2009 Winners

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.

Simon Akam, a British Fulbright Scholar at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, has won an internship in the Reuters bureau in Istanbul. He ws the Freedman winner in 2009.

Michael Miller, the 2009 Stan Swinton winner who is in a joint master's degree program in journalism and Latin American studies at NYU, will intern in the Mexico City bureau of the Associated Press.

Stephen Nessen, the 2009 Roy Rowan winner, is the first OPC Fellow to intern for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. In the summer of 2009, he worked as assistant producer in the morning on WNYC. Here's a story he produced.

Maria Repnikova, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and the 2009 Kendrick winner, will intern in the Reuters bureau in Beijing.

Michelle Theriault, the 2009 Theo Wilson winner and a master's candidate in the journalism program at the University of Oregon, is going to intern in the Associated Press bureau in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Jessica Wanke, the 2009 H.L. Stevenson winner, has an article in the American Journalism Review on an Afghan entrepreneur who opened a business in Kabul catering to journalists. Here's the link to the online version: http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4707

Mayank Bubna, 2008 H.L. Stevenson winner, is New Delhi working as a freelance journalist reporting on defense and security issues. He recently completed a documentary entitled Wayaahu Cusuub about a Somali music band living in Kenya that's been making waves in East Africa. The band members are all refugees with no formal music training or education of any sort. They speak of the trials and tribulations of having to speak up through their music on issues not typically discussed in Somali communities, often facing backlash for it.

Mariano Castillo, IF Stone winner in 2008, who is pursuing a degree in international affairs at Columbia University, is back from his OPC Foundation internship in Mexico City where he worked in the Reuters bureau.

Jerry Guo, Reuters 2008 awardee, wrote an article for the Washington Post entitled "My Excellent North Korean Adventure" and was profiled by NPR. He also interned for the Wall Street Journal during the summer of 2008. Jerry also won first place in the Atlantic writing contest for nonfiction. That piece ran in the New York Times' Sunday Styles section.  He will traveled to Nepal on a Yale grant to profile the king, who is about to be dethroned. He was went to Zimbabwe in January 2009. . Articles on the African trip appeared in Newsweek.com and the Christian Science Monitor. He will graduate from Yale in 2009.

Devon Haynie, the 2008 Flora Lewis awardee and a graduate of the master's program at the Columbia University School of Journalism, is back in the US. She extended her stay in South Africa and continued reporting from there after her OPC Foundation internship in the Associated Press bureau in Johannesburg.

Sheila B. Lalwani, 2008 Irene Corbally Kuhn winner, completed two internships in New Delhi, one with the Human Rights Law Network and one with the US Department of State. She was awarded a Nancy Klavans Fellowship from Harvard University's Women & Public Policy Program to research media and human rights in India.

Sarah Mishkin, Freedman winner in 2008, graduated from Yale in December 2008 and is interning at NPR in Hartford. She intends to go move back to Cairo in April to freelance and produce video segments and a podcast for a local magazine.

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, worked in the Associated Press bureau in Moscow.

Alexandra Suich, 2008 Theo Wilson winner, has been working at The Economist since she graduated from Yale, first as an intern and now as a freelancer.

Rollo Romig, 2008 Roy Rowan winner, after graduating from the master's program at New York University, went to Phnom Penh in the fall of 2008 as an OPC Foundation intern at the Cambodia Daily.

Max Strasser, 2008 Kendrick winner, worked in the summer of 2008 in TIME Magazine's bureau in Jerusalem.

Yu Sun, the first S&P winner in 2008, has a summer internship with Dow Jones. He is China recovering from an illness and hopes to return to NYU as soon as possible.

Ben Weller, 2008 Schweisberg winner, is back in Indiana teaching photography at Manchester College and looking forward to his next assignment overseas. After his OPC Foundation internship in the Reuters bureau in Seoul, South Korea, he stayed on in Korea and taught English at Gyeongsang National University. He also did some freelance photo work, including covering Singapore's foreign minister's trip to Seoul  for the Straits Times. A Duke graduate, Ben graduated from Indiana University with a master's degree in journalism in 2008. Click here to see his portfolio.

