Led by journalist Jessica Aldred, who has over twenty years of newsroom experience, the ORN team has an extensive background in ocean reporting, environmental communications, data journalism, and more.

JESSICA ALDRED

Senior Editor, Ocean Investigations

Jessica Aldred runs the Pulitzer Center's ocean reporting fellowships and grants program, which launched in 2023. She has more than 20 years’ experience writing, commissioning and editing in major newsrooms in the U.K. and Australia, including The Times, ITV, The Independent, ABC, The Age, and Channel Seven. She spent 16 years at The Guardian, London, with 10 years as a deputy environment editor, working on print and digital coverage of annual climate COPs including landmark Paris and Copenhagen summits and IPCC reports, the Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima disasters, and award-winning editorial campaigns such as Keep it in the Ground and The Defenders. 

From 2019-2023 Aldred was special projects editor at China Dialogue Trust (now Dialogue Earth), where she edited the China Dialogue Ocean website and palm oil project. Leading coverage and multi-disciplinary events on globally important themes including the ocean, deforestation, climate change, and biodiversity loss, she has worked with journalists on the ground in east and West Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. 

JELTER MEERS

Data and Research Editor

Jelter Meers leads the Data and Research Team at the Pulitzer Center. The team assists fellows and grantees with finding the right information and data for their projects, build capacity through bespoke training and webinars, and publish investigative methodologies. He started as an investigative reporter at the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting in Illinois, where he wrote accountability stories on housing, migrant labor, and big agriculture.

After a year of reporting on human trafficking and the migrant crisis in Europe, he began to specialize in organized crime and money laundering. He joined the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in 2018 as a daily news reporter and then as a researcher. In 2020, he became the global network’s coordinating editor.

As a reporter, researcher and editor, he worked on projects such as Dubai’s Golden Sands, the Troika Laundromat, the FinCEN Files, and Blowing Unsmoke, using his expertise to uncover hidden assets, international money trails, offshore company ownership, and transnational organized crime groups.

Before becoming a research editor, he was the editorial coordinator of the Rainforest Investigations Network and helped RIN Fellows deepen their investigations by tracking supply chains and finding the ultimate beneficial owners of companies linked to deforestation.

FERNANDA BUFFA

Editor, Environmental Investigations

Fernanda Buffa (Fernanda Seavon) is a Brazilian journalist based in Prague, Czech Republic. She has a Master's degree in Journalism, Media, and Globalization and has collaborated with Al Jazeera, WIRED, The Intercept Brasil, Coda Story, and VICE. Before joining the Pulitzer Center as an Assistant at the Rainforest Journalism Fund, Fernanda also worked in communication at a UN Counter-Terrorism unit. Fernanda has a passion for journalism, poetry, photography, improv, and all things related to communication.

FEDERICO ACOSTA RAINIS

Data Editor

Federico Acosta Rainis is the data editor at the Data and Research Team at the Pulitzer Center. After a decade as an IT consultant, he started working as a journalist in several independent media in Argentina.

In 2017 he joined La Nación, Argentina's leading newspaper, where he reported on education, health, human rights, inequality, and poverty and did extensive on-the-ground coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Buenos Aires. He participated in investigations that won national and international awards for digital innovation and investigative journalism from ADEPA/Google and Grupo de Diarios América (GDA).

He holds a master's degree in data journalism from Birmingham City University. In 2021 he was awarded the Chevening Scholarship and in 2022 he joined The Guardian's Visuals Team as a Google News Initiative Fellow.

DOMÉNICA MONTAÑO

Program Coordinator, Environmental Investigations

Doménica is a journalist based in Quito, Ecuador. She has experience covering stories about human rights, environmental issues, Indigenous peoples, and gender. Doménica holds a Bachelor of Arts from Bennington College and was a member of the second cohort of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network in 2022. Doménica is passionate about nature and human rights.