About

Hello! I am an Iowa-based journalist who reports and edits human interest stories, especially those related to equity and business. I work part-time for the Des Moines Business Record as special projects editor and also work on freelance projects. I previously wrote for NPR’s Public Editor team and served as editor of the Marshalltown Times-Republican. My work has been published by the Smithsonian Magazine, Inc. Magazine, the Guardian, Poynter and several local publications. I am an adjunct journalism professor at Drake University. I hold an MFA in narrative nonfiction from the University of Georgia and earned my undergraduate degrees in journalism and marketing from Iowa State University.

The University of Nebraska Press will publish my first book about the tornado that hit my hometown and its complicated aftermath in the spring of 2027.

Honors

• ACES Society for Editing scholar – 2024

• Iowa STATEment Maker award – 2023

• Poynter Institute’s Leadership Academy for Women in Media member – 2021 

• Alliance of Area Business Publishers awards for newspapers and e-newsletters – 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

• Iowa Newspaper Association Awards 2020 – Community Leadership Finalist and Special Section Award Winner

• Wallace E. Barron Senior Award Recipient – 2018

• Women Impacting ISU Award Recipient – 2018

• SPJ Robert DG Lewis First Amendment Award – 2017

• The Poynter College Media Project – Grant Recipient 2017 

• Iowa College Media Association Journalist of the Year – 2017