Grantee Alejandra Martinez Will Speak on the Environment at Chicago Symposium

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Pulitzer Center grantee Alejandra Martinez will visit Harry S. Truman College in Chicago on Thursday, April 24, 2025, and will be a guest speaker at the Truman Symposium of Student Research and Creative Activity.

At 1:00pm CDT, Martinez will participate in a panel discussion where she will be interviewed by students and speak on key environmental issues connected to the Earth Week theme “Our Power, Our Planet.”

Martinez has been an environmental reporter at The Texas Tribune since fall 2022. There, she has covered the impacts of petrochemical facilities on Black and brown communities, including investigating a chemical fire at an industrial facility. Additionally, she has explored topics related to climate change, such as the health effects of extreme heat and how long periods of drought affect water resources in Texas.

Previously, Martinez was an accountability reporter at Dallas public radio station KERA, where she began as a Report for America corps member and then covered Dallas City Hall. Before that, she worked as an associate producer at WLRN, South Florida’s public radio station.

Martinez is one of the lead reporters on the Pulitzer Center-supported project Neglected and Exposed, which investigates the safety and breathability of the air in the Latino-majority, Houston-area community of Cloverleaf, and whether the air is the culprit behind the community’s respiratory problems, asthma, and skin ailments.