Our Staff | The Texas Tribune

Julián Aguilar

Immigration and Border Security Reporter

Julián Aguilar reports on politics and border affairs from the Texas-Mexico border. His focuses include immigration reform and enforcement, voter ID, international trade, border security, and the drug trade. His political coverage has included local, legislative and congressional races in Texas, as well as local and national elections in Mexico. Before joining The Texas Tribune, he was a freelance writer for the Fort Worth Weekly, a government and crime reporter for the Laredo Morning Times, and a political writer for the Rio Grande Guardian. A native of El Paso, he has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Texas and a master's degree in journalism from the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. Read Articles by Julián Aguilar

Jennifer Ajluni

Development Officer

Email jajluni@texastribune.org

Jennifer Ajluni is the development officer at The Texas Tribune. Before joining the Tribune in June 2018, she worked in politics at the statewide and national levels. She is a graduate of American University.

Emily Albracht

Graphic Designer

Email ealbracht@texastribune.org

Emily Albracht is a designer at The Texas Tribune. She creates all materials for The Texas Tribune Events series and collaborates with the editorial staff and news apps team to visualize investigative stories in a meaningful way. Before joining the Tribune’s creative team in the spring of 2014, she worked as a freelance designer with the Austin music and festival scene.

Avriana Allen

Engineering Fellow

Avriana Allen is a junior at Northwestern University and The Texas Tribune’s summer engineering fellow. Avriana, who is studying journalism and statistics, has worked as a Knight Lab fellow and as an interactive section editor at North by Northwestern magazine. She is proficient in Spanish.

Rebekah Allen

News Editor

Rebekah Allen is the news editor for The Texas Tribune. 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

Jaden Amos

Engagement Fellow

Jaden Amos is a junior at Indiana University and The Texas Tribune’s summer engagement fellow. Jaden has been a news intern at CBS, a PR and social media intern at Cultivate PR, and a social media intern at Hire Space, an event management company in London. She has also worked as the social media editor and news editor at the Indiana Daily Student. Read Articles by Jaden Amos

Liam Andrew

Director of Engineering

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.

Carla Astudillo

Data Developer

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

Sally Beauvais

Engagement Reporter, ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit

Sally Beauvais has worked at Marfa Public Radio in various capacities since 2014. As the station’s engagement reporter, she launched West Texas Wonders, its first ongoing engagement initiative, and introduced a quarterly town hall series with her community in collaboration with a local newspaper. She also worked for years with Marfa public school students to produce radio stories about their lives and issues that matter to them. Her community-sourced reporting about the lack of health care resources for seniors in Far West Texas won a 2019 National Edward R. Murrow Award, and she was a producer and editor on several episodes of Texas Monthly’s 10-part podcast about the Permian Basin. Before starting her radio career in Texas, Beauvais lived in New Orleans, where she worked with a collaborative community arts group. Read Articles by Sally Beauvais

Morgan Bennett

Intern, Accounting and Member Relations Departments

Email mbennett@texastribune.org

Morgan Bennett is an intern in the accounting and member relations departments. They previously worked at their hometown paper, the Colorado County Citizen, and became interested in nonprofit operations in college. They are currently a senior at the University of Texas at Austin.

Bobby Blanchard

Assistant Director for Audience

Bobby Blanchard runs The Texas Tribune’s social media efforts 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

Ty Brockhoeft

Engineer

Email tbrockhoeft@texastribune.org

Ty Brockhoeft joined The Texas Tribune in 2017. He builds and maintains the Tribune's publishing systems and tends to the website’s performance and user experience. Ty has lived in Austin for over 20 years and has a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas.

