Meet the 2022 OPC Foundation Scholar Award Winners
Angelique Chen
New York University
REUTERS FELLOWSHIP
Sponsored by Reuters
Experienced in data journalism, Angelique learned firsthand the impact of global business on a local economy observing the role of the semiconductor industry in her native Taiwan. A graduate of National Taiwan University, she wrote about how Hong Kong journalists who fled to Taiwan amid the crackdown will likely improve the quality of Taiwanese journalism. She is fluent in Mandarin and English. Angelique has an OPC Foundation fellowship with Reuters in New York City.
Neirin Gray Desai
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
NATHAN S. BIENSTOCK MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP
Endowed by the Richard Leibner and Carole Cooper Family Foundation
An engineering graduate of Imperial College in London, Neirin pivoted to journalism after investigating the case of an innocent man executed in Alabama. Having already trekked from London to Gambia, he would like to return to West Africa with a renewed focus on uncovering corruption and injustice. In his essay, he wrote about the coastal town of Dakhla in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and the 20-year conflict between Morocco and the Algerian-supported Polisario Front.
Olivia George
Brown University
IRENE CORBALLY KUHN SCHOLARSHIP
Endowed by the Scripps Howard Foundation
A college senior, Olivia once took a six-month long solo hitchhiking trip through Southeast Asia where she visited, among other places, the Veranda Community Youth Café in Myanmar, the subject of her essay. The restaurant/school/community center is struggling to move on despite the double crisis of Covid and a military coup targeting the country’s youth. A dual UK/Canadian citizen, she interned at the Virginia Pilot in Norfolk and is headed next to the Tampa Bay Times.
Sara Herschander
Craig Newmark School of Journalism at CUNY
SALLY JACOBSEN FELLOWSHIP
Endowed by family and friends
After graduating from Boston University, Sara moved to Chile for two years and then on to Mexico City, working in several jobs and getting on-the-ground experience in the subjects that interest her most: labor and migration. As a freelancer, she reports and writes in both English and Spanish in a variety of media, from print to podcasts. In her essay, she wrote about female Ecuadorian day laborers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who are part of what some describe as the largest exodus of Ecuadorian migrants in history.
Humza Jilani
University of Oxford
ROY ROWAN SCHOLARSHIP
Endowed by family, friends and admirers
A Harvard graduate and now a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, Humza’s goal is to report from the Arabic- and Urdu-speaking world. Fluent in both languages as well as Spanish, he traveled to the Poland-Belarus border last November for a feature story in Foreign Policy. In his essay, he wrote about how an unexpected gift of a goat herd led former World Bank official Fariel Salahuddin to create UpTrade, a tech start-up that benefited small holder livestock communities in Pakistan. Humza has an OPC Foundation fellowship in the Reuters bureau in London.
Ha-Kyung Kim
New York University
FRITZ BEEBE FELLOWSHIP
Endowed by Anne and Larry Martz
During an internship in NPR’s Seoul bureau, Ha-Kyung met Park Tae-seung, a former child soldier conscripted by the South Korean government during the Korean War. In her essay, she wrote about the long-term consequence of his service and the struggles of other child soldiers. A senior economics major in NYU’s Stern School of Business, she speaks Korean, English and Mandarin. Currently interning in longform podcast development, Ha-Kyung has an OPC Foundation fellowship with the Wall Street Journal in Seoul.
Sofie Kodner
University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
FLORA LEWIS/JACQUELINE ALBERT-SIMON SCHOLARSHIP
Endowed by the Pierre F. Simon Charitable Trust
Sofie is focused on covering the human story embedded in each new technology and how people within their unique cultural context navigate privacy, accessibility, and innovation. In her essay, she wrote about France’s Culture Pass, a phone app that provides French youth free access to cultural events while tracking their locations. Comfortable reporting across mediums, including video, audio, and print, she has reported on text alerts warning of ethnic violence in South Africa and recycling trash in Prague. She studied Arabic and Spanish in Cape Town.
Cheyenne Ligon
Craig Newmark School of Journalism at CUNY
S&P GLOBAL AWARD for Economic and Business Reporting
Endowed by S&P Global
In a story she first covered as a regulator reporter for CoinDesk, Cheyenne wrote about WorldCoin, a German cryptocurrency company whose business plan is based on Orb technology, which uses unique devices to scan the retinas of people worldwide. After graduating from Tulane, she worked as a security analyst and traveled to South Korea, Lebanon, and Japan to cover the Syrian Civil War and Asian economics. She intends to cover cryptocurrencies, new technologies, and the people that use them across the world. She has studied French and Korean.
