2008 Winners

2007 Winners

2006 Winners

2005 Winners

2004 Winners

Previous Winners
1992 2003

The OPC Foundation keeps in touch with its scholarship winners and encourages their careers. The following is any update on where our past winners are today.

Mariano Castillo, IF Stone winner in 2008, who is pursuing a degree in international affairs at Columbia University, is traveling to Mexico City to work in the Reuters bureau this summer.

Jerry Guo, Reuters 2008 awardee, will intern for the Wall Street Journal this summer. He recently won first place in this year's Atlantic writing contest for nonfiction. That piece is set to run in the New York Times' Sunday Styles section.  He will also travel to Nepal this summer on a Yale grant to profile the king, who is about to be dethroned.

Devon Hanie, the 2008 Flora Lewis awardee and a recent graduate of the master's program at the Columbia University School of Journalism, is going to intern in the Associated Press bureau in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Paul Sonne, the 2008 Stan Swinton winner, now pursuing a master's in philosophy in Russian history as a Marshall scholar at the University of Oxford, will work in the Associated Press bureau in Moscow this summer.

Rollo Romig, 2008 Roy Rowan winner, after graduating from the master's program at New York University, is headed to Phnom Penh next fall to work for Cambodia Daily.

Max Strasser, 2008 Kendrick winner, will be working for at least a month this summer in TIME Magazine's bureau in Jerusalem.

Yu Sun, the first S&P winner in 2008, has a summer internship with Dow Jones.

Ben Weller, 2008 Schweisberg winner, graduated from Indiana University with a master's degree in journalism and will spend the summer in Reuters bureau in Seoul, South Korea.

Sareena Dalla, 2007 Theo Wilson winner, joined CNN's political team as in campaign producer in New Hampshire.   She will be in Manchester until the New Hampshire primary.   She also serves as an off air reporter and shoots, edits, produces, and writes for the CNN website.  See http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/category/states/new-hampshire/ and
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/about/2008-campaign-producer-sareena-dalla/.

Elizabeth Dickinson, the 2007 IF Stone winner, spent an internship with the Wall Street Journal Europe in Brussels, where she covered Africa, the EU, and general development/economic issues, as well as some features work on the side.  She then moved  to Nigeria where she will string for The Economist. She also hopes to write for AllAfrica.com, Slate, and Africa Renewal.

Jeremy Gantz, 2007 H.L. Stevenson, is back at Northwestern after a two-month OPC Foundation internship at the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh.  Among the highlights were traveling across the Tonle Sap lake to interview snake hunters in a remote floating village and interviewing Sam Rainsy in the National Assembly.

Ben Hubbard, 2007 Stan Swinton, spent three months in the AP bureau in Jerusalem and is now back at Berkeley to finish his degree.   An Arabic speaker, he was able to travel quite a bit and filed stories Nazareth, Bar Sheva, Ramallah and Nablus, among others.

Andy Greenberg, 2007 Reuters winner, is working at Forbes.com and is finishing up his master's degree at NYU.

Ed Ou, the 2007 Dan Eldon winner, is currently working as a freelancer with Reuters in Uganda, working with contacts he met at the 2007 scholarship luncheon. Next he heads for East Africa for then Sudan, and maybe Somalia.

Katie Paul, 2007 Kuhn winner, is now working at Newsweek.com. She remained in Buenos Aires after her two-month Reuters internship ended and contributed to the bureau’s national election coverage.  One of her stories ran in the Washington Post with her byline.

Emily Rotberg, who won the Freedman scholarship in 2007, is now in London freelancing for the Financial Times after completing a two-month internship with the paper. She covered the first British bank run since 1973 as well as emerging markets and UK news stories.

Erica Schlaikjer, 2007 Schweisberg winner, graduated from Northwestern and is to  Taipei in January for three months to study Mandarin at the Chinese Culture University.   She also launched a new blog: www.ResponsibleChina.com, about environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility in China.

