Revelatory accountability reporting
Sophie Baker is a sophomore at Northwestern University, studying journalism and political science. On campus, she most recently served as the city editor at The Daily Northwestern and has also covered politics in Washington for the Medill News Service. She will spend the summer in Las Vegas working for the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Maya Cederlund is a graduate student studying investigative journalism at Northwestern University and an investigative reporting intern for WBEZ Chicago. She also was a 2025 White House Correspondents’ Association scholar. Cederlund is interested in journalism that holds power to account and uplifting marginalized voices and communities through print and audio storytelling. Last summer, Cederlund was a News Intern for NPR-affiliate KCUR 89.3 and a reporting fellow for the Investigative Reporting Workshop in Washington, D.C. Cederlund has covered storm splitting in Kansas and TKTK Utica. Cederlund graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., in May 2025 with a major in journalism and a minor in political science. At AU, she was DEI Editor at the school paper and co-founded her university’s inaugural Asian American Journalists Association chapter.
Nicole Cheah is a junior at Northwestern University studying journalism and international studies. Originally from Singapore, she has interned with The South China Morning Post, the Council of Europe and The Straits Times. In 2023, Nicole was awarded the Singapore Press Holdings Journalism Scholarship. She covers national security for the Medill News Service.
Marisa Guerra Echeverria is a junior at Northwestern University studying journalism and political science. She reports on immigration, political campaigns and local government for The Daily Northwestern, where she’s served as a managing editor and founded its Spanish language publication, El Diario Northwestern. She is also involved in Northwestern’s student chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Marisa has previously reported for Capitol News Illinois, Medill News Service, and the 2025 Politico Journalism Institute. She will spend the summer in Sacramento, Calif. reporting on state policy, politics and the 2026 midterm elections for POLITICO California. Marisa is passionate about highlighting the human impacts of immigration, housing and education policy and analyzing the roles of powerplayers and stakeholders behind political campaigns.
Matthew Junkroski is a graduate student in Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism Investigative Lab D.C. He previously went to North Carolina State University, where he studied English and worked as a staff writer at the university’s largest paper, the Technician. While he was in North Carolina, he interned for a summer at Indy Week, a publication covering North Carolina’s Research Triangle area, where he covered topics ranging from education to animal rights. In Chicago, he began an externship with the Project on Government Oversight’s Bad Watchdog podcast, where he worked on the podcast’s third season.
Matthew’s work focuses on social justice and accountability with a particular focus on the LGBTQ+ community, animal rights and education.
Zara Norman is a graduate student in Northwestern University’s D.C. Medill Investigative Lab concentrating in data journalism. A native of England, she graduated from Brown University with A.B. degrees in history and classics, where she served as editor in chief of a campus satire publication. Zara was a daily news reporter for three years — first covering general assignment across 14 rural Maine communities for the Morning Sentinel, and then housing statewide for the Bangor Daily News. She has also written about business for the Boston Globe, generic drugs for ProPublica and immigration for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Zara brings a service and solutions-oriented approach to journalism and is particularly interested in covering the issues top of mind for Americans today: housing, health and the economy.
Misha Manjuran Oberoi is a junior at Northwestern majoring in journalism and minoring in psychology and political science. She’s from Noida and Kerala, India, and is passionate about journalism that uses data and multimedia to tell human-centered stories. She most recently covered health and science for Medill News Service and spent last summer reporting on transportation at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. This summer, she will intern on the finance team at Bloomberg News. She hopes to build a career in international and multimedia reporting. In her free time, she enjoys reading historical fiction, working out, and playing board games with friends.
Jaylyn Preslicka is an investigative journalist originally from Los Angeles. She received her master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University with a concentration in data reporting. She covers stories on politics and policy, mental health, immigration and the FDA through an investigative lens.
Naisha Roy is an investigative journalism student in the Medill D.C. labs with a data concentration. She focuses her coverage on immigration, education access and civic engagement, applying a polling and numbers-focused approach to these issues. These interests were shaped by her undergraduate studies in journalism and Spanish-linguistics at NYU, where she covered ballot measures and small businesses for local outlets and served as Deputy Managing Editor of the university newspaper. At home in Atlanta, she worked as a part-time reporter for the Forsyth County News and Atlanta Magazine, writing about the city council election and HOA misconduct—spurring state-level legislation. At Northwestern, she’s developed further through an externship at the Investigative Project for Race and Equity, immigration coverage on Capitol Hill and words in ProPublica. Naisha brings an international perspective to the immigration and policy beats and hopes to continue covering them in the future.
Elena Tittel is a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, pursuing a master’s of science in journalism with a concentration in data journalism. In addition to MIL DC, she will cover social justice for Medill News Service this spring and is spending this summer at South Dakota News Watch as an investigative reporting intern. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she graduated in May 2025 from Skidmore College with a B.A. in English and Psychology. Her previous experience heavily emphasizes her love for local and community-centric journalism, demonstrated through her previous roles at the Hyde Park Herald, The Fauquier Times, The Saratogian, WAMC Northeast Public Radio, Franky in New York and The Skidmore News. With a strong passion for accountability reporting, she is interested in covering mental health and social justice, committed to telling the stories of those who may not otherwise have their voices heard.
Debbie Cenziper is an associate professor and the director of investigative reporting at Medill. She also oversees the Medill Investigative Lab. Besides teaching, Cenziper is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and nonfiction author who writes for The Washington Post. She spent three years at The George Washington University before joining the faculty of Medill.
Over the years, Cenziper’s investigative stories have exposed wrongdoing, prompted Congressional hearings and led to changes in federal and local laws. In her classes at Medill, Cenziper and her students focus on social justice investigative reporting.
Cenziper has won dozens of awards in American print journalism, including the Robert F. Kennedy Award for reporting about human rights and the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting from Harvard University. She received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 at The Miami Herald for a series of stories about corrupt affordable housing developers who were stealing from the poor. A year before that, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for stories about dangerous breakdowns in the nation’s hurricane-tracking system.
Cenziper is a frequent speaker at universities, writing conferences and book events. Her first book, “Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality,” (William Morrow, 2016) was named one of the most notable books of the year by The Washington Post. Her second book, “Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler’s Hidden Soldiers in America,” was released by Hachette Books in November 2019.
Cenziper is based on Medill’s Washington, D.C. campus, working with undergraduate and graduate students on investigative stories.