Magazine Team & Contributors

Journalism matters.

Managing Editor

Ariel Rubissow Okamoto
Contact

Senior Editor

Cariad Hayes Thronson

Assistant Editor & Metro Reporter

Duncan Agnew
Contact

Research & Social Media Editor

Isabella Eclipse

Art Director

Afsoon Razavi

Original Website Design

Darren Campeau & Tony Hale

Website Support & Development

Giant Rabbit

Find Your Local Reporter

KneeDeep has reporters who live in or near your county, and who are familiar with your local issues and concerns. Feel free to reach out to them with your story ideas.

Bay Area Counties Where We’re Looking for Locals:

Alameda County
Napa County
Santa Clara County
Sacramento County

Mendocino County

Contra Costa County

Lead Reporter
Daniel McGlynn, Richmond

Solano County

Lead Reporter
Aleta George, Suisun City

Sonoma County

Lead Reporter
* Nate Seltenrich, Petaluma

Community Correspondent
Amy Moore, Santa Rosa

San Francisco County

Lead Reporter
Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, San Francisco

Community Correspondent

Alameda County

Lead Reporter

Community Correspondent
Nik Altenberg, Oakland

San Mateo County

Lead Reporter
Cariad Hayes Thronson, San Mateo

Santa Cruz County

Lead Reporter
Sierra Garcia, Santa Cruz

Community Correspondent
Kim Hickok, Felton

Marin County

Lead Reporter
John Hart, San Rafael

Community Correspondent
Isabella Eclipse, San Rafael

Southern California

Lead Reporters
Maylin Tu, Los Angeles
Eilana Perez, San Diego

Contributors

Alastair Bland

is a freelance journalist from San Francisco who writes about water policy in California, rivers and salmon, marine conservation and climate change. His work has appeared at NPR.org, Smithsonian.com, Yale Environment 360, Hakai, CalMatters and Bay Nature, among many other outlets.

14 Posts

Aleta George

writes about the nature, history and culture of California. Trained as a geographer at San Francisco State University, her passion is to look for the intersection of influences regarding a place or an event. She is a frequent contributor to Estuary News Group and Bay Area Monitor. Her work has also been published in Smithsonian, High Country News, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle. She is the award-winning author of Ina Coolbrith: The Bittersweet Song of California's First Poet Laureate.

5 Posts

Allison Kidder

is a freelance science writer and naturalist based in Berkeley. She has a PhD from UCB in plant ecophysiology and an MSc in rare plant ecology and BA in environmental education, both from San José State. Allison is a long-time docent at East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden and serves as managing editor of their quarterly publication, <i>Manzanita</i>. When not writing she has soil on her hands and plays with plants whenever possible.

2 Posts

Amy Mayer

is a science journalist based in the Bay Area. She writes about ecology, agriculture and climate science and spent many years working in public radio. An alum of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, she began her post-grad school career in Fairbanks, Alaska and has also worked in western Massachusetts and central Iowa. In 2022 she was selected as the lead science communicator aboard the JOIDES Resolution research vessel. She lives on a hill that on a clear day offers views of the Bay and Mt. Diablo.

1 Post

Angela Swartz

is a freelance writer based in the Bay Area. She is the former editor of the Menlo Park-based newspaper The Almanac.

3 Posts

Ariel Rubissow Okamoto

is KneeDeep’s managing editor. She is a Bay Area environmental writer, former editor of Estuary News magazine, and a co-author of a Natural History of San Francisco Bay (UC Press 2011). For the last decade, she’s been reporting on innovations in climate adaptation on the bayshore. She is also an occasional essayist for the San Francisco Chronicle. In other lives, she has been a vintner, soccer mom, and waitress. She lives in San Francisco. See her work at bayariel.com and follow her at @sfbayariel.bsky.social

47 Posts

Ashleigh Papp

is a science writer based in Brooklyn, New York. With a background in animal science and biology, she enjoys writing about emerging environmental issues, wildlife, and conservation-related science. When not reading or writing, she's playing outside with friends or inside with her cat, Sandy. Photo: Lisa Strong. @heysmartash

2 Posts

Audrey Mei Yi Brown

is a journalist based in San Francisco who covers climate and environmental justice. Previously, they worked at the San Francisco Chronicle on SFNext, a civic engagement initiative, where they covered a range of city issues spanning homelessness, digital inequity, and downtown recovery. Brown is a 2022 graduate of Columbia Journalism School. They grew up in San Francisco and still call the city home.