Mandi Cai

Designer/Developer

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

Grants & Awards Manager

Email jcalagiovanni@texastribune.org

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

Data Visuals Editor

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

Reese Castro

Marketing and Communications Fellow

Reese Castro is a senior at the University of Texas. Reese is an executive producer for the Texas Student TV show “Austin Underground,” for which she photographs concerts, and has worked as a film publicity intern for South by Southwest. She’s also the vice president of special events for the university’s chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America. Read Articles by Reese Castro

Sarah R. Champagne

Reporting Fellow

Sarah R. Champagne is a master’s student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a summer reporting fellow at The Texas Tribune. Sarah has contributed as a freelance reporter to publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and the Globe and Mail, filing stories from 15 countries in three languages. She has also worked for Le Devoir and the CBC in Montreal, and she is the winner of an Overseas Press Club Foundation Award. Sarah speaks French, Spanish and Italian. Read Articles by Sarah R. Champagne

Natalie Choate

Director of Marketing and Communications

Email nchoate@texastribune.org

Natalie Choate has a long history in Texas politics, media and communications. In a previous life, she worked two legislative sessions in the Texas Capitol, served as government relations coordinator for Trinity Industries, completed Annie's List Campaign School, and was both a political fundraiser and campaign consultant. Natalie started with The Texas Tribune in January 2011 and has held multiple positions, including assistant director of development, director of media relations and partnerships, and most recently director of marketing and communications. She is a University of Texas alumna and a Leadership Austin Essentials graduate, and she once rode a bike from Austin to Anchorage, Alaska, for the charitable organization Texas 4000 for Cancer.

Lexi Churchill

Research Reporter, ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit

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

Reporter, ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit

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

Reporter ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit

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

Multimedia Producer

Justin Dehn is a multimedia producer at The Texas Tribune whose focus is video and television production. He's been shooting and producing TV news for more than a decade, most recently as a staff photojournalist at Austin's KVUE-TV from 2006 to 2010. At the Tribune, Dehn has been behind the camera for Tribune special projects God and Governing, Hurting for Work and Paid to Prosecute, as well the stories we produce each week for our dozen TV partners around the state and segments for social media. Read Articles by Justin Dehn

Michael Rey de Leon

Audiovisual Studio Engineer

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

Chris Essig

Data Visuals Developer

Chris Essig builds data visualizations and news apps at the Texas Tribune. Before joining the team in February 2017, Chris spent almost six years in Iowa, including two and a half years as a developer at The Gazette in Cedar Rapids and three years as an online editor at the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. He is originally from Illinois and will never complain about the winter weather here in Texas. Read Articles by Chris Essig

Mitchell Ferman

Energy and Economy Reporter

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

Stacy Fernández

Breaking News Reporter

Stacy Fernández is The Texas Tribune’s breaking news reporter. When she isn’t breaking stories, Stacy covers the gun beat and leads the Tribune’s reader-driven explainer series, Texplainer. First introduced to the Lone Star State as an intern at The Dallas Morning News, she was also a News21 fellow, reporter for NPR’s Next Generation Radio Project and Buffalo News intern. Stacy graduated from Syracuse University with dual degrees in magazine journalism and Latino-Latin American studies. The Afro-Dominicana thrifts frequently, is a solid bachata dancer and is a firm believer that listening to audiobooks is just as good as reading. Read Articles by Stacy Fernández

Brandon Formby

Night News Editor

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

Manny García

Senior Editor for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative

Manny García is Senior Editor for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative. García previously served in top leadership roles at the USA Today Network as Standards Editor and East Region Executive Editor. García is also the former editor of the Naples Daily News, editor and general manager of Spanish-language El Nuevo Herald and senior news editor of the Miami Herald. García has managed the work of hundreds of reporters, and he was a primary writer and anchor of the Herald’s coverage of the federal raid that removed 6-year-old Elián González from his relatives’ Miami home and returned him to his father in Cuba. As a reporter and editor, García and his teams have won several prizes, including the Pulitzer, Goldsmith and IRE prizes, as well as a national Edward R. Murrow Award. Award-winning projects have exposed sex trafficking in the Caribbean, led to the convictions of numerous public officials, changed Florida law and helped free a man serving a life sentence in prison for murders and a rape he did not commit. He also received the Robert G. McGruder Award for Diversity Leadership. García serves as a board member for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, News Leaders Association and the Louisiana State University Manship School of Mass Communication. García served on the IRE board from 2006-2014, including one term as IRE president. He is a graduate of Florida International University and Miami Dade College. Born in Havana, he was raised in Miami. Read Articles by Manny García

