My journalism journey began unexpectedly in high school. In March 2020, when Saco Bay News founder Liz Gotthelf announced the launch of her one-person local paper on Facebook, I took a shot in the dark — and I reached out. Liz welcomed my curiosity, and that fall I published my first articles on topics ranging from the Black Lives Matter movement to COVID-19 and a local car show. Those early stories became the foundation of my portfolio and taught me the power of community reporting. I worked with Liz for just under a year, from the middle of my senior year of high school through the beginning of my freshman year of college.

Once I started college at the University of New England, I joined the school paper, The Bolt. By sophomore year, I was offered the position of co-editor-in-chief (EIC), which I gladly accepted. As co-EIC, I expanded my scope beyond writing. I learned to design and maintain a WordPress site, edit and curate content, plan and host events, craft visual layouts and posters, and lead a team of writers, all while continuing to publish on a wide range of issues.

In June 2023, I took another step forward with a paid fellowship at the Portland Press Herald. For a year, I produced two bylined articles each semester under the business and features editors. In parallel, I worked two semesters as a news clerk, where I built the weekly “People on the Move” column and assembled local dining and event guides. That experience deepened my newsroom skills — from sourcing and reporting to deadline management — and even led to a part-time job continuing my clerical work over winter break.

By the end of my undergraduate experience, my reporting took a more investigative turn through my work with The Maine Monitor. As a reporting fellow with this nonprofit newsroom dedicated to deeply researched, public-interest journalism, I contributed to a major project on Maine’s maternity care crisis, a series that examined the closure of birthing units across the state and its impact on rural families. This work sharpened my skills in long-form reporting, data analysis, and issue-driven storytelling — and it crystallized my interest in investigative journalism.

That interest is now the focus of my graduate studies. I am currently pursuing a master’s degree in investigative journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School, where I continue to develop the investigative techniques that inform the in-depth work I’ve been publishing as a freelance reporter.

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