The Texas Tribune’s newest newsroom hires

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At the top of an especially busy news 12 months in Texas, I’m delighted to announce 5 improbable additions to The Texas Tribune’s newsroom and occasions crew.

Emily Foxhall joined us Dec. 19 as our new power reporter. Previously, Emily lined the atmosphere for the Houston Chronicle, her hometown newspaper, the place she labored since 2015, following a two-year stint on the Los Angeles Times. Emily distinguished herself in protecting the Santa Fe High School capturing and was a part of a crew that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for protection of Hurricane Harvey. She then roamed the state as “Texas Storyteller,” protecting far-flung tales, together with the primary few months of COVID-19 throughout the areas of Texas.

Moving to the atmosphere beat in 2020, Emily lined local weather disasters, industrial air pollution, flood infrastructure and environmental coverage. She has a present for weaving science and coverage into human-centered narratives. As our power reporter, Emily will stay primarily based in Houston and once more roam the state, protecting oil, fuel and renewables from the Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast, in addition to {the electrical} grid and power regulation (or the dearth of it). Emily was a standout Texas Tribune fellow in 2012 whereas she was a scholar at Yale. We are thrilled to welcome her again.

Laura Garcia, beforehand a well being care reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, began Oct. 31 as our afternoon/night news editor. Laura has been writing about well being care, insurance coverage and biomedical industries, with a give attention to well being inequities and the impacts on South Texas customers, since 2019. As a fellow of the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, Laura secured grants for a series on health disparities in San Antonio, specializing in a historic lack of funding within the metropolis’s South Side.

From 2014-19, Laura was a senior reporter after which a options editor at The Victoria Advocate. She reported on well being and nonprofits in a seven-county area and have become an editor in 2017, managing arts and leisure protection. Previously, Laura was a reporter for The Roanoke Times in Virginia in 2013 and a duplicate editor and contributing editor at SA Scene journal in San Antonio from 2011-13. Laura was born in Pearsall and has spent most of her life in San Antonio. She graduated from San Antonio College, the place she edited the coed paper, The Ranger, and from Texas State University in San Marcos.

Michele Gonzalez joined us as deputy director of occasions and reside journalism on Dec. 19, after eight years on the Austin Convention Center, the place she was a senior occasion coordinator, working with commerce associations, nonprofits, firms, universities and authorities entities. Born in Fort Polk, Louisiana, the place her father served within the Army, Michele grew up in neighboring Leesville and studied radio, tv and movie on the University of Louisiana at Monroe. During faculty, she labored at KTVE, the NBC affiliate. In 2001, she started her occasions profession in Washington, D.C., supporting what’s now the Radio Television Digital News Association as a undertaking coordinator and membership supervisor.

In 2004, Michele joined the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the place over a decade she labored her means up from skilled improvement director to director of conventions and particular occasions. During that point, she moved to Austin in 2008 and served as affiliate director of NAHJ’s Parity Project, an initiative to deliver extra Latino press illustration to areas with massive Latino populations. A licensed assembly planner, Michele is energetic with Meeting Professionals International and is a member of the International Association of Exhibitions and Events and the International Association of Venue Managers. She is the vice chairman for training on the board of MPI’s Texas Hill Country chapter.

Julia Guilbeau, additionally a local of Louisiana, joined the Tribune as an viewers producer on Dec. 7. She involves us from Baton Rouge, the place she labored as a digital content material editor for The Advocate, The Acadiana Advocate and The Times-Picayune. She has assisted with breaking news protection, managed social media platforms and contributed to engagement initiatives and the newsrooms’ newsletters.

Some of the work she’s proudest of contains a Twitter Moment a couple of lady being denied an abortion although she had a nonviable being pregnant, and the community- and reader-first reporting undertaking Curious Louisiana. Julia graduated from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette in 2020 and was acknowledged as a school journalist of the 12 months by the Southeast Journalism Conference. She is a Lafayette native and loves the bayous, meals and festivals that form her hometown.

Last in alphabetical order, however actually not least … Stephen Simpson, an skilled journalist in his native Arkansas, will be a part of us on Jan. 30 as our first-ever psychological well being reporter. Stephen is a part of the statehouse reporting crew at The Arkansas Democrat Gazette, the place he has labored since 2018. He has lined a number of elections; tales about race, training and COVID-19; and the spring 2019 floods alongside the Arkansas River, one of many costliest disasters within the state’s historical past. Like Laura Garcia, Stephen acquired a fellowship from the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, which he used to jot down “The Great Delta Divide,” a sequence of tales about well being disparities within the Arkansas Delta.

Previously, Stephen was a reporter for The Jonesboro Sun, the place he lined police, courts and legal justice, and for The Commercial in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the place he was a common task reporter whereas additionally engaged on copy modifying, manufacturing and pictures. A local of Fayetteville, Arkansas, he grew up in Little Rock. His father served within the Marine Corps, and his mom is a licensed behavioral well being therapist, working with households within the youngster welfare system. Stephen graduated from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway in 2014 with a level in print and on-line journalism and a minor in digital filmmaking.

We couldn’t be happier to welcome Emily, Laura, Michele, Julia and Stephen to the employees of the Tribune.

Disclosure: San Antonio College has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Find a whole list of them here.