Juan Pablo Garnham

Urban Affairs Reporter

Juan Pablo Garnham reports on urban affairs for The Texas Tribune, focusing on the main challenges of the state’s largest metro areas — Houston, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso and Dallas-Fort Worth, where he is based. He previously worked as senior producer for the podcast In The Thick, editor of CityLab Latino and city hall reporter for El Diario in New York. He has also taught at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. He is from Santiago, Chile, and the Texas flag constantly reminds him of his home country. Read Articles by Juan Pablo Garnham

Eddie Gaspar

Associate Photo Editor

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

Rodney Gibbs

Executive Director, Revenue Lab

Rodney Gibbs leads the Texas Tribune’s Revenue Lab. Launched in 2020, RevLab helps newsrooms around the world adopt the Tribune’s playbook for financial sustainability, and it experiments with new revenue ideas, which it tests locally and then shares freely. A TV writer turned entrepreneur, Rodney founded and sold two digital media companies before joining the Tribune in 2012 as its chief innovation officer. In 2015, he became the Tribune’s first chief product officer. Rodney is a board member of the Online News Association, an organizer of Hacks/Hackers Austin, and a past board member of KLRU/Austin PBS, KUT/Austin NPR and the Austin Film Society. Outside of work, he’s passionate about film, record collecting and coaching his son’s baseball team. Rodney has a bachelor's degree from Rice University and a master's degree from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.

Andrew Gibson

Front-end engineer

Andrew Gibson joined The Texas Tribune in 2016. Before that, he worked for more than two years at the Orlando Sentinel, building data visualizations, news apps and interactive projects. He also contributed to the Sentinel's coverage of the Pulse nightclub shooting. Andrew is originally from Denver (go Broncos) and graduated from the University of Missouri in 2014. At the Tribune, he helps make the website move fast and look pretty.

Sarah Glen

Director of Loyalty Programs

Sarah Glen manages The Texas Tribune’s membership program and paid newsletters. She joined the Tribune team in 2018 after spending four years as a product manager at Chalkbeat, a nonprofit education news network focused on equity issues. Originally from North Carolina, she's happy to be back in a warmer climate and excited to help loyal readers get more deeply involved in the Tribune's reporting. Sarah first fell in love with journalism while working at The Daily Tar Heel and earning her bachelor's degrees in journalism and political science at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Emily Goldstein

Copy Editor

Emily Goldstein has been a copy editor at The Texas Tribune since the beginning of 2019. She's also a doctoral student at the University of Texas, where she researches media coverage of mental health. 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

Malú González

Events Manager

Malú González is the Events Manager for the Texas Tribune, where she focuses on promotion, planning and data. 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. Read Articles by Malú González

Allie Goulding

Photography Fellow

Allie Goulding is a senior at Northwestern University and The Texas Tribune’s summer photography fellow. Allie has worked as a photography fellow at the Tampa Bay Times, an investigative news fellow at KABB-TV in San Antonio, and in various positions at The Daily Northwestern. Her photography has won awards from the Illinois College Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. Read Articles by Allie Goulding

Catherine Grooms

Advertising Operations Manager

Email cgrooms@texastribune.org

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.

Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

Photographer/Photo Editor

Miguel Gutierrez Jr. is The Texas Tribune's photographer and photo editor. He oversees our photography operation, thinking strategically about how to tell visually rich stories about Texas government and politics with the help of our network of talented freelance photographers across the state. Gutierrez, an Illinois native who is fluent in Spanish, came to us from New York, where he was working as a multimedia producer for the state attorney general’s office. But he knows Texas well. He received two master’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin — in journalism and Latin American studies — and worked as a multimedia producer at KUT. Gutierrez has a bachelor’s degree in Latin American and Latino studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also worked in film production in Los Angeles. Read Articles by Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

Dave Harmon

Investigative Editor

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

Ashley Hebler

Front-End Engineer

Ashley Hebler is on the engineering team 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.