Ayesha Akran, the 2006 Stan Swinton winner, spent 30 days in September and October in the Associated Press bureau in Bangkok, serving as the first OPC Foundation Internship winner. She was on the ground when the coup occurred.

Elizabeth Barchas, who won the Flora Lewis Scholarship in 2006, has an article in the February 2007 Harvard Law Review on international journalism and the threat journalists face when they report on international events and are then called into foreign courts because their stories were available on the internet.

Galima Bukharbaeva, the 2006 If Stone winner and Uzbek exile, is currently in Germany, working the editor-in-chief of the online informational service on Uzbekistan, www.uznews.net.

Anupreeta Das, the 2006 Reuters winner, is reporting on venture capital and technology for Reuters in its San Francisco bureau.

Cory Eldridge, the 2006 H.L. Stevenson winner, is now a reporter for the The Dalles Chronicle in Oregon. After completing an internship with Reuters” Dubai bureau, he wrote, “I used my OPC Foundation scholarship to pay for the trip. Because of the scholarship, I met the Reuters editors who offered me the opportunity. Thank you so much. I still don't believe I won the award, as a West Coast, state-school undergrad, and I still feel honored knowing that such a stellar organization included me in a group of brilliant, young journalists.”

Gregory D. Johnsen, the 2006 Schweisberg scholarship winner, has an article on the future of Yemen in the October 2006 edition of The American Interest.  Johnsen is now a PhD candidate in history and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at New York University. He is completing his PhD work at Princeton. A former Fulbright fellow in Yemen and an Arabic speaker, Johnsen wrote his winning essay on presidential politics in Yemen's fledging democracy.

The 2006 Theo Wilson winner Rachel Jones is headed to Caracas to work for the English-language paper, the Daily Journal, and freelance for other publications.

The 2006 Irene Corbally Kuhn winner Michelle Loyalka won the Missouri School of Journalism's O.O. McIntyre award, which will fund her writing a book next year. She will be working on the same topic that she wrote about for her OPC essay - the social and psychological impact China's rapid development is having on the lives of ordinary people.

Rawya Rageh, the 2006 Dan Eldon winner, is a producer for Al Jazeera English. She recently returned to the Sudan for a television assignment where she traveled to the South, to the border with Chad, and to Darfur. She even ended up with a half hour exclusive interview with the President. Rawya's comments at the scholarship luncheon were memorable for her plea that "Africa matters." She previously covered the Saddam Hussein trial for AP in Baghdad.  In a September 14, 2006, article on the web, she described locking eyes with him. She is currently based in Doha, Qater.

Zvika Krieger, 2006 Freedman Winner, wrote that an article "Kifaya: The Rise and Decline of Egypt's Secular Opposition," which grew out of the essay he wrote for the OPC Foundation scholarship appeared in the March 2006 issue of the Jerusalem Report. He wrote that as he begins making his plans for Beirut next year, “the generous scholarship will certainly come in handy, and hopefully allow me to experience more exciting opportunities like my reporting on Kifaya last summer.”

Jacob Adelman, 2005 HL Stevenson winner, is is now working full time in the Los Angeles bureau of the Associated Press.

Maria Ahmed, 2005 Stan Swinton winner, is working as a staff writer at Global Agenda Magazine in London, part of the Euromoney Institutional Investor group, and is hoping to move to Institutional Investor to cover emerging markets.

A story by Kristen Gillespie, the 2005 Irene Corbally Kuhn scholarship winner, used the rest of the scholarship to go to Turkmenistan and filed this report for NPR.

Marina Walker Guevara, the 2005 Emanuel Freedman winner, told us that one of the stories that resulted from her scholarship work won the European Commission Lorenzo Natali Award for Latin America and the Caribbean. The award recognizes excellence in the coverage of human rights and democracy in the developing world.

Shlomi Simhi, 2005 IF Stone winner, did an internship for the L.A. Times in Israel last summer.  For three months, he covered Tel-Aviv, Gaza and Jerusalem. He writes, “I feel that it's the ultimate fulfillment of the scholarship I was awarded by the OPC Foundation.”

