Medill News Service Reporters
Kelly Adkins
Kelly Adkins is a business and finance reporter for the Medill News Service and graduate student of Northwestern specializing in investigative journalism. Her previous experience includes project management and early stage startup development within the nonprofit, marketing and SaaS sectors. She graduated from the University of New Haven in 2021 with a bachelors of communication and a minor in Arabic language and culture.
Kelsey Baker
Kelsey Baker is a graduate student in the Medill Investigative Lab focused on national security. She has a BA in History and an MA in Diplomacy, with a focus in international terrorism. She’s an Oklahoma native, and previously worked as an editorial intern at The Chronicle of the Horse magazine. She spent six years on active duty in the Marine Corps.
Meaghan Downey
Meaghan Downey is a graduate student at Northwestern Medill in the Politics, Policy and Foreign Affairs specialization. Before her time at Medill, Meaghan graduated from Boston College with a BA in Political Science and worked in advertising sales for Warner Bros. Discovery.
Andrew Zi-Qi Fang
Esther Frances
Esther Frances is a graduate student at Northwestern University specializing in politics, policy and foreign affairs. She graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in the spring of 2023 and now covers the foreign affairs beat for Medill News Service. She has previously written for the Washington Blade and Montgomery Community Media.
Haajrah Gilani
Haajrah Gilani is a master’s student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in the Medill Investigative Lab. She has a B.A. in journalism from Temple University, where she specialized in print reporting and worked for multiple publications across campus. She cares about the intersection between crime and public policy, and she has written award-winning pieces like how a lack of education and development in Philadelphia contributed to increased participation of youth carjacking. She also interned with 6abc and The Buffalo News.
Anastasia Mason
Anastasia Mason is a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism specializing in policy, politics and foreign affairs. She graduated from Valparaiso University in 2023 with a BA in International Relations, Spanish and Global Service.
Emma McNamee
Emma McNamee is a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. A 2021 graduate of Columbia College’s journalism program, she previously worked as a reporter in southwest Minnesota covering politics, crime, courts, and city government. Now a Medill Investigative Lab student, her focus is on investigative news and politics.
Nicole Norman
Nicole Norman is a graduate student at Medill in the Politics, Policy & Foreign Affairs specialization. She covers the politics beat for Medill News Service. Norman received a B.S. in Journalism from Loyola Marymount University in the spring of 2023 and has interned at news organizations such as NBC and CNN
Phillip Powell
Phillip Powell is a graduate student at Northwestern Medill specializing in the Investigative Lab program. He covers foreign affairs for the Medill News Service. He earned his B.A. from Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas where he studied political science, wrote for the student magazine The Profile and worked as Editor-in-Chief of the literary magazine The Aonian.
Juliann Ventura
Juliann Ventura is a reporter for the Medill News Service covering social justice. She graduated from Butler University in 2022 with undergraduate degrees in international studies and criminology, and is now a graduate student specializing in the Medill Investigative Lab program. Before Medill, Juliann produced a story exposing workers’ and women’s rights violations, and conducted interviews with a Black Lives Matter co-founder and a member of the Exonerated Five, formerly known as the Central Park Five.