Rocio Hernandez

Marketing and Communications Fellow

Rocio Hernandez is a junior at the University of Texas at Arlington and The Texas Tribune’s summer marketing and communications fellow. Rocio has worked as the news editor and the life and entertainment editor for The Shorthorn newspaper, and she was the content manager for Unconventional Public Relations. She is the secretary for the Public Relations Students Society of America at UT-Arlington.

April Hinkle

Chief Revenue Officer

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.

Stacy-Marie Ishmael

Editorial Director

Stacy-Marie Ishmael is the editorial director of The Texas Tribune. Prior to moving to Austin, she was a senior editor at Apple, the managing editor for mobile at BuzzFeed News, and vice president of communities at the Financial Times. She is a native of Trinidad and Tobago, a committed bike commuter, and a serial comma enthusiast. Read Articles by Stacy-Marie Ishmael

John Jordan

Deputy Photo Editor/Operations Manager

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

Raga Justin

Higher Education Reporter

Raga Justin covers higher education at The Texas Tribune and is a rising senior at the University of Texas. Raga has worked as a reporting fellow at the Tribune, a reporting intern in the Houston Chronicle’s Austin bureau, and a news desk editor and city and state reporter for The Daily Texan. She’s also a journalism coach for the Moody College of Communication’s writing program and the board chair of media and public relations for the Indian Students Association. Read Articles by Raga Justin

Lomi Kriel

Reporter, ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit

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

Chief Financial Officer

Email elambert@texastribune.org

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.

Ren Larson

Data Reporter, ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit

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

Elvia Limón

Engagement Producer

Elvia Limón is The Texas Tribune's engagement producer. She forges deeper connections with our readers through our daily newsletter, The Brief; our Facebook community, This Is Your Texas; and our crowd-powered explainer series, Texplainer. Before joining the Tribune, she was an engagement reporter and a community reporter for The Dallas Morning News. Limón is a native Dallasite, and she has a master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas' Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from the Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism. Read Articles by Elvia Limón

Abby Livingston

Washington Bureau Chief

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

Regina Mack

Social Media Producer

Regina Mack is the social media producer at The Texas Tribune, where she runs the daily social operation and aims to ensure that the Tribune is leading the conversation online around Texas policy and politics. 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

Corrie MacLaggan

Managing Editor

Corrie MacLaggan is The Texas Tribune's managing editor. Previously, the Austin native worked as a national correspondent for Reuters, writing and editing stories about Texas and nearby states and overseeing a network of freelance writers. Before joining Reuters, she covered Texas government and politics for the Austin American-Statesman, writing about everything from gubernatorial races to food stamp application backlogs. She spent her first year at the Statesman writing for the newspaper's weekly Spanish-language publication. She has also worked in Mexico City, where she wrote for publications including the Miami Herald's Mexico edition, Latin Trade magazine and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Her first reporting job was at the El Paso Times. Corrie is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied journalism and Spanish. Read Articles by Corrie MacLaggan

Jolie McCullough

Criminal Justice Reporter

Jolie McCullough reports on criminal justice issues and policy for The Texas Tribune. She came to the Tribune in early 2015 from the Albuquerque Journal, where she worked for four years on breaking news and data-driven projects. She is a graduate of Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication; while there, she interned as a reporter and online producer at the Arizona Republic and served as the web editor of the student-run newspaper, the State Press. Read Articles by Jolie McCullough

Ayan Mittra

Editor

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

Shannon Najmabadi

Women’s Health Reporter

Shannon Najmabadi is the women’s health reporter at The Texas Tribune, where she started as a fellow in 2017. Her stories — on higher education and other topics — have prompted lawmakers to change three state laws, including one involving a very narrow definition of the word “pickle.” She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University. Read Articles by Shannon Najmabadi

Grayson Norwood

Director of Human Resources

Email gnorwood@texastribune.org

Grayson Norwood oversees human resources at The Texas Tribune. She joined the organization in January 2020, after more than 13 years at The Contemporary Austin. A native Austinite, Grayson graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in history.

