In summary
CalMatters’ newest hires improve our coverage of education and homelessness and boost engagement and fundraising.
Thanks to support from members, foundations and sponsors, some of the most talented people in the state are joining CalMatters. Meet our latest hires:
Anna Almendrala is audience engagement manager.
Almendrala (she/her) has worked in content engagement and curation, was a health care reporter at Kaiser Health News, and covered health and lifestyle at HuffPost, where she created and hosted a podcast about infertility and alternative family building. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, NPR, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and other outlets. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Adam Echelman covers community colleges through a partnership with Open Campus.
Echelman (he/him) joined CalMatters from the Modesto Bee, where he covered issues of equity across Stanislaus County. Previously, he served as the executive director of Libraries Without Borders, a national nonprofit organization committed to promoting access to information. He’s a graduate of Yale University.
Marisa Kendall reports on California’s homelessness crisis for CalMatters.
Kendall (she/her) previously covered homelessness for the Bay Area News Group, courts for The Recorder in San Francisco and crime for The News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida. She’s a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C.
Louise Yokoi is the director of foundation relations.
Yokoi (she/her) builds and expands CalMatters’ relationships with foundation partners. Prior to joining CalMatters, she worked as director of development at EdSource. She has also worked as a consultant to education, arts, environmental, and social justice organizations and as an educator in California public schools. She’s a Bay Area native who earned MBA and master’s degrees from John F. Kennedy University and a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Irvine.
Jennifer Burger is the incoming editor of the College Journalism Network, and Matthew Reagan will now be a full-time editor with the network.
Burger (she/her) is currently a journalism instructor at CSU Bakersfield, where she has been for the past 10 years. Previously, she was an editor and reporter at the Bakersfield Californian, a reporter at the Alameda Newspaper Group and the founder of a community news organization.
Reagan (he/him) has been a program manager at CJN managed CalMatters’ media partnerships. He first joined as a fellow after he launched the Northeast Los Angeles Neighborhood Reporting Partnership, a collaboration between local media and his campus newsroom at Occidental College, where he was the editor.
