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Our Fellows
Chief Correspondent, Writing Fellow for Economy for All
Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her forthcoming book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is also the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine, co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission, and co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (Seven Stories Press, 2005). She sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Truthdig, CounterPunch, AlterNet, and numerous anthologies. She has a master’s degree in astrophysics and detailed her transition from science to journalism in a 2014 TEDx talk.
Writing Fellow for Economy for All
Thom Hartmann is America’s number one progressive talk-show host and the New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden History of American Oligarchy and more than 30 other books in print. His online writings are compiled at HartmannReport.com.
Writing Fellow for Economy for All
Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist based in New Orleans. His writing has appeared in the Nation, the New Republic, the Intercept, the Guardian, Rolling Stone, Foreign Policy, Vice, and more. He is the author of several books, including Owning the Sun: A People’s History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19 (Counterpoint Press, 2022).
Writing Fellow for Human Bridges
Deborah Barsky is a researcher at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution and an associate professor at the Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain, with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). She is the author of Human Prehistory: Exploring the Past to Understand the Future (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Writing Fellow for Human Bridges
Yann Perreau is a writer, educator and contemporary art curator. He has published several books on art, climate, anonymity, and more. His articles have appeared in many publications, including Libération, Art Press, and East of Borneo. He has served as a cultural attaché for both the French Embassy in London and the French Consulate in Los Angeles. He holds an MPhil in art history from Paris’s EHESS.
Editor, Chief Correspondent & Writing Fellow for Earth | Food | Life
Reynard Loki is a co-founder of the Observatory, where he is the environment and animal rights editor. He previously served as the environment, food, and animal rights editor at AlterNet and as a reporter for Justmeans/3BL Media covering sustainability and corporate social responsibility. He was named one of FilterBuy’s Top 50 Health and Environmental Journalists to Follow in 2016. His work has been published by Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, Asia Times, Pressenza, and EcoWatch, among others. He volunteers with New York City Pigeon Rescue Central.
Writing Fellow for Earth | Food | Life
Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner is a writer based in New York. She’s written for the New York Times, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Glamour, AlterNet, Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, Architectural Digest, Them and other publications. She holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Columbia University and is also at work on a novel.
Writing Fellow for Earth | Food | Life
Lucy Goodchild van Hilten is a writer with an MSc degree in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology from Imperial College London. She has served as assistant editor of Microbiology Today and senior marketing communications manager for Life Sciences at Elsevier. She set up Tell Lucy in 2014, with a mission to make the complex understandable. Lucy also runs Bucket List Bookshop—home of the world’s best writing.
Editorial Fellow for Earth | Food | Life’s & Art Project
In Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger’s more than two decades working in the arts, she has organized curatorial projects in the commercial, academic and nonprofit sectors with a focus on place-based practices and themes including history, women’s rights, social justice, activism, data, information science, and the environment. She is currently curator of visual arts at Wave Hill, where she organizes artist residencies, exhibitions, and programs with artists in dialogue with the site, ecology, and culture. Previously, she served as curator at No Longer Empty, which presented community-responsive exhibitions and education programs in unconventional spaces.
Chief Correspondent, Writing Fellow for Our Schools
Jeff Bryant is a communications consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for progressive education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting routinely appear in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently at national events about public education policy. Follow him on Bluesky @jeffbinnc.
Contributing Writer for Our Schools
Sarah Lahm is a Minneapolis-based writer and researcher. Her work has appeared in outlets such as the Progressive and In These Times. Follow her on Twitter @sarahrlahm.
Chief Correspondent, Writing Fellow for Local Peace Economy
April M. Short is an editor, journalist, and documentary editor and producer. She is a co-founder of the Observatory, where she is the Local Peace Economy editor. Previously, she was a managing editor at AlterNet as well as an award-winning senior staff writer for Good Times, a weekly newspaper in Santa Cruz, California. Her work has been published with the San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, LA Yoga, the Conversation, Salon, and many other publications.
Editor, Chief Correspondent & Senior Writing Fellow for Voting Booth
Steven Rosenfeld has reported for National Public Radio, Marketplace, and Christian Science Monitor Radio, as well as a wide range of progressive publications including Salon, AlterNet, the American Prospect, and many others.
WORLD AFFAIRS
FELLOWS
World Affairs Writing Fellow
Justin Podur is a Toronto-based writer. You can find him on his website at podur.org and on Twitter @justinpodur. He teaches at York University in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change.
World Affairs Writing Fellow, Correspondent
John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C. He is a contributor to several foreign affairs publications, and his book, Budget Superpower: How Russia Challenges the West With an Economy Smaller Than Texas’, was published in December 2022.
World Affairs Writing Fellow, Correspondent
Evelyn Leopold is an independent journalist based at the United Nations and the winner of a UN Correspondents Association gold medal for her reporting. She served at Reuters as a manager, editor and correspondent in New York, Washington, London, Berlin and Nairobi. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and head of the Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists.