FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
The Law and Justice Journalism Project (LJJP) fellowship program provides journalists at the beginning of their career with regular advising on story development, investigating cases, finding sources, and navigating a complex topic on often tight reporting schedules.
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LJJP pairs early and mid-stage journalists with experienced criminal justice system reporters. This year, we ask that each reporter bring at least one project idea to the fellowship that they will produce with the assistance of their mentor. LJJP will also help reporters find relevant experts and research to support their work.
In 2025-26, we are running regional fellowship programs in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
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Please read the 2026 Fellowship FAQs for more information.​
2025-2026 North Carolina Fellows
BROOKLYN BROWN
RACHEL CRUMPLER
RACHEL HEIMANN MERCADER
CLAUDIA M. RIVERA COTTO
LEXI SOLOMON
BROOKLYN BROWN
Cherokee One Feather
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Brooklyn Brown has an M.A. in History, Cherokee Studies track, from Western Carolina University, as well as a B.A. in English and Media & Journalism from UNC Chapel Hill. She taught early American history as an adjunct professor at WCU. As a Cherokee historian and community journalist, Brooklyn covers all news related to her tribe, including criminal law and investigative reporting. Siyo nigada! Uweyv Uwodige dagwadoa. Tsitsalagi. Tsalagi Soquo Ugidahli dagiluwisdaneho. (Hello everyone! My name is Brooklyn Brown. I am a descendant of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. I am a reporter for the Cherokee One Feather, our tribal newspaper).
RACHEL CRUMPLER
North Carolina Health News
Rachel Crumpler is a reporter at North Carolina Health News covering gender health and prison and jail health. She has reported on the rise of suicides in North Carolina prisons, months-long waits criminal defendants face in jails for court-ordered mental health treatment and the barriers formerly incarcerated people encounter when returning to their communities. From 2022 to 2025, she was a Report for America corps member. Crumpler graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2022 with a degree in journalism and minors in history and social and economic justice.
RACHEL HEIMANN MERCADER
CityView
Rachel Heimann Mercader is a government reporter for CityView, part of The Assembly, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where she covers local power, public accountability, and the systems that shape people’s lives. She brings nearly five years of watchdog and investigative experience, with reporting roles in Chicago, San Francisco Bay Area, Southwest Florida and Memphis. Rachel is known for people‑centered reporting informed by public records and data. Her work has uncovered misconduct in policing, patterns of public corruption, and the consequences of closed‑door government decisionmaking. She is committed to elevating community voices and holding power accountable.
CLAUDIA M. RIVERA COTTO
Enlace Latino NC
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Claudia M. Rivera Cotto is a bilingual journalist covering politics, government, and immigration in North Carolina for Enlace Latino NC through Report for America. Her reporting on Latino voter engagement and farmworker issues has appeared in The News & Observer and Carolina Public Press. Her previous reporting includes work with the Columbia Missourian, Notiséis WIPR, and the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo. Claudia holds a BA in Communication and English from the University of Puerto Rico and studied at Brown University as a sophomore. She earned a master’s degree in Data and Investigative Journalism from the University of Missouri–Columbia.
LEXI SOLOMON
The News & Observer
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Lexi Solomon is an emerging news reporter at The News & Observer in Raleigh focusing on crime. Her work at The N&O has ranged from an investigation into the rise in domestic violence homicides to breaking news coverage as part of a Pulitzer Prize finalist team examining Hurricane Helene’s impact. She previously worked at CityView and The Fayetteville Observer, reporting on crime, education and local government, before joining The N&O in August 2024. Lexi is a 2022 graduate of Virginia Tech with degrees in Russian and National Security & Foreign Affairs.
MENTORS
JULEYKA LANTIGUA
KATE MARTIN
BRENTIN MOCK
KERI BLAKINGER
J. BRIAN CHARLES
MENSAH DEAN
SHAILA DEWAN
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JOSH VAUGHN
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JULEYKA LANTIGUA
Journalist and Entrepreneur
Connect at @juleykalantigua
Juleyka Lantigua is the Founder and CEO of LWC Studios, an award-winning digital media studio whose original work reaches rising audiences with programming that has a social-justice vein. She created and executive produces 70 Million, the first open-source solutions journalism podcast chronicling how locals are tackling jail reform around the country. In 2020, LWC Studios received a Peabody Award nomination, earned silver in the audio documentary category at the New York International Radio Festival, and won “The Director’s Prize,” their first Third Coast award, also known as “The Oscars of Audio.” In 2021, “Driving the Green Book,” which she edited and the company produced for Macmillan Podcasts, earned the inaugural Ambie for Best History Podcast. A Fulbright Scholar, Tory Burch Fellow, and Latino Business Action Network alumna (Stanford University), Juleyka holds a BA from Skidmore College, a Master’s in Journalism from Boston University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She serves on the board of governors of The Podcast Academy, the boards of directors of Latino Media Network and TechBridge Girls.
