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Wallace House Center for Journalists and the University of Michigan today announced the Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellows for the 2025-2026 academic year. This incoming cohort of 18 accomplished journalists — from eight countries and across the United States — represents the 52nd class of Fellows in our program’s history.

Over the course of the academic year, the Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellows will pursue ambitious projects exploring pressing issues including climate change and migration; political and institutional mistrust; equity and access in housing and healthcare; and community-engaged journalism. In addition to their individual research, they will work collaboratively in regular seminars and workshops with scholars, innovators, journalism leaders, and social changemakers. 

“At a time when both journalism and higher education are facing unprecedented challenges, our mission to provide accomplished journalists the time and support to focus on in-depth inquiry is especially clear and vital,” said Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House. “It can be difficult in moments of great tumult to pull up and seek perspective. And yet it is essential, alongside our more immediate responses. We are privileged to provide our Fellows with the resources to explore complex, broad-ranging issues. The benefits of their pursuits will extend long term to the communities and audiences they seek to reach.”

In addition to the academic and intellectual resources provided, Fellows receive a living stipend, health insurance and relocation and logistical support to enable them to participate in the residential program and prioritize their fellowship research for the academic year. Fellows will reside in the Ann Arbor area and enjoy collaborative workshops and bi-weekly seminars at Wallace House, a gift from the late newsman Mike Wallace and his wife Mary, and the program’s home base.

Among the 2025-2026 class are four journalists selected for newly created fellowships in areas critical to the future of journalism. These dedicated fellowships — an expansion of our long-standing program — are designed to revitalize local news in the Great Lakes region, strengthen reporting tied to data and social science research, and support arts journalism and criticism. The journalists awarded these fellowships are Tim Alberta of The Atlantic, the James S. House and Wendy Fisher House Social Science Fellow; Elizabeth Jensen of Press Forward Northern Michigan and Irene Romulo of Cicero Independiente, Great Lakes Local News Fellows; and Brittany Moseley of Signal, Akron, the Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellow.

Wallace House’s Knight-Wallace Fellowship program is funded through endowment gifts from foundations, news organizations, individuals and ongoing contributions from funders committed to journalism’s role in fostering an informed and engaged public.

The 2025-2026 Knight-Wallace Fellows and Their Journalism Projects:

Tim Alberta is a journalist, author and staff writer for The Atlantic. As a joint Social Science Fellow with the university’s Institute for Social Research, he will examine how cynicism, misinformation, and populism have, over decades, combined to usher in a new, post-trust society.

David de Jong is a Middle East correspondent for Het Financieele Dagblad, the Netherlands’s premier business newspaper. He will investigate how Michigan’s Dutch-American business dynasties influence U.S. education policy.

Ismail Einashe is a journalist and author whose work on migration and refugee issues has appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, Foreign Policy and BBC News. He will examine migration reporting by studying the intersection of the science of trauma and the various creative forms journalists can use in their storytelling.

Heidi Groover is a real estate reporter for The Seattle Times, where her coverage of the region’s housing crisis spans market trends, land-use debates, eviction proceedings and more. She will study the ways that the vanishing American dream will change our communities for generations to come.

Katelyn Harrop is an independent multimedia journalist who most recently worked as a senior producer at WBUR, Boston’s NPR station. She will research how local newsrooms can sustainably leverage on-demand audio as a tool to reach new audiences and increase audience diversity.

Elizabeth Jensen is the co-chair of Press Forward Northern Michigan, an organization working to support local journalism in the region. As a Great Lakes Local News Fellow, Jensen will research strategies to support regional news networks, focusing on organizational structures, platforms and diversified business models.

Hyeonjun Lee is a reporter at Korea’s public broadcast network, KBS, with experience covering both the ruling and opposition parties. He will research U.S. media strategies for leveraging Artificial Intelligence, to deepen his understanding of the fast-changing landscape for broadcast media.

Ashish Malhotra is a producer for Al Jazeera English, where he has spent close to a decade in various roles for the channel’s television and digital departments. He will examine a variety of audio genres, particularly sports podcasts, to understand how they bring people together and make them feel part of a larger community.

Rosem Morton is a freelance documentary photographer, whose work has been featured in National Geographic, The Washington Post, NPR and CNN. She will expand an immersive online platform that uses collaborative multimedia storytelling to foster connection, healing and empowerment for survivors of gender-based violence.

Brittany Moseley is the culture and arts reporter for Signal Akron, a nonprofit newsroom in Northeast Ohio that fuses community building with local news reporting. As a joint fellow with the University of Michigan Arts Initiative, she will study the successes and shortcomings of public funding for the arts and the impact that well-funded art programs have on American cities.

Tenzin Pema is the director of Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan service, where she oversees reporting on Tibet through various formats and platforms. She will investigate China’s multi-pronged strategy to suppress Tibet’s cultural, linguistic and historical identity.

Nidhi Prakash is a journalist focused on accountability, politics and the environment, who worked as an environment reporter for POLITICO and a White House reporter for BuzzFeed News. She will research stories of the impact of climate change on low-income areas, exploring economic and infrastructural issues, conflicts driven by resource scarcity and ground-level resilience.

Clavel Rangel Jimenez is a journalist covering labor unions, migration, human rights, climate, corruption and extractive industries in Venezuela and across the Americas, and co-founder of the Venezuelan Amazon Journalists Network. She will investigate how misinformation and partisan narratives have influenced the displacement and integration of Venezuelan migrants in the U.S.

Irene Romulo is the co-founder of Cicero Independiente, an award-winning, bilingual newsroom that reports with and for the majority immigrant community of Cicero, Illinois. As a Great Lakes Local News Fellow, she will explore how to build, expand and sustain a community-owned newsroom that serves as an information, teaching and gathering space for her community and beyond.

Simone Sebastian is a newsroom leader and founding editorial director of Capital B, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to uncovering important stories about how Black people experience America today. She will explore the gaps in postpartum medical care that have created a silent epidemic of pain, discomfort and life-threatening complications among women in the United States.

Jędrzej Slodkowski is a reporter, editor and deputy head of the culture section for Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s largest newspaper. He will explore approaches to journalistic coverage of migration that minimize prejudices yet honestly address the problems and challenges.

Sarah Souli is an independent journalist reporting across the Mediterranean whose work has appeared in The Atavist, The Economist, POLITICO, The Guardian, Vice Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler and others. Focusing on migrant movement across the Mediterranean, Souli will research narrative structures and historic methodologies that can contribute to more holistic reporting about migration in the region.

Nina Weingrill is the co-founder and former director of Énos, one of Brazil’s first civic media organizations. She will explore sustainable models for building local information ecosystems, focusing on the role of civic actors—such as public health workers and grassroots organizations—in bridging gaps left by traditional media.

Read more about the 2025-2026 Knight-Wallace Fellows and their journalism projects »

About Wallace House Center for Journalists
Committed to fostering excellence in journalism, Wallace House at the University of Michigan is home to the Knight-Wallace Fellowships, the Livingston Awards and the Wallace House Presents event series, programs that recognize exceptional journalists for their work, leadership and potential.
wallacehouse.umich.edu