Emily Steele, the Schweisberg winer in 2005, joined the Wall Street Journal as a reporting assistant in the Media and Marketing Group.  The University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill grad interned with the WSJ last summer. She covers digital media and marketing.

An in-depth project by Garance Burke, 2004 Freedman winner, was published on the front and back pages of the Sacramento Bee on the legacy of the braceros, California's forgotten fieldhands.  She wrote, “It goes without saying that my research would not have been possible without the OPC Foundation’s support.” She is now a reporter for AP in Fresno. She recently won the John L. Dougherty Award, an AP Managing Editor’s prize given to a staffer with less than three years of experience.  

Joe Hanel, the 2004 HL Stevenson winner, is the Washington correspondent for the Durango Herald.

Krista Mahr, the first Flora Lewis winner in 2004, is editing two English language magazines in Iceland: the Iceland Review, a cultural quarterly, and Atlantica, the inflight magazine for Icelandair.

Doug Merlino, Kendrick winner in 2004, was editor of the OPC Bulletin and is completing two books.

Matt Whitaker, 2004 Stan Swinton winner, is a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires.

The 2004 Dan Eldon winner Martin Patience is a Middle East correspondent for BBC News.

Nick Zamiskis, who won the Schweisberg scholarship in 2004, continues to file front page stories on China for the Wall Street Journal.

The 2004 Theo Wilson winner, Sarah Garland, traveled to El Salvador where Inter Press Service published her article on gangs, the same subject of her winning essay.
Fariba Nawa, 2004 Kuhn winner, wrote an article on the Afghan women and the drug trade that ran on the cover of the London Sunday Times Magazine.

Martin Dunai, who won the Roy Rowan scholarship in 2003, spent a summer in Paris as an intern at the Wall Street Journal Europe. 

Mariam Fam, 2003 Stan Swinton winner, an AP writer based in Cairo, reported for the wire service from Iraq.

Kristy Siegfried, 2003 Stevenson winner, worked at The Star (in Johannesburg), South Africa’s best-selling daily newspaper.

Wei Gu, 2002 Reuters winner, relocated to Hong Kong to become a columnist for Reuters Chinese language service after 3.5 years with the company in New York. She writes, “As a former Reuters scholarship winner, I owe a great deal to the Overseas Press Club Foundation. Without you, my fulfilling journey at the company would not have been possible.”

Brad Hong, who won the Schewisberg scholarship in 2002, is working as a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He was part of the P-I's business staff that won the 2006 Best Business Section award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

Carissa S Wyant, 2002 Dan Eldon winner, used her scholarship to further her education, and complete her studies at Yale. A 2002 graduate of Wellesley College with a double-major in Peace and Justice Studies and Comparative Religion, she holds a master's degree in Religious Studies from the Yale University Divinity School. Her dream is still to work as a Middle East correspondent. She writes, “Receiving the OPC Foundation scholarship in 2002 brought me one step closer to that dream by investing in my education, thus equipping me with the historical framework and analytical tools needed to be an effective and responsible journalist.”

Melissa Chan, 2001 Kendrick winner, who spent time with ABC News and World News Tonight with Peter Jennings wrote, “I thank the OPC Foundation for really moving beyond just the scholarship fund; I've had support far above what I ever expected when I won the scholarship.”
She joined Al Jazeera English as a producer/reporter in the network’s Beijing bureau.

Damien Cave, the IF Stone winner from 1998, is now a New York Times correspondent in Baghdad. For a revealing look at marraige in a war zone, see Damien's story that ran in the Times On January 20, 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/fashion/20baghdad.html?_r=1&ref=style&oref=slogin

Kristina Shevory, the 1998 Reuters winner, has been an energy reporter at TheStreet.com since last November. She has been writing about business since 1998 in Russia, Texas and Seattle for the Seattle Times, Dow Jones, BusinessWeek, Investor's Business Daily, New York Post and the New York Times.