6 Posts

Cariad Hayes Thronson

reports on legal and political issues. She has served on the staffs of several national publications and is a long-time contributor to Estuary News. She lives in San Mateo with her husband and two children.

23 Posts

Christina Andrea Alvear

is a freelance science writer and coordinator for a nonprofit organization in San Antonio, Texas. She has a masters in biology at UTSA. She regularly writes for Envirobites. Her writing is shaped by her professional background in research, education, and nonprofit mental health, substance abuse, and healthcare programs.

1 Post

Christopher D. Cook

is an author and award-winning journalist based in San Francisco. He has written for dozens of national publications, including Harper's, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, The Guardian, Mother Jones, The Christian Science Monitor, The Nation, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Progressive, and Columbia Journalism Review. He is the author of Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis. Visit www.christopherdcook.com.

2 Posts

Constance Sommer

is a freelance writer in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Vogue and Westways, among others, and can be viewed at www.constancesommer.com.

4 Posts

Cristina Deptula

Cristina Deptula is a freelance science, technology, medicine, and ecology writer from the East Bay, and a community correspondent for KneeDeep. She's a former planetarium docent at Oakland's Chabot Space and Science Center and one of the organizers of the Hayward Lit Hop.

3 Posts

Daniel McGlynn

is based in the East Bay and frequently writes about technology and the environment. He has a background in environmental education, environmental journalism, and as a writer/consultant for frontier technology companies. He is most interested in how people and communities use technology to organize, communicate, and adapt to a changing climate.

3 Posts

Duncan Agnew

is KneeDeep's Assistant Editor and Metro Reporter. He is based in San Francisco, and was previously the managing editor of the Evanston RoundTable, a nonprofit local newsroom outside Chicago. His work has also appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Texas Tribune and The Forward. You can find him trying (and probably failing) to photograph butterflies in Golden Gate Park in his free time.

12 Posts

Eliana Pérez

is based in Southern California. She holds a bachelor's in English Literature and Spanish from UCLA and a master’s in both business and Spanish-language journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She has covered the eastern Coachella Valley, including the cities of Indio and Coachella, at The Desert Sun for almost three years. Her work has also appeared in NBC Chicago, American Banker, Bloomberg and USA Today, among other outlets.

3 Posts

Elyse DeFranco

writes about wildlife ecology and environmental science. Her background as a wildlife biologist often leads her to stories about the joys of scientific discovery and the ways that people interact with, and about, the environment. See her website for her writing and photography

1 Post

Emily Harwitz

Emily Harwitz is an independent writer, photographer, and filmmaker currently based in the Bay Area. Trained as a scientist and journalist, she also draws from her experience working in conservation to tell stories that inform, inspire, and spark engagement with the natural world. She aims for the crossroads of art and adventure. See her work at emilyharwitz.com

2 Posts

Isaac Pearlman

covers sea level rise, flooding, and other topics around the San Francisco Bay Area. His stories and essays have been featured in Sierra Magazine, Earth Island Journal, Estuary News, and the Progressive Populist, among other outlets.

10 Posts

Jacoba Charles

is an environmental consultant and science writer. Her first article, at age eight, was about the behavior of ducks as observed from the roof of her family’s barn. It went unpublished. She later received Masters degrees from the Columbia Schools of Journalism and Earth and Environmental Science. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, Modern Farmer, Bay Nature, Estuary News, and many more publications—including literary magazines and CEQA documents. Her botany blog can be found at flowersofmarin.com and her website is jacobacharles.com. A sixth-generation Sonoma County resident, she divides her time between Petaluma and her family home near the Gualala River.

19 Posts

Janet Byron

is a freelance journalist and editor living happily car-free in El Cerrito. With Robert Johnson, she is co-author of Berkeley Walks, a book of self-guided walking tours published by Heyday Books. She was managing editor of University of California's California Agriculture journal and a research and science communicator for Kaiser Permanente. Her writing has appeared in Estuary News, Bay Area Monitor, Berkeleyside, and other publications.

3 Posts

Joanna Thompson

is a freelance journalist and insect enthusiast based in New York. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Scientific American, MIT Technology Review and elsewhere. In her spare time, she tries to run fast.

