Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations

2024-2025 Reflect America Fellow: Nate Perez

2024-2025 Reflect America Fellow Nate Perez
Nate Perez
2024-2025 Reflect America Fellow Nate Perez

Nate Perez is an associate producer for the NPR Member station LAist in Pasadena, California, where he's covered daily news since 2020.

He's reported on oil wells that have been abandoned by their owners, wage theft and the growing number of exonerations in Los Angeles County.

He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor at the Casper Star-Tribune in Casper, Wyoming. There, he covered nationally recognized amateur boxers (who happen to be triplets), the college rodeo circuit and the Wind River Reservation.

Nate grew up in a Spanish-speaking household in the San Joaquin Valley. His bilingual skill set was crucial to navigating home life to working in kitchens, marketing and now as a journalist.

When he's not working, Nate enjoys baking bread, making tortillas and reading.

Staff Announcement (from Keith Woods and Neela Banerjee)

Colleagues,

It's my pleasure to announce that Nate Perez, an associate producer on the daily news team at Member station LAist, is the 2024-2025 Reflect America Fellow. Nate will begin his fellowship in September.

During the 12-month fellowship, Nate will embed with NPR's Climate Desk and report on vulnerable communities, particularly Indigenous communities. Along with building essential climate reporting skills, he'll also assess potential solutions to climate threats, including those that vulnerable communities are exploring.

Nate brings a wealth of professional experience to the fellowship, gained from years of producing at LAist and reporting across the West. He's reported on oil wells that have been abandoned by their owners, wage theft and the growing number of exonerations in Los Angeles County.

He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor at the Casper Star-Tribune in Casper, Wyoming. There, he covered the Wind River Reservation, nationally recognized amateur boxers (who happen to be triplets), and the college rodeo circuit.

Nate grew up in a Spanish-speaking household in the San Joaquin Valley. His bilingual skills were important whether navigating home life, working in kitchens and marketing, or now, as a journalist. When he's not working, Nate enjoys baking bread, making tortillas and reading.

Nate is the 5th Reflect America fellow since we launched in 2019. We created the fellowship to boost NPR's efforts to expand the diversity of voices on air and online and to open a new pathway into public radio for young journalists. The fellowship's focus shifts this year to concentrate on one of the world's most important beats.

Last year's fellow, Seyma Bayram, is completing a Spencer Fellowship at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

A big thank you to Sadie Babits and Lauren Sommer for joining the hiring committee, to talent acquisition director Mel Clarke, who went above and beyond with handling phone screenings and advising the process, to the Content Talent Development team's Natalia Fidelholtz, who helped with recruiting, and to the Training Team's Sara Richards, who orchestrated this process from start to finish.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Keith Woods
Keith Woods is Chief Diversity Officer at NPR. He leads and supports NPR's efforts to bring greater diversity to its audience, content and staffing while creating a workplace where a diverse staff can grow and thrive. He is a resource across the organization for leadership and staff working on diversity efforts, as well as for public radio leaders from more than 260 Member stations across the country. Woods also heads up the editorial Training team, which helps strengthen and support the work of journalists by training them in leadership, storytelling, reporting, editing, diversity, audio production and digital strategy.
Neela Banerjee
Neela Banerjee is NPR's Chief Climate Editor. She manages NPR's Climate Desk, which includes editors and reporters around the country. The Climate Desk focuses on making complex science accessible to audiences, spotlighting barriers to addressing climate change, explaining climate solutions and revealing how climate change disproportionately affects marginalized people. The desk works across the NPR newsroom to elevate the network's broad climate coverage, and it coordinates a nationwide collaborative of dozens of member stations aimed at strengthening local climate journalism. The Climate Desk organizes NPR's annual Climate Solutions Week, which draws new audiences by highlighting the people and communities worldwide deploying innovative ideas to cope with the increasing risks from global warming.