The Latino Reporter is a news website sponsored by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists that features journalism produced by student members tasked with covering the organization and its annual conference. The Latino Reporter strives to cover the organization and issues relevant to its mission with fairness and accuracy in a live newsroom environment staffed by student journalists and professional mentors. The newsroom exercises editorial independence. Read more about our editorial guidelines here.
Meet our student journalists
Abigail Segoviano (she/her/ella) graduated summa cum laude from San Diego State University as a first-generation college student, earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism with minors in Spanish and sports and society.
Originally from the Bay Area, Segoviano is a second-generation Mexican American. A lifelong sports fan, she began her journalism career as an undergraduate and joined San Diego State’s NAHJ chapter her first year. By her senior year, she was serving as the chapter’s president. Throughout college, she covered athletics for The Daily Aztec, San Diego State’s student newspaper, where she eventually launched its Spanish-language coverage.
Segoviano is spending her summer interning at La Voz, the Spanish-language publication of The Arizona Republic, through the Pedro Gomez Foundation and the NAHJ Summer Internship Program. After spending the summer in Phoenix, she is looking forward to returning to the Bay Area to enjoy her family’s home cooking — and a bowl of clam chowder.
She hopes to one day work for a newspaper like the San Francisco Chronicle or The New York Times, with the ultimate goal of covering the NBA. Basketball has been a major part of her life since elementary school, when she TKTKTKT. Outside of journalism, she enjoys building LEGO sets, buying more romance novels than she has time to read, and scrapbooking. This is Segoviano’s fourth NAHJ conference.
— Thai Theodoro
Alejandra Chaves Naranjo (she/her/ella) prefers the casual tone of social media interviews, but under the bright lights of the red carpet. From Medellín, Colombia, she moved to Orange County, California, in 2023 to attend school at California State University, Fullerton.
She knew didn’t want to be stuck in an office all day or working a 9-to-5. Talking to people and being on camera felt natural, leading her to major in communications with a concentration on journalism.
She worked as an anchor and executive producer for Al Día and The Report, covering breaking news in English and Spanish. She is Vice President at her university’s NAHJ chapter and an Entertainment intern at NBC4 and Telemundo 52 in Los Angeles.
She plans to pursue lifestyle and entertainment reporting with the Latino community.
— Sofia Esparza
Angela Osorio (she/her/ella) was born a storyteller. As a child, she often scribbled fictional stories about mermaids, fairies and spies — including a secret agent named Thalia Zip-Lips — with blue, purple and green ink on notebook paper.
Today, she continues to tell stories, but ones based more firmly in reality.
Born to Mexican-Ecuadorian and Colombian parents, Osorio is a multimedia journalist pursuing a bachelor’s degree in journalism at Cal State Long Beach.
Within the last year, she interned as a food reporter at the Los Angeles Times, an environmental reporter at the Signal Tribune in Long Beach and a social media contributor at Basic magazine in Beverly Hills. She also traveled to Israel to report for Fuente Latina, a non-profit that provides journalists with resources to cover news in the Middle East, in November of 2025.
Osorio, who is interning at ABC 7 in L.A., will serve as NAHJ’s chapter president at Cal State-Long Beach and editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Current. She is slated to graduate in the spring and aspires to work as a breaking news or at The New York Times.
When she’s not hunting down her next story, you can find Osorio eating sushi and poke bowls or watching reality TV. She enjoys reading classic literature, including Jane Austen novels, and has two dogs — Po, a black and white lab mix, and Harley, a german shepherd.
— Nikole Valiente
Ianis Soto (she/her/ella) was born and raised in the small town of Isabela, Puerto Rico. As someone who grew up with a love for writing and natural curiosity amid bouts of natural disasters and political disruption, journalism called to her.
She grew passionate about social injustices when she saw them impact her community. Journalists, she observed, seemed to expose the truth. Soon, she was plotting a career doing just that.
Ianis is a double major in interdisciplinary communications and journalism at the Universidad de Sagrado Corazón, where she anchors and produces for STVNews English newscast, as well as produces and works as journalist in STVNoticias.
As an award-winning producer, Soto hopes to continue amplifying community voices. She feels that it’s not just her responsibility, but an honor to do the work she does. When she’s not in the newsroom, she enjoys spending her days relaxing at the beach with her family.
— Lizbeth Solorzano
Ivan Saravia (he/him/él) believes in the power of community journalism and reporting on local government and underrepresented communities. That every story starts at the local level is a core belief of his. He sees it, he says, it informs statewide and national coverage. Ivan hopes to remain in the Bay Area for as long as he can, providing his strong storytelling and coverage to his community.