The 2007 Kendrick winner, Antonio Castaneda, is working as a producer for The Charlie Rose Show at PBS.

Aaron Clark, the 2007 Roy Rowan winner, is an energy markets reporter at Bloomberg News.

Sareena Dalla, 2007 Theo Wilson winner, returned to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government after taking the fall 2007 semester off to serve as CNN’s 2008 New Hampshire Campaign Producer leading up to the state’s January 8 primary. Click here to learn of her experiences.

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, became the full-time Web editor of In These Times in March 2009, a magazine published in Chicago that reports on workers’ rights and labor issues, both domestic and international. He graduated from the master's program at Northwestern after a two-month OPC Foundation internship at the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh.  Among the highlights of that experience 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, is now back as a reporter in the AP bureau in Jerusalem, the same site where he served as an intern in the OPC Foundation internship program. As an intern, the Arabic speaker was able to travel quite a bit and filed stories from Nazareth, Bar Sheva, Ramallah and Nablus, among others. Ben graduated from the master's program at Berkeley in 2008.

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. After a six-month internship, she was hired as a reporter-researcher. In 2007, Katie remained in Buenos Aires after her two-month Reuters/OPC Foundation internship ended and contributed to the bureau’s national election coverage. 

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, Erica Schlaikjer, 2007 Schweisberg winner, is working for Crain's Chicago Business on a new multimedia online project about international business.  She returned from Taipei, where she wrote articles for the Taiwan Business TOPICS magazine, published by the American Chamber of Commerce.  Her blog: www.ResponsibleChina.com, is 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 as editor-in-chief of the online informational service on Uzbekistan, www.uznews.net. She is alsochairwoman of the Real Unity of Journalists of Uzbekistan. In May 2009, she was trying to rally world support for her colleague Sali Abdurakhmanov. Click here for more information.

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 a reporter for The Associated Press in Caracas, Venezuela.

Zvika Krieger, who won the Freedman award in 2006, is in Washington DC at the New Republic.

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 back in Cairo as Egypt Producer for Al Jazeera English. Rawya's comments at the scholarship luncheon were memorable for her plea that "Africa matters." She also covered the Saddam Hussein trial for AP in Baghdad.  In a September 14, 2006, article on the web, she described locking eyes with him. On a television assignment in the Sudan,where she traveled to the South, to the border with Chad and to Darfur, she had a half hour exclusive interview with the president.

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 at Time Magazine in Hong Kong. Before that, she edited 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 the BBC correspondent in Kabul. He writes in April 2009: "It's a great job, fascinating story, and absolutely beautiful country. I really wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

Nick Zamiskis, who won the Schweisberg scholarship in 2004, is at Yale Law School after several years covering 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. Click here for an updatae.

Marton Dunai, who won the Roy Rowan scholarship in 2003, moved to Budapest in September 2008, after six years in California. He's a traveling regional (Balkans, Central Europe) correspondent at the leading Hungarian daily and is working for some American initiatives on the side, as well as Transitions Online in Prague and the Center for Investigative Reporting in Sarajevo. He is also starting his own blog /news site to chronicle his travels in multimedia

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

Jason McClure, 2003 Freedman winner, is an East Africa-based correspondent for Bloomberg and Newsweek. he and his wife Tessa live in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Previously he covered the Justice Department for Legal Times in Washington D.C. and interned for Newsweek on the foreign desk and in the Boston bureau. He writes, "The OPC scholarship was a key factor in getting the Newsweek internship, as I handed my clips to their chief of correspondents during the OPC tour."

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.

William Nessen, 2000 Dan Eldon Scholarship winner, is in Cape Town S.A. working on a film.

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 Miami, after several years reporting from 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.