Anna Novak

Data Visuals Fellow

Anna Novak is a 2019 graduate of Middlebury College and returns as The Texas Tribune’s data visuals fellow. Anna, who majored in geography and minored in computer science, has worked as a fellow at Azavea, a GIS lab teaching and research assistant at Middlebury, and a GIS intern at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She’s also CPR and wilderness first responder certified. Read Articles by Anna Novak

Valeria Olivares

D.C. Reporting Fellow

Valeria Olivares Valeria Olivares is a senior at the University of Texas at El Paso and the Washington reporting fellow. Valeria has worked as a freelancer for The Dallas Morning News, a metro desk intern for the San Antonio Express-News and editor-in-chief of The Prospector student newspaper. She also worked on a documentary about immigration at the Texas-Mexico border with Rain Media. Valeria is fluent in Spanish. Read Articles by Valeria Olivares

Reese Oxner

Reporting Fellow

Reese Oxner is a May graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington and a Texas Tribune reporting fellow. He was previously a freelance reporter for the Dallas Morning News, where he covered news — including recent protests — in Arlington, Frisco and Allen. Reese was editor-in-chief of his campus newspaper, The Shorthorn, and was named the 2019 Texas Intercollegiate Press Association editor of the year. 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.

Emma Platoff

Justice and politics reporter

Emma Platoff covers the law and its intersections with politics for The Texas Tribune, where she started as a fellow in 2017. A graduate of Yale University, Emma is the former managing editor of the Yale Daily News. Read Articles by Emma Platoff

Cassandra Pollock

Politics Reporter

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

Chief Development Officer

Terry Quinn is a fifth-generation Texan and a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. She has worked as a volunteer and professional for over 20 years to raise funds to support many nonprofit organizations in Austin and around Texas, most recently The Nature Conservancy of Texas and The Contemporary Austin. Terry coordinates the activities and outreach to the Circle Level members of The Texas Tribune and the individuals whose philanthropy make the mission of the Tribune possible.

Ross Ramsey

Executive Editor

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

Jeremiah Rhodes

Multimedia Fellow

Jeremiah Rhodes is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is The Texas Tribune summer multimedia fellow. Jeremiah has worked as a video intern for NPR Music — where he directed, filmed and edited Tiny Desk concerts — and a video coordinator for UNC Communication and Creative Services. He was also the lead producer and photographer for “Silence Sam,” a documentary about the removal of a Confederate monument on the UNC Chapel Hill campus. Read Articles by Jeremiah Rhodes

Alana Rocha

Multimedia Reporter

Alana Rocha joined The Texas Tribune staff as the multimedia reporter after working eight years in television and radio news. She's covered politics for stations in Florida, Kansas and most recently Austin as YNN's lead political reporter. Her work at the cable news outlet took her around the country reporting from the presidential campaign trail. 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

Development Officer

Email ssaati@texastribune.org

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.

Alex Samuels

Political Reporter

Alex Samuels is a political reporter for The Texas Tribune, where she helps with national campaign coverage, writes stories about the intersection of race and politics in Texas, and covers the hottest political news bubbling out of local communities. She is also one of the primary authors of The Blast, the Tribune’s subscription-only daily newsletter for political insiders. Alex was previously the Tribune’s community reporter, but she began her stint with the organization as a fellow in 2016. She graduated in 2017 from the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism. She originally is from Massachusetts and is the best pingpong player at the Tribune. Read Articles by Alex Samuels

Jeremy Schwartz

Reporter, ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit

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

Evan Smith

CEO

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, 21 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

