital Humanities initiative. Ellis appreciates data for its utility in telling stories, but is inspired by its ability to encourage political participation and empower individuals to make informed decisions. When not in front of a computer screen, Ellis prioritizes spending time in libraries or traveling long distances on bicycles. This summer he’ll be joining The Seattle Times as the paper’s Digital and Interactives intern.

Julieta Rodrigo (@juliveandlearn) is a recent graduate from Florida International University, with Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and International Relations. Born in Buenos Aires and raised in Miami, Florida, she has been surrounded by multiculturalism all of her life. She previously interned in the International News department at Telemundo, co-hosted a radio show in Spanish during her student exchange program in Argentina, and wrote for her university’s newspaper, Panther Press. After the Data Institute, she will pursue a journalism career, with a concentration in politics and foreign affairs.

Kasha Patel (@KashaPatel) is an Earth science writer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center covering topics from the latest research about hurricanes to the unique applications of satellite data in emergency response, agriculture, and citizen science. She hosted a NASA mini TV/web series called "Earth Expeditions" that highlighted how NASA studies Earth with boats, airplanes, and even dog sleds. She is also a stand-up comic and specializes in science jokes, producing Science Comedy shows where only science jokes are allowed. She studied chemistry at Wake Forest University and earned her M.S. in Science Journalism from Boston University. She will also be happy to play a game of Ultimate frisbee with you.

Mike Finch (@Mike_Finch2) covers health care and medicine for the Daytona Beach News-Journal in Florida. He previously worked as a business reporter in Mobile, Ala. at the Press-Register and AL.com. Mike was a reporting intern at the Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times and the Palm Beach Post. He studied political science at Florida International University. Mike is this year's Ida B. Wells Society fellow.

Meredith Clark (@meredithclark) will join the faculty at the University of Virginia in the Department of Media Studies in the fall of 2017. She was an assistant professor of digital and print news in the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas from 2014 to 2017. Her research on Black Twitter landed her a spot on The Root 100 list of the country's most influential African Americans in 2015. Prior to pursuing a career in academia, she worked as a reporter, editor and columnist for papers including the Raleigh News & Observer and the Tallahassee Democrat. She's currently conducting research on the online news and commenting experiences of women and nonbinary people of color, and the retention and recruitment of people of color in U.S. newspaper newsrooms.

Sandra Gomez-Aceves (@SanGomez_News) is a breaking news reporter at the Hartford Courant. She has a B.S. in Journalism with a concentration in political science from Southern Connecticut State University, where she graduated with honors earlier this year. While in college she interned at her hometown newspaper, The Record-Journal and was the News Director for SCSU TV, the campus television station. Sandra aspires to become a do-it-all journalist.

Tasnim Shamma (@TasnimS) is the economy and innovation reporter at the National Public Radio member station WABE in Atlanta, where she covers technology and business. Prior to joining WABE in 2014, she was a Kroc fellow at NPR and then spent two years at WFAE in Charlotte, covering criminal justice and hosting a podcast called ‘A Trifling Place’ about the city’s history and Southern culture. She grew up in Queens and graduated from Princeton's Class of 2011, where she was executive editor for multimedia at The Daily Princetonian. She helps direct and is a proud alumna of the Princeton Summer Journalism Program for low-income high school students, which is focused on diversifying college and professional newsrooms.

Yezmin Villarreal (@YezYes) is news editor at The Advocate, where she covers LGBT news and politics. She is interested in learning how to use data, coding, and design to do investigative stories about LGBT people and the issues they are affected by. She is particularly interested in studying how the LGBT community is being treated under the Trump administration.