Greetings.

I'm a reporter with Jefferson Public Radio, the NPR station on the Oregon-California border. I cover poverty and homelessness, wildfires, and a little bit of everything impacting this mostly rural region.

My coverage of wildfires and homelessness impacted me personally in 2020. In September I had to evacuate my home as the Almeda Fire tore through my neighborhood, wiping out thousands of homes. Mine was spared. The experience led me to reflect on my past reporting about wildfire preparedness in a personal essay for the Columbia Journalism Review.

I later partnered with NPR's station investigations team to dig into high denial rates among FEMA applicants from Oregon's wildfires. We spent months analyzing data and interviewing wildfire survivors and found wide fluctuations in approval rates and denials of people who met aid criteria.

The wildfire worsened Southern Oregon's affordable housing crisis, leading many unsheltered people to pitch tents in areas outside of the burn zone. Three weeks after the fire, I was arrested while covering a police sweep of a homeless camp in a Medford public park. My employer, Jefferson Public Radio, has released a statement and my editor has published a column about it. The city is pursuing charges of trespassing and resisting arrest. My lawyers and I dispute these charges. I'm not commenting on it otherwise.

TL;DR

2006-10 — Golden West College & Cal-State Fullerton, bachelors in English, features editor/columnist of the campus paper

2012-14 — AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer in St. Helens, OR & Portland, OR, with a focus on housing

2014-16 — Reporter in Ontario, OR & Payette, ID covering oil & gas, local gov

2016-17 — Reporter in Roseburg, OR covering housing, city gov

2017-pr — Public radio reporter for Jefferson Public Radio in Ashland, OR