KATE MARTIN
APM Reports
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Kate Martin is a correspondent with APM Reports and has worked with the Sold a Story podcast team since 2023. Prior to that, Kate reported extensively on sexual assault for NBC News and Carolina Public Press. Her work has led to the passage or revision of at least seven state laws in three states. She has trained hundreds of journalists on public records techniques, data reporting and accountability reporting. She is based in North Carolina. Photo credit: Chris McDuffie for APM Reports.
BRENTIN MOCK
Bloomberg News
Brentin Mock is a reporter, writer, and editor who specializes in stories about democracy, race, place, environment, and culture. His work can be found at Bloomberg News, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Grist, The American Prospect and Le Monde. He's also made appearances on MSNBC (currently MS NOW), CBS News, PBS and Democracy Now. His expertise includes urban policy, environmental justice, climate politics, housing, finance, criminal justice, voting rights, election administration, and race. He currently works as an editorial consultant for his company The Mock-Up, LLC.
KERI BLAKINGER
Staff Writer, The Marshall Project
Connect at @keribla
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Keri Blakinger is a Texas-based investigative reporter for The Marshall Project, where her work focuses on prisons and jails. She previously covered criminal justice for the Houston Chronicle, and her work has appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, VICE, the New York Daily News and The New York Times. She is the organization's first formerly incarcerated reporter. Her memoir, "Corrections in Ink," published in June 2022.
J. BRIAN CHARLES
Deputy Editor, Baltimore Beat
Connect at @JBrianCharles
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J. Brian Charles is Deputy Editor of Baltimore Beat, a black-led nonprofit print and digital news outlet focusing on stories about Baltimore's Black community. Previously, he was a staffer at The Trace, The Hill, Chalkbeat, Governing, and Pasadena Star-News.
His work has appeared in Slate, Vox, Wired, Baltimore Magazine, Baltimore City Paper, and many other publications. Brian’s recent reporting has been about violence interrupters in Baltimore City for The Guardian, police reform in Newark, New Jersey, for The Trace, and the murder of rapper Nipsey Hussle for Playboy.
SHAILA DEWAN
National Criminal Justice Editor, The New York Times
Connect at @shailadewan
Shaila Dewan is the National Criminal Justice Editor for the New York Times. Shaila is from Houston, where she attended Rice University and began her career at the Houston Press, an investigative weekly.
She joined the Times in 2000 and has covered a variety of beats including the NYPD, the South and the economy, always with a special affinity for criminal justice issues. In the South, she wrote about all-white juries and prosecutors who refused to accept evidence of innocence, as well as civil rights-era cold cases and efforts to restore voting rights to those convicted of crimes. As a BizDay reporter, she wrote in depth about the case of Shanesha Taylor, charged with child abuse for leaving her children in a car while interviewing for a job. After Ferguson, she wrote a series of articles focusing on the vastly damaging effects of even low-level involvement with the criminal justice system, particularly for poor people, and an investigative project on a pay-to-play scheme known as pretrial diversion.
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JOSHUA VAUGHN
Journalist
Connect at @JoshuaPVaughn
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Joshua Vaughn is an investigative/enterprise reporter with PennLive and adjunct lecturer at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. He covers a broad array of criminal justice issues, but has focused recently on conditions and abuse in Dauphin County Prison. Joshua was a 2023 Pulitzer Center grantee in which he helped develop the first-ever database of deaths in jails in Pennsylvania. He was also a 2016 John Jay/Harry F. Guggenheim criminal justice reporting fellow and received a 2016 president’s award for excellence in news reporting recipient from Lee Enterprises.
MENSAH DEAN
Justice & Injustice Staff Writer, Philadelphia Inquirer
Connect at @MensahDean
Mensah M. Dean is a staff writer on the Justice & Injustice team at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he focuses on gun violence, corruption and wrongdoing in the public and private sectors. This September will mark his 25th anniversary with the company.
During the first decade of his career in Philadelphia Dean covered the city's financially and academically-challenged school district for the Philadelphia Daily News, the Inquirer's sister publication. During these years, Dean was a regular panelist on, "Reporter's Roundtable," a program on the school district's public television station. In 1999, he covered the federal government's sweeping Welfare Reform Act's impact on Philadelphia. Twice, in 2000 and 2015, Dean covered the inner workings of Philadelphia's government as a City Hall reporter. From 2009 through 2014, he reported exclusively on criminal justice as the Daily News' courthouse reporter. In January 2016, Dean's work began appearing in the Inquirer and Daily News after the staffs merged.
A native of Washington, D.C., Dean began his career at the Washington Times, where he was a staff writer from 1993 to 1997. His freelance work has appeared in People, Vibe and the World & I magazines. In 1999, Dean spent a month at Duke University as a fellow at the De Witt Wallace Center for Communications and Journalism. In 2022, Dean and four colleagues were Pulitzer Prize finalists for explanatory reporting for their year-long chronicling of the impact of gun violence on Philadelphia.Among his other honors was being named the 2019 print journalist of the year by the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, and receiving the 2017 Vernon Jarrett Medal for Journalistic Excellence and $10,000 prize from Morgan State University's School of Global Journalism and Communication.
In 1993 Dean earned a Bachelor of Science in Journalism degree from Bowie State University, where he served as editor of the student newspaper for two years. As a student, he worked as a summer intern at the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Times.