1 Post

Joe Eaton

writes about endangered and invasive species, climate and ecosystem science, environmental history, and water issues. He is also "a semi-obsessive birder" whose pursuit of rarities has taken him to many of California's shores, wetlands, and sewage plants.

3 Posts

John Hart

is an environmental journalist and author of sixteen books and several hundred other published works. He is also the winner of the James D. Phelan Award, the Commonwealth Club Medal in Californiana, and the David R. Brower Award for Service in the Field of Conservation. He writes on California water policy and history, and on other topics intertwined with climate change.

10 Posts

Juan Moreno Haines

is a journalist incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison; senior editor at the award-winning San Quentin News; and member of the Society of Professional Journalists, where he was awarded its Silver Heart Award in 2017 for being “a voice for the voiceless.” Haines’s work has appeared in Solitary Watch, The Guardian, The Appeal, Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal, Above the Law, UCLA Law Review, Life of the Law, The Oakland Post, California Prison Focus, LA Progressive, CalMatters, Witness LA, and Street Spirit. In 2020, Haines was awarded the PEN Prison Writing Contest’s Fielding A. Dawson Prize in Fiction.

1 Post

Juan Pablo Pérez-Burgos

is a bilingual journalist who reports on the environment and communities often overlooked in mainstream narratives. He covers housing, local government, migration, climate, conflict, and transitional justice in Colombia and the United States. His work has taken him from rural Colombia to city council chambers in California, where he focuses on how policy decisions shape people’s lives. He is a UC Berkeley California Local News 2024 fellow based in the Bay Area.

11 Posts

Kate Bradshaw

is a Peninsula-based journalist who writes about the environment, the outdoors, food and government. Her work has appeared in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the Palo Alto Weekly, the Mountain View Voice, The Almanac and PUNCH Magazine. She was a community engagement fellow (2018) and a data reporting fellow (2020) with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.

1 Post

Kathleen M. Wong

is a science writer specializing in the natural history and environment of California and the West. With Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, she coauthored Natural History of San Francisco Bay (UC Press, 2011), for which she shared the 2013 Harold Gilliam Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting. When not hiking, bicycling, backpacking, or enjoying other outdoor adventures, she is the director of communications for the University of California Natural Reserve System.

1 Post

Kimberly Hickok

is a freelance science journalist based in the Santa Cruz Mountains. She has a background in marine biology and toxicology, and is a graduate of the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication Program. Her reporting covers a wide range of topics, from physics to biomedicine to agriculture, but she’s most passionate about the stories that directly impact her local community. Her work has appeared in Bay Nature, California Local, Live Science, and Popular Mechanics, among others.

4 Posts

Kristine Wong

is a multimedia journalist who reports on energy, environment, sustainability, food, and culture. Her preferred forms of storytelling are through film (shooting and editing video) and narrative writing. Kristine’s work has been published in The Guardian US/UK, Sierra Magazine, Modern Farmer, Bay Nature, The Huffington Post, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Civil Eats, and other publications. Prior to becoming a journalist, she worked for environmental justice and public health organizations. For KneeDeep Wong interviewed and filmed a new leadership academy for Oakland residents building climate resilience.

1 Post

Lilah Burke

is a freelance reporter in New York. Her work has appeared in the New Republic, the Revelator, Vegetarian Times, New York Focus, and Washingtonian Magazine. She was previously a reporter at Inside Higher Ed. She is interested in the challenges of environmental preservation and how people choose to navigate them. She was inspired to write about second-growth redwoods, the focus of her first article for KneeDeep, when visiting the beautiful forests and coasts of California.

3 Posts

Lonny Ivan Meyer

is a freelance photographer situated in the Bay Area. Most of his work focuses in photojournalism and the fine arts. He graduated from the University of California, Davis with a bachelor’s degree in international relations, drawing him toward a global political perspective in many of his works. Rooted in the desire to affect social change, his pieces reflect an alternative way of seeing, recording and understanding events and social relations. His photos can be found in KneeDeep articles. In his spare time, you can find him surfing and exploring the California coast, or brewing some delicious concoctions.

0 Posts

Magali Gauthier

is a freelance multimedia journalist based out of San Francisco. She previously worked as the staff visual journalist at the Palo Alto Weekly, the Almanac and the Mountain View Voice. She received her Master in Journalism from USC.

