Like many news organizations, ProPublica has been pushing to increase its own diversity and that of the journalism community overall. As part of that effort, we created the Emerging Reporters Program, giving young journalists of color mentoring and stipends to support their burgeoning careers.

The grant-supported program is now in its third year. Emerging Reporters have gone on to work at The New Yorker, MSNBC, ProPublica and other newsrooms.

We’re very excited to announce our Emerging Reporters for the 2017-18 academic year. They were selected by ProPublica staffers from a pool of 275 applicants from across the country. The recipients are:

Kiara Alfonseca (@kiaraalfonseca) is a senior at The College of Brockport, where she studies digital journalism, and was the editor-in-chief of her school newspaper, The Stylus. This summer, she was awarded a fellowship with the Knight CUNYJ Diversity Initiative and worked with ProPublica as part of our Documenting Hate project. Alfonseca has also produced work for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ student multimedia project and is a freelance contributor to the Rochester City Newspaper. Alfonseca is interested in covering politics and the American prison system. She is from upstate New York.

Natalie Escobar (@_NatalieEscobar) is a senior at Northwestern University, where she majors in journalism and Latino Studies. She has also been managing editor, features editor and and a staff writer for her school’s quarterly magazine, North by Northwestern. She has interned for The Bump with the American Society of Magazine Editors’ internship program, produced stories for WBEZ’s StoryCorps and was an education reporter for the Medill News Service. Her work has been featured in Chicago Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, the New York Daily News and UPI. Escobar is interested in covering education and race in the Chicagoland area. She is from San Francisco.

Miela Fetaw (@mielafetaw) is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she studies journalism and global studies. Last year, she worked at WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee as a digital investigative intern and, in May, traveled to Japan as a Roy H. Howard National Reporting Fellow. Fetaw’s work has been featured in the Huffington Post and she has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Wisconsin College Media Association. Fetaw is interested in covering social issues, immigration and education. She was born and raised in Italy while her family is from Eritrea.

Ahmed Jallow (@AhmedJallow) is a senior at Brooklyn College and received an associate in arts degree from Borough of Manhattan Community College in 2016. He is a reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle, where he covers local and federal courts, and works for both of his college’s student newspapers. This past spring, Jallow worked as a court reporter for the Mellon Transfer Student Research Program, which provides court reporting for community newspapers. He was also club president and editor of Ourwords.info, a journal at Borough of Manhattan Community College. Jallow is from the Gambia and lives in the Bronx.

Andrea Salcedo (@salcedonews) is a senior at Columbia College in Chicago, where she majors in multimedia journalism, and was the campus editor for the school’s newspaper, The Columbia Chronicle. This year, she won first place for in-depth reporting from the Illinois College Press Association. Salcedo has interned with the Chicago Sun-Times, CNN en Español and Chicago’s City Bureau. She won a Columbia Journalism School fellowship to attend the Investigative Reporters & Editors conference in Phoenix last year. Salcedo is interested in covering criminal justice, immigration and policing issues. She is from Panama.