EXPERIENCE
Belleville News-Democrat
Investigative reporter
MAY 2019 – PRESENT
- Report on social justice issues affecting people in seven southwestern Illinois counties.
- Accepted into the 2022-23 Poynter-Koch Media Journalism Fellowship program for professional development.
- Named one of Editor and Publisher’s “25 Under 35” next generation of newspaper leaders in 2019.
Education reporter
SEPTEMBER 2016 – MAY 2019
- Reported on issues and events in education that mattered to parents, students, teachers and taxpayers in 61 public school districts in southwestern Illinois.
Copy editor/reporter
SEPTEMBER 2014 – SEPTEMBER 2016
- Reported on Collinsville government spending, policies and officials.
- Edited colleagues’ writing and designed pages for the print product.
EDUCATION
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville | Bachelor’s degree in mass communications
AUGUST 2010 – MAY 2014
- Studied journalism and creative writing, with a focus on poetry.
- Worked at university newspaper, The Alestle, as a reporter, opinion editor, managing editor and editor-in-chief from December 2010 to May 2014.
- Interned at the Belleville News-Democrat from May to August 2013.
AWARDS
2025 first-place Illinois Press Association award for business/economic reporting about an out-of-town investment firm that neglected its mobile home parks, leaving tenants in dangerous and often unhealthy conditions.
2024 first-place Knight Chair and Illinois Press Association awards for distinguished coverage of diversity and using public records in investigative reporting about local and state agencies that failed to provide essential health services after residents’ homes repeatedly flooded with sewage.
2023 first-place Knight Chair and Illinois Press Association awards and third-place Illinois Associated Press Media Editors award for investigative and community service reporting about nursing homes that failed to follow infection control protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic and for years before it.
2021 McClatchy President’s Award and third-place National Headliner Award for investigative reporting about the innocent people who faced eviction under a city’s uniquely strict “crime-free” housing policy.