Ivan is a student at Laney College in Oakland, California, studying journalism. Ivan is the former Co-Editor in Chief at his college newspaper, The Peralta Citizen. He has done enterprise and investigative reporting, covering local government across the Peralta Community College District. He aspires to become a full-time investigative reporter in the Bay Area, covering crime, education and local politics.
Outside of digging into public records and chasing down public officials, Ivan is an avid sports fan and Warriors die-hard. You can often spot him at the local taquería, enjoying his go-to order, tacos al-pastor.
— James Gordon
James Gordon (he/ him/ él) is a senior at Weber State University in Utah, where he is pursuing a major in communications and a minor in criminal justice. James is a Utah native and comes from a mixed background of Scottish and Mexican heritage. He is a strong believer in government accountability and hopes to pursue local accountability journalism in Utah.
His home state is filled with small groups that deeply care about their local communities and environments, James said, and he shares those same sentiments with a deep passion for weather and climate change reporting since it impacts everyone in a state that’s so known for its nature and outdoor recreation.
He is also interested in enterprise reporting and deep dives. Outside of reporting, James is an avid biker, saxophone player and can’t live without coffee.
— Ivan Saravia
Lizbeth Solorzano (she/her/ella) is a bilingual multimedia journalist and a recent masters graduate in specializing in race and social justice from University of Southern California. She is an investigative intern at LA Taco.
Solorzano wants to become a trusted source in her community, focusing on local news and social injustices. She relies on her empathy and ability to connect with those around her to find and tell unique stories. Lizbeth wants to highlight the things her neighbors are experiencing, specifically focusing on under-represented groups.
She received her undergraduate degree from the Oregon University in journalism. In her undergraduate years, she freelanced and worked for student publications, focusing on arts and culture and Latino communities.
When she’s not chasing a story, she usually buries her nose in a book.
— Ianis Soto Valle
Nikole Valiente has always asked the question “why.”
Growing up, she frequently asked her father, an electrician, how phone chargers work or how water flushes down a toilet. She would pester him until he could no longer answer.
Born in Hialeah, Florida to Cuban parents, Valiente’s identity is built on home. It’s this love for family that has fueled her passion for making people feel seen through storytelling.
Now a senior at Florida International University, Valiente, hopes to become a general assignment or local government reporter in her hometown.
Valiente is a contributor to Caplin News, the student-led media outlet at FIU. She is currently living in Berry, Kentucky for the Mary Withers Rural Writing Fellowship, writing long-form news stories about rural Harrison County . Valiente previously served as editor-in-chief at Miami Dade College’s student newspaper, The Reporter.
In her free time, she loves sipping on Cuban coladas and listening to Noah Kahan.
— Angela Osorio
Sofia Esparza (she/her/ella) found her calling in journalism through people — the connection, responsibility and trust a community places in the person who tells its stories.
Originally from rural Wisconsin, a place she fondly describes as “farms, cows and cheese,” Sofia recently graduated from the University of Minnesota as a first‑generation college student. The daughter of a Mexican immigrant, she has found her place in the entertainment industry, where art, music and fashion intersect in the pages of her articles.
Her work has appeared in campus publications, including Buttercup Magazine, where she served as managing editor, and Golden Magazine, another student publication where she contributed as a writer and producer.
Sofia hopes to one day write long‑form features for a major magazine, somewhere that believes in her voice and her gut as a reporter. She loves the intimacy of feature writing; the slow conversations, the details, the trust. It’s something she tries to bring to her stories, no matter the topic.
— Alejandra Chaves Naranjo
Thai Theodoro (she/her/ella) is an incoming at Grinnell College, where she studies political science and is pursuing a minor in Latin American studies.
Born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thai’s introduction to journalism was what she calls “the school of The New York Times” and was inspired by an instructor in the journalism program, Judith Matloff. Her goal is to become a foreign correspondent covering South America for a major publication.
She has interned at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Des Moines Register and is now interning at the Boston Globe on the local section. Thai is involved in The Scarlet and Black, Grinnell’s student-run publication where she has won multiple Iowa Newspaper Association awards.
Outside of journalism and political science, she likes volunteering to deliver food to home-bound seniors. Community is at the core of how Thai’s moves through the world, and has been part of the Brazilian Student Association where she has organized events with other clubs to gather people and bring a sense of Latin America to the cornfields.