Talia Mindich
University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
HARPER’S MAGAZINE SCHOLARSHIP in memory of I.F. STONE
Endowed by John R. MacArthur and the Pierre F. Simon Charitable Trust
Talia’s two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Indonesia led her to journalism to investigate, among other issues, why this vastly diverse archipelago island nation has turned to more conservative Islam. In her essay, she wrote about the efforts of a Bosnian immigrant in Vermont who fled the country in 1992 and now works with others to commemorate the Srebrenica massacre by collecting coffee cups and serving coffee to her Burlington neighbors. A Kenyon College graduate, she speaks advanced Bahasa Indonesia, beginner Sundanese and Spanish. She works in both short video and print.
Prarthana Prakash
New York University
JERRY FLINT FELLOWSHIP FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS REPORTING
Endowed by family and friends
A graduate of Singapore Management University, Prarthana was drawn to business journalism as an editorial intern in the CNBC Singapore bureau where she learned that every story has both international and local implications. She wrote her essay about how the market for lab-grown diamonds has been expanding rapidly in her native India although their status as family assets is still unclear. Prarthana, who has an internship with Bloomberg this summer, speaks English, Hindi, Tamil and Spanish.
Cadence Quaranta
Northwestern University
DAVID R. SCHWEISBERG MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP
Sponsored by the Schweisberg Family
Cadence spent parts of her childhood in China. The experience of being the green-eyed outlier instilled in her a love of the Chinese language and culture and a compelling interest in international affairs. In her essay, she wrote about the environmental impact of Chinese cement-based construction projects and the constant dust she recalled as an eighth-grade student in Changee. A college senior, she spent last summer as an intern for CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and previously did a seven-months-long reporting project for the Washington Post. She speaks Mandarin and Spanish.
Iqra Salah
University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
WALTER & BETSY CRONKITE SCHOLARSHIP
Funded by Mercedes-Benz and Supported by CBS News and friends
After graduating from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in her native Kenya, Iqra spent several years as a freelance field producer for CNN and as a reporter/researcher for the BBC covering breaking news in East and Central Africa. Among her investigative pieces, she uncovered the story of infanticide in Kibera, Africa’s largest urban slum, especially among young rape victims. In a short video she submitted, she interviewed two young women who described their hopelessness and desperation. She next plans to travel to Senegal to document the untold story there.
Katherine Swartz
University of California-Santa Barbara
STAN SWINTON FELLOWSHIP
Endowed by the Swinton Family
During a semester abroad in Jordan, Katherine interviewed and wrote about how women refugees from Gaza were benefitting from new hypotonic technology that brought water to their refugee camp, the subject of her essay. An Arabic speaker, she is editor-in-chief of her college newspaper, the Daily Nexus, and has had internships with the Sacramento Bee and the Santa Barbara Independent. She has an internship this summer with USA Today in Washington DC.
Emma Tobin
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
EDITH LEDERER SCHOLARSHIP
Endowed by Edith Lederer and friends
Primarily a video journalist, Emma is focused on what happens to communities after natural disasters, specifically the environmental trauma suffered by those who endured fire and its aftermath. She spent six months in rural Australia to document the recovery process of victims of the 2019-2020 bush fires in New South Wales, the subject of her video Hard Yakka. In her essay, she wrote about what a PTSD expert called Act Two, the period when healing and processing occurs. Emma has been a videographer and writer for PBS North Carolina, CNN, and is now with The Associated Press in New York.
Nick Trombola
American University
RICHARD PYLE SCHOLARSHIP
Endowed by family and friends
After graduating from Indiana University, Nick returned to Uganda to write for the Daily Monitor, the largest independent newspaper in East Africa. While there he met Joseph Kawesi, an HIV-positive transgender woman living in a country where her gender identity could cost her years in prison, the subject of his essay. Before starting graduate school, Nick spent nearly two years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette covering breaking news and investigative projects. He is currently on the climate investigations team for the Washington Post.
Euan Ward
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
RICK DAVIS-DEB AMOS SCHOLARSHIP
Endowed by Deb Amos and friends
Euan spent more than two years in Beirut as a reporter for The Daily Star Lebanon and as a freelancer for The Guardian and CNN, among others. He was on the ground throughout both the 17 October Revolution, and the 2020 Beirut explosion. A UK native and a graduate of the London School of Economics, his essay told the story of Victoria, a Nigerian widow, who is one of thousands of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon who have been sold off on Facebook amid the country’s economic collapse. Last year, he led a cross border investigation for The Guardian into the abuse of “golden passport” schemes by the world’s rich and powerful, and was recently named The New York Times 2022-2023 international reporting fellow.
Hayley Woodin
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
EMANUEL R. FREEDMAN SCHOLARSHIP
Endowed by family
Hayley wrote about the complex and sometimes violent seven-year history of the Tahoe Resources’ Escobal mine in southern Guatemala, the world’s third largest silver mine, a story she first covered as a recent graduate of Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia. She has continued to pursue the mining story throughout her career and intends to return to Guatemala for more on-the-ground reporting. A business journalist and former executive editor of Business in Vancouver, she also has experience in video, on-air hosting and podcasting.