2025 Health Coverage Fellows

Lynh Bui

Lynh Bui is a deputy health and science editor at the Washington Post. She previously worked as a metro assignment editor overseeing coverage of the federal courthouses in D.C., and breaking news and enterprise from Maryland’s police and courts. Lynh has nearly 20 years of professional experience as a journalist. Before becoming an editor, she was a public safety and criminal justice reporter. She started at the paper in 2012 as a Washington Post-American University fellow, earning her master’s degree in public affairs and journalism and working on the metro desk covering education. Before coming to Washington, Bui was a political and public affairs reporter in Phoenix for seven years, covering local government for azcentral.com and the Arizona Republic. A native of Arizona who speaks Vietnamese, she has her undergraduate degree from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University.

Jennifer Calfas

Jennifer Calfas is a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, where she covers a range of subjects with a focus on abortion, legal issues and health. She joined the Journal in 2019 as a reporter covering national news. Her interest in abortion sparked in 2019 while following a license dispute between Missouri and the state’s last open abortion clinic. She was a lead reporter covering the Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 and its lasting impacts.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Jennifer reported daily on how the virus upended the health of millions in the U.S. and covered tense debates over school reopenings as a K-12 education reporter. Most recently, she spent nearly a year on the Journal’s Health & Science desk, where her reporting examined possible adverse side effects of a popular new drug for dogs and detailed how long COVID has driven people out of the workforce.

Tiziana Dearing

Tiziana Dearing is host of WBUR’s Morning Edition. For five years before that, she hosted Radio Boston, WBUR’s daily local magazine. Tiziana came to journalism after a career that spanned academia, nonprofits and for-profit management consulting. She taught graduate students at the Boston College School of Social Work and chaired its program in Social Innovation and Leadership. She ran a start-up foundation focused on breaking generational cycles of poverty in Boston neighborhoods and was the first woman president of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Boston. Earlier, she ran a research center at the Harvard Kennedy School and worked in management consulting. Tiziana has a master’s in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a BA from the University of Michigan. She lives in Newton with her husband, one of her two children, and two dogs.

Gwen Dilworth

Gwen Dilworth is a community health reporter for Mississippi Today, covering hospitals, rural health care, Medicaid, health access and the intersections of health and criminal justice. She’s interested in how history and money influence Mississippians’ connection to health care. She draws from her work in social services and criminal defense in New Orleans and a background in Southern Studies. Originally from Durham, NC, Gwen previously reported for the Salt Lake Tribune and the Times-Independent in Moab, UT, where she covered local government and the environment. She got her start in journalism freelancing for a small neighborhood news outlet in New Orleans and attended the University of Virginia. Gwen is a quilter, reader and crossword puzzler.

Jamie Gumbrecht

Jamie Gumbrecht is the supervising editor for CNN Health, where she helps to lead the writers, reporters, editors, producers and correspondents who drive health newsgathering for CNN’s global network and create health stories for TV and digital platforms. Before joining CNN in 2010, she worked as a reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky. Jamie graduated from Michigan State University and Goucher College and lives with her family in Atlanta, Georgia.

Jason Laughlin

Jason Laughlin has been a staff writer at the Boston Globe since 2023, covering the Massachusetts Office of Health and Human Services. His work focuses on how government programs can support or stifle those most in need, including wheelchair users, foster children and parents, and families of people with developmental disabilities. He was a participant in the 2024 USC Center for Health Journalism Data Fellowship. Previously, he worked for nine years at the Philadelphia Inquirer, where his beats included transportation and health. He began his journalism career at the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J. A New Hampshire native, Jason received a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary and holds master’s degrees from Temple University and University of Pennsylvania.

Natasha Loder

Natasha Loder is The Economist’s health editor, covering a range of topics in medicine, technology, pharma and science. Between 2011 and 2014, she worked as a foreign correspondent in Chicago, covering the Midwest, the bankruptcy of Detroit, along with education and agriculture. She has worked at The Economist since 2000, spending over a decade on the science desk, covering subjects including the rise of the private space industry and the carbon cowboys of Papua New Guinea. Prior to that, she worked at Nature, The Times Higher Education Supplement, and Research Fortnight.

Christine Mai-Duc

Christine Mai-Duc is a California-based reporter for KFF Health News, where she covers healthcare policy and politics in the Golden State. She previously reported for the Wall Street Journal, covering housing and state politics, including Governor Gavin Newsom and the statehouse. Her reporting has explored California’s homelessness crisis, attempts to regulate the pharmaceutical drug supply chain, funding for mental health treatment and the 2024 Maui wildfires. Christine started her career at the Los Angeles Times, where she covered the 2018 midterms and was part of a team that won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A Sacramento native, she lives in the Bay Area with her husband, four-year-old twins and their quirky terrier mix, Buster.

Stephen Simpson

Stephen Simpson is the mental health reporter for the Texas Tribune, based in Austin, where he covers behavioral health in schools, treatment in the judicial system, substance abuse and the state mental health system. He previously worked in his home state of Arkansas as a politics reporter, covering the state Supreme Court, House of Representatives and correctional system for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Stephen’s earliest career experiences include reporting and copy editing at the Jonesboro Sun and Pine Bluff Commercial. Stephen earned a degree in online and print journalism with a minor in filmmaking from the University of Central Arkansas.

William Skipworth

William Skipworth is a healthcare reporter for the New Hampshire Bulletin, focusing on Medicaid, debates over assisted suicide, long COVID, potential abortion bans and surprise ambulance billing. Previously, Skipworth wrote for Forbes, Politifact and newspapers in Texas, Missouri and Indiana. During his stint at The Washington Missourian, he was the sole public health reporter at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and for Forbes, he covered research on Alzheimer’s disease, kidney transplant innovation and reproductive health, as well as the latest developments on COVID-19 vaccines/treatments, abortion access and legislation on transgender care. William is an alumnus of the University of Missouri and a native of Texas.

Will Stone

Will Stone is a health correspondent on NPR’s science desk. He has spent most of his career working in public media. After graduating college, he interned on the national desk at NPR headquarters in Culver City, CA. He spent the next decade working at local NPR stations in Connecticut, Nevada, Arizona and Seattle, and eventually found his footing on the health beat. When the pandemic hit, he was a freelancer in Seattle and spent the next few years covering for NPR the storylines unfolding around COVID-19. Eventually, he was hired as a full-time editor on the science desk and continued reporting in his spare time. In the last year, he made the jump to full-time correspondent. His work explores all facets of health care, including mental health, infectious diseases, and advances in research on chronic diseases and treatments.

Laura Tillman

Laura Tillman is the human services reporter at the Connecticut Mirror, where she covers mental health, addiction, disability, immigration and children’s issues. She began her career at the Brownsville Herald at the U.S.-Mexico border. She has reported for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and other publications, and has produced podcasts for iHeart Media and Audible. Laura is the author of two books of narrative journalism, including The Migrant Chef: The Life and Times of Lalo García, which was named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker and NPR and won the 2024 James Beard Award for Literary Writing. She is a graduate of Vassar College and has an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Goucher College.

Dorcas Wangira

Dorcas Wangira is a health correspondent for BBC-Africa. She has previously worked as a special projects reporter and news correspondent for Citizen TV, Kenya’s leading station, and KTN NEWS, Kenya’s former 24-hour network. She believes in amplifying the voices of those at the fringes of society. She produced Your Story, a weekly segment that aired Sundays on Citizen TV. Dorcas was a 2021 Falling Walls Journalism Fellow. An avid reader, she is passionate about African literature and how oral and written traditions are central to news writing.