— Abigail Segoviano
Vivian Hernández Mejías (she/her/ella) was born in Mexico City and moved to the United States in 2020. A recent graduate of the University of Arkansas, she discovered journalism as a tool to educate, inform and amplify the voices of Latino communities. During college, she served as vice president of the university’s NAHJ student chapter, worked as a reporter and anchor for La Voz de Arkansas and completed an internship with Univision Arkansas.
This year, she is a finalist for the Ñ Awards for her story, A Community on Edge: Deportations and Fear in NWA’s Hispanic Population, published by the Razorback Reporter at the University of Arkansas School of Journalism and Strategic Media.
Passionate about immigration issues, Vivian aims to use journalism to combat misinformation and tell stories that reflect the experiences of the Latino community.
— Yarithza Liceaga López
Yarithza Liceaga López (she/her/ella) is originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was raised in Isabela. A first-generation college graduate of the University of Puerto Rico in Arecibo with a degree in teleradio communications with an emphasis in news production
She discovered her passion for community journalism at the age of 15 and has since gained experience as a web producer at Telemundo Puerto Rico.
In 2026, Yarithza received a NATAS Student Production Award for a documentary about the sugarcane and rum industry in Arecibo, on which she served as the scriptwriter and researcher. She works as a Web Producer at TeleOnce Puerto Rico and hopes to pursue a career as a television news producer.
— Vivian Mejía
Meet the mentors
Marissa J. Lang (she/her/ella) is the 2025 co-director of the Latino Reporter and a 2009 alumna. She began mentoring in 2017, and has co-led the project five times.
Before joining NPR in 2026, Lang was a staff writer at The Washington Post, where she produced deep narrative and accountability stories on the D.C. region as a local enterprise reporter. Prior to that, Lang covered housing and gentrification issues for The Post. She came to The Post in 2018 as its lead protest reporter. Her coverage of rising domestic extremism and the violence that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol culminated in her on-the-ground reporting of the insurrection and its aftermath.
Lang was part of the team of journalists whose work was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
Lang has worked at local newspapers all over the country, covering subjects that ranged from natural disasters to the tech industry for papers including the San Francisco Chronicle, Salt Lake Tribune, and the Tampa Bay Times. She has reported internationally from several countries, including Mexico and Rwanda, and is the recipient of multiple honors, including the Ben Bradlee Award for Courage in Journalism, a Scripps Howard award for breaking news, and several local accolades from organizations like the D.C. professional chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists; the Maryland, Delaware, District of Columbia Press Association; and the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
She is a Spanish speaker, a New York City native, and a proud graduate of the University of Maryland.
Jason Gonzales (he/him/él) is a six-time co-director of the Latino Reporter and an alumnus of the 2010 NAHJ Student Project in Denver. He first joined the program as a mentor in 2014.
Gonzales is a higher education and legislative matters reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, a nonprofit newsroom that covers education across the country. Previously, he covered K-12 and higher education for The Tennessean in Nashville and Brunswick County for the Wilmington Star News.
He is an award-winning journalist. In 2023, his work on Colorado’s opportunities and challenges in higher education was a finalist for the Education Writers Association Eddie Prize. Jason is a 2018 Education Writers Association Reporting Fellow and 2020 Institute for Citizens and Scholars Higher Education Media fellow.
A Colorado native and resident of the Denver area, Gonzales graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder. You can find him on X at @ByJasonGonzales.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez (he/him/él) has been visuals lead for the Latino Reporter for 17 years, occasionally filling in as director.
He is an award-winning photo and multimedia journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle. He began his career in newspapers at the ripe age of 10, at his hometown paper, The Martinez News Gazette, where they were silly enough to give him a key to the building. His love of journalism developed there, choosing it as a career. In his 23 years at the Chronicle, he’s covered national and international assignments. Most notably he’s covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and worked extensively in Latin America, covering elections, natural disasters, economic policy and immigration — even crossing through desert in Northern Mexico with immigrants through smugglers’ camps. Other notable work includes short documentaries on a doctor providing care in the Ngorngoro Crater of Tanzania, and on a group working to eliminate child slavery in Nepal. A San Francisco Bay Area native, he spends his off time rebuilding a craftsman home he bought 12 years ago, designing and building things by hand, and putting previous skills as a sous chef to good use. Follow him on X at @CAGisMe.
Carolina Astrain (she/her/ella) is the Latino Reporter’s broadcast editor. She joined the NAHJ Student Project in 2024 as a mentor and is an alumna of the 2009 Latino Reporter class in Puerto Rico.
