WASHNGTON, DC; March 5, 2026 – The Fund for Investigative Journalism today announced that eight accomplished journalists have been awarded Alicia Patterson Fellowships to conduct public-service reporting this year.
The annual fellowships foster independent, in-depth reporting on topics of public interest. The fellowships were established in 1965 in memory of Alicia Patterson, the founding editor and publisher of Newsday and the first woman to run a major U.S. newspaper. In December, the Alicia Patterson Foundation merged into the Fund for Investigative Journalism, which will administer and manage the fellowships going forward. The eight journalists who are receiving fellowship grants in 2026 were selected by leadership of the Alicia Patterson Foundation and the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
Fellows will spend either six or 12 months traveling, researching, reporting and writing stories on specific topics that will be published in news outlets. Fellows are awarded $40,000 for a 12-month grant or $20,000 for a six-month grant. The Fund for Investigative Journalism does not disclose the subject of grantees’ investigations before they are published.
Following are the 2026 Alicia Patterson Fellows.
Stan Alcorn, an investigative journalist based in Colombia who worked for seven years at the Center for Investigative Reporting’s weekly national public radio show, Reveal. His stories for Reveal inspired changes in law and the deplatforming of a hate group; were taught in university classrooms and cited in Congress; and won honors including a Peabody Award, an NABJ Salute to Excellence Award and a finalist designation for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. Prior to Reveal, Alcorn was a staff reporter at Marketplace, WNYC and Fast Company, and he helped create the website that’s now GCJT.org, an online resource for journalists who cover violence.
James Asher, a veteran investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning editor who has worked as a reporter and editor at five newspapers on the East Coast, including The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Baltimore Sun. In 2002, he served as national investigative editor for Knight Ridder and later ran McClatchy’s Washington Bureau. In 2017, Asher shared a Pulitzer Prize for his work on the global Panama Papers document leak about off-shore tax havens. He edited four other projects that were Pulitzer Prize finalists. Currently, he is working with Public Health Watch, a national news outlet that covers environmental issues, and he is a consultant for the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University.
Jessica Baltzersen, an Ohio-based freelance journalist who writes about science, nature and wildlife conservation. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, The Guardian and Sierra Magazine, among others. Baltzersen has an MA in English from Northern Kentucky University and serves on the board of the Outdoor Writers Association of America.
Austyn Gaffney, writer, and Anna Watts, photographer, who are working together on a fellowship project. Gaffney reports largely on climate science, natural disasters and the energy industry. She was previously a fellow on The New York Times climate desk and an environmental reporter for VTDigger, a nonprofit newsroom in Vermont. Her work can be found in The Atlantic, Grist, High Country News, National Geographic, The New York Times, Rolling Stone and The Washington Post, among others. Watts’s freelance photography examines how systemic forces shape individual lives across politics, climate, healthcare, housing, immigration and labor. Watts is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, and has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times and ESPN, among others.
Natasha Gilbert, a freelance investigative journalist based in Washington, DC, whose work digs into the corporate and political forces undermining people’s health, the environment and sustainable food systems. Gilbert’s work has been published by Public Health Watch, Type Investigations, The Guardian and Nature, among others. Her past investigations have uncovered industry lobbying against safeguards of toxic drinking water contaminants, prescription drugs leaking out of factories and polluting U.S. waterways, and drug and water companies derailing environmental regulation in Europe.
Stefan Lovgren, an award-winning journalist and filmmaker with more than 25 years of worldwide reporting experience. He writes about freshwater issues globally and is a frequent contributor to National Geographic and other media. He is the author of four books, including “Chasing Giants: In Search of the World’s Largest Freshwater Fish.” Lovgren has a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University, and he currently lives in Las Vegas.
Alexandra Talty, an American ocean journalist based in Asia who investigates stories where business meets the sea. Covering climate and fisheries across four continents, her work appears in The New York Times, The Guardian and WIRED Magazine, among others. Past fellowships and support include the Pulitzer Center Ocean Reporting Network, Journalismfund Europe, Knight-Wallace and the National Press Foundation for Food and Agriculture. Talty’s 2023 investigation into the American seaweed industry received honorable mentions from SABEW (the Association of Business Journalists) and the American Society of Journalists and Authors. In 2018, she received an L.A. Press Club award for her work covering LGBTQ+ rights in Lebanon, and in 2015 she was the founding Editor-in-Chief of StepFeed in the Middle East.
Applications for the 2027 Alicia Patterson Fellowships will be due on October 1, 2026. Instructions and the application form will be posted on the Fund for Investigative Journalism’s website, www.fij.org, later this year. Previous fellows and their stories are posted on the Alicia Patterson Foundation’s website, www.aliciapatterson.org.
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