Political Reporter

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

Aliyya Swaby

Public Education Reporter

Aliyya Swaby is the public education reporter for The Texas Tribune. She joined the Tribune in October 2016 from the hyperlocal nonprofit New Haven Independent, where she covered education, zoning and transit for two years. After graduating from Yale University in 2013, she spent a year freelance reporting in Panama on social issues affecting black Panamanian communities. She was an Education Writers Association finalist in 2017 for beat reporting and a Livingston Awards finalist in 2019 for a series on school desegregation. Read Articles by Aliyya Swaby

Millie Tran

Chief Product Officer

Millie Tran is the chief product officer of The Texas Tribune. She leads the technology, design, marketing, audience and loyalty teams. Most recently, she was deputy off-platform editor at The New York Times and previously its global growth editor. Her news experience spans editorial, product, data, marketing and strategy at organizations including BuzzFeed News, the American Press Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Journal. Read Articles by Millie Tran

Perla Trevizo

Reporter, ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit

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

Demographics Reporter/Associate Editor

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

Agnes Varnum

Deputy Director, Revenue Lab

Agnes Varnum is the deputy director of the Texas Tribune’s Revenue Lab. Launched in 2020, RevLab helps newsrooms around the world adopt the Tribune’s playbook for financial sustainability, and it experiments with new revenue ideas, which it tests locally and then shares freely. Drawing on her years as the Tribune’s director of events, Agnes leads training on event production and strategy. Agnes has also directed the Texas Tribune Festival, growing the audience and revenue, and reinventing the event in downtown Austin. She came to the Tribune from the film events world, including the Austin Film Society, the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University, Documentary magazine, AFI Fest, Silverdocs, Independent Film Week and Indiewire.com.

Meena Venkataramanan

Reporting Fellow

Meena Venkataramanan is a senior at Harvard University and a summer reporting fellow at The Texas Tribune. Meena is a founder of the multimedia storytelling initiative Stories from the Border, participated in the Politico journalism institute and was a political fellow for ABC News. She has also worked for the Harvard Political Review, the Harvard Crimson and the Harvard Advocate, an art and literary magazine. Meena is fluent in Tamil and Spanish. Read Articles by Meena Venkataramanan

Jacob Villanueva

Chief Creative Officer

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

Edgar Walters

Investigative Reporter

Edgar Walters is the health and human services reporter and an associate editor for The Texas Tribune, where he started as an intern in 2013. Before that, he had a political reporting fellowship with the Berliner Zeitung, a daily newspaper in Berlin. He is a graduate of the Plan II Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin, where he worked as an editor for The Daily Texan. When not in the newsroom or at the Capitol, he can be found on the volleyball court, standing 6 feet, 7 inches tall. Read Articles by Edgar Walters

Cydney Washington

Assistant Director of Events

Cydney Washington is assistant director of events for The Texas Tribune. She helps to oversee the organization’s year-round events that take place around the state. Prior to joining the Tribune in 2020, Cydney served as the director of marketing and outreach for A+Lifestyle Medical Group, where she oversaw the traditional, digital and events marketing for the practice. A “born Longhorn,” Cydney studied history and government at the University of Texas at Austin before going on to receive her masters degree in philosophy and social policy from the George Washington University. Her favorite pastimes (apart from hosting events) include hiking with her goldendoodle, Rafi, and trying not to kill her burgeoning plant collection.

Matthew Watkins

Managing Editor of News and Politics

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

Jessica Weaver

Director of Events & Programming

Email jweaver@texastribune.org

Jessica Weaver is The Texas Tribune's director of events and programming. She oversees the organization’s year-round events portfolio and creates original event programs at the intersection of the Tribune's newsroom and engagement efforts, including for the annual Texas Tribune Festival. Before joining the Tribune in 2015, she worked in the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and for South by Southwest. A Houston native, Jessica holds a history degree from the University of Texas at Austin and is human to her cat, Stevie.

Todd Wiseman

Managing Editor, Video

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