Astrain is a morning news anchor and reporter for KAVU-TV in Victoria, Texas. Previously, she covered K-12 and higher education for The Victoria Advocate in Victoria, Texas. She is an award-winning journalist. In 2016, her work on highlighting the achievement gap in the Victoria Independent School District led to more attention and resources in early education.
She is a Houston native. Astrain graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism. You can find her on X @carolinastrain.
Janette Villafana (she/her/ella) is a bilingual multimedia journalist from Santa Ana, California. This is her second year as a student mentor.
For the past five years, she worked with L.A. TACO, covering Los Angeles’ street vendor communities and highlighting their struggles, successes, and daily lives, in addition to reporting on immigration and education. Most recently, she joined La Opinión through the University of California, Berkeley’s California Local News Fellowship program; her work there focuses on showcasing and elevating Latino community voices. Her reporting earned her a place in the exhibition “¡De última hora! Latinas Report Breaking News” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Luis Giraldo (he/him/él) is a Senior Digital Producer with CBS News’ Growth and Engagement team. This is his first year as a mentor.
He has worked across multiple departments and teams at CBS since 2013, including CBS Radio, “CBS Mornings,” “48 Hours,” and most recently, the National Desk, helping with news-gathering and reporting across all platforms and partners, and producing various specials for the network. Throughout his time with CBS News, Luis developed social-first initiatives like the “Muslim in America” series, developed podcasts including “48 Hours: The Widow” and “My Life of Crime With Erin Moriarty,” and executive produced the CBS News Special “Pandemia: Latinos in Crisis,” which earned the National Association of Hispanic Journalists 2021 Al Neuharth Award for Investigative Journalism.
Luis was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and moved to the United States at the age of 9, calling Fort Myers, Florida, home. He obtained his degrees in telecommunications, violin performance and Spanish at the University of Florida.
María Ramos Pacheco (she/her/ella) is the Spanish-language and bilingual news editor for the Latino Reporter. Ramos Pacheco is an alumnus of the 2020 NAHJ Student Project. This is her first year as a mentor.
She works at The Dallas Morning News as a local government reporter focusing on neighborhood issues and environmental justice.
Before joining The News, Ramos Pacheco was a reporter at El Paso Matters and attended the University of Texas at El Paso. She is from Chihuahua, Mexico, where her love for journalism was formed. You can follow her on Instagram at @mramosnews. She teaches yoga and loves running half-marathons.
Teo Armus (he/him/él) is a news editor for the Latino Reporter. He is an alumnus of the 2017 NAHJ Student Project in Anaheim, Calif., and this is his first year as a mentor.
Armus is a politics reporter at the Washington Post, focusing on voters, demographics and social movements. He previously covered local politics, housing and immigration for the Post’s metro desk and was part of a team of journalists named a 2026 Pulitzer finalist for covering the impact of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. He has also reported for the Post from Mexico, Panama and his parents’ home country, Argentina, and worked for the Charlotte Observer, the Texas Tribune and NBC News.
Armus was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Columbia University. You can follow him on Instagram or X@teoarmus and on Bluesky @teoarmus.bsky.social.
Gloria Gonzalez (she/her/ella) is the Latino Reporter’s newsletter co-lead. This is her second year as a mentor for the NAHJ Student Project.
Gonzalez is the Deputy Energy Editor at POLITICO and joined the news organization in February 2021 after more than two decades writing, reporting and editing stories about energy and environmental, health care and workplace safety issues for companies including Industry Dive and Crain Communications. She has covered major events such as the UNFCCC climate talks and OPEC meetings.
Gonzalez is a former board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Born and raised in New York City, Gonzalez has a journalism and political science degree from Syracuse University. In her free time, she loves to play trivia and frisbee golf and river raft and hike volcanoes.
Kaitlyn Fuhs (she/her/ella) is the Latino Reporter’s newsletter co-lead. This is her second year as a mentor for the NAHJ Student Project.
Fuhs started at POLITICO in 2021 as a digital producer, became deputy director for the Production and Copyediting team in 2022, and was then promoted to senior deputy director in 2024. She is POLITICO’s Editor of Standards and Training.
She previously worked at KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, Nevada, as a digital content producer. Before that, she was an assignment editor and news producer at KTVN 2 News in Reno.
Fuhs, a Las Vegas native and avid Golden Knights fan, graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, with a degree in journalism. She is also an alum of the 2019 POLITICO Journalism Institute.