Announcing the 2025 Mental Well-Being in the U.S. Reporting Fellows

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The Pulitzer Center is excited to announce the Mental Well-Being in the U.S. Reporting Fellows, the first members of the 2025 Campus Consortium Reporting Fellowship cohort. These seven Fellows, selected after applying to our special call last fall, will receive grants of $4,000 from the IV Fund to complete their reporting projects on mental health and well-being in the U.S. 

Asia Alexander joins this year’s cohort from Howard University. Her Pulitzer Center-supported story will cover the mental health of Black teachers as they grapple with the fallout of post-election policies in the rural South. Alexander’s bylines have appeared in Essence magazine, Forbes, and The Hilltop, Howard's student newspaper.

University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism reporters and Reporting Fellow alums Celeste Hamilton Dennis and Florence Middleton will collaborate on a project about harm-reduction doulas who provide non-medical, non-judgmental support to pregnant people who use substances. Hamilton Dennis has written for San Diego Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, MindSite News, and USA Today, among others. Middleton’s visual journalism has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, CalMatters, KQED, and more.

From the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Khaleel Rahman is another one of this year’s Mental Well-Being in the U.S. Reporting Fellows. His project will cover the long-term mental health impacts of forced sterilization on Uyghur refugee women. Before attending Medill’s graduate program, Rahman produced Connecticut Public Radio’s Audacious with Chion Wolf.

Nicole J. Caruth, from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, will cover LGBTQ+ farmers’ mental health in the American South. This comes after a 2024 study found that LGBTQ+ farmers experienced mental health crises at significantly higher rates than general farming or LGBTQ+ populations. This will be Caruth’s second Mental Health Reporting Fellowship. She recently completed a stint with Civil Eats in late 2024.

Jennifer Wybieracki and Matthew Hofmann, a team from Syracuse University, will travel to Niagara Falls, a sacrifice zone that disproportionately carries the burden of air pollution. Their project will expand on recent studies that have found associations between exposure to pollution and mental health disorders and will listen to community members who have decided to stay despite the risks. Wybieracki is a 2024 Reporting Fellow alum who previously studied conservation biology at the State University of New York (SUNY)'s College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Hofmann is a visual storyteller and multimedia specialist with over three years of experience in copywriting and photojournalism.

As part of their Fellowships, the Mental Well-Being in the U.S. Fellows will receive mentorship from Pulitzer Center staff and grantees, join a professional network of reporters and editors, and have opportunities to participate in workshops and outreach events. They will also attend the Pulitzer Center’s annual Washington Weekend in October 2025.

Current and recent students from the Pulitzer Center’s more than 40 Campus Consortium partners were eligible for the special call opportunity seeking project proposals on mental health and well-being. The Pulitzer Center’s selection committee was overwhelmed by the outstanding quality and number of applications.

Thank you to all who applied, and congratulations to the 2025 Mental Well-Being in the U.S. Reporting Fellows!