2 Posts

Marianne Messina

spent several years as the theater and dance writer for Metro Silicon Valley. More recently, she writes about conservation and sustainability with a focus on solutions. She was a 2022 Kiplinger Fellow in climate change reporting, and her work appears in many online and print magazines, including Mongabay, Civil Eats, Earth Island Journal, and Corporate Knights.

1 Post

Mary Catherine O’Connor

is an award-winning reporter whose beats include climate change, energy, waste, technology, and recreation. She is a climate reporter for KALW Public Media in San Francisco and produces climate-themed podcasts for Latitude Media. Her freelance work has appeared in Outside, The Guardian, Bay Nature, and other magazines and newspapers.

1 Post

Meg Duff

Meg Duff is an environmental journalist based in Brooklyn. Find her reporting in Scientific American, Slate, Outside, and around the internet. Say hi at <a href="http://megduff.com/">megduff.com</a>.

3 Posts

Michael Hunter Adamson

was born and partly raised in the Bay Area. He employs his love for nature and his interest in people to help tell the unfolding story of the living Earth. He has worked for The Nature Conservancy and the arts and education nonprofit NaNoWriMo, taught English in Madrid-based High School equivalent, and volunteers with The Marine Mammal Center. He is the editor of the Bay Area Monitor and also writes for Estuary and AcclimateWest.

6 Posts

Nate Seltenrich

is a longtime science journalist who contributes to KneeDeep Times, Sonoma magazine, Bay Nature, and more. He also is an editor at the Petaluma Voice, an independent, locally operated nonprofit newsroom, and writes the weekly Bay Area Nature Almanac on Substack and Instagram (@Bay_Area_Nature_Almanac). A Bay Area native, he lives with his family in Petaluma.

13 Posts

Nik Altenberg

is a bilingual reporter and editor for Santa Cruz Local and is based in Oakland. She reports on issues at the crossroads of human health, the environment, housing, policing, technology and local government. She is also a bicycle mechanic, an avid gardener and companion to a cattle dog. Read more at nikaltenberg.com.

4 Posts

Otito Obi

is a freelance writer living on unceded Ohlone land. Their writing explores afrofuturism and climate resilience. They’re a Liberation Ecology Fellow with Critical Ecology Lab and a Torch Literary Arts Fellow. Their words appear in Washington Writers’ Publishing House, Silver Rose Magazine, The Vibe Room, Unpopcultr, and Post Ghost Press.

1 Post

Ozola Cody

spent over five years writing for corporations, specializing in crafting engaging narratives that connect brands with their audiences. During this time, she also focused on storytelling that uplifts underrepresented voices. Her stories can be found in Solving Sacramento, The Sacramento Observer, CapRadio, and Sacramento News & Review.

1 Post

Patrick Barnard

has been a Research Geologist with the USGS in Santa Cruz since 2003, is the Project Chief for the Coastal Climate Impacts Project, and Co-Developer of the Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS). His research focuses on coastal hazards driven by storms and sea level rise across U.S. beaches and estuaries. He is a science advisor for KneeDeep's investigative 2022-2023 Extremes in 3D series.

1 Post

Puja Changoiwala

an Indian journalist and author, has penned three books, won over a dozen Indian and international awards, and contributed to over 50 publications worldwide, including the BBC, CNN, Scientific American, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and National Geographic. www.pujachangoiwala.com

1 Post

Robin Meadows

is an independent science journalist who covers water, climate resilience, and environmental policy. Her work has appeared in bioGraphic, C&EN, High Country News, Maven's Notebook, Scientific American, and elsewhere. She’s a Pulitzer Center grantee, an Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources fellow, a contributor to The Craft of Science Writing, and a UC Santa Cruz Science Communication Program alum and mentor. Robin lives in the San Francisco Bay Area near the Suisun Marsh, the largest brackish wetland on the West Coast. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

7 Posts

Santiago Flórez

is a Colombian journalist, educator, illustrator and anthropologist based in New York City. He worked in the education department of the American Museum of Natural History and recently completed an MA in bilingual journalism at the Craig Newmark Journalism School. Twitter: rflorezsantiago

1 Post

Sierra Garcia

is an interdisciplinary marine scientist and environmental writer with a focus on oceans, climate, and communities. Her work has appeared in publications serving a wide range of audiences, including Grist, JSTOR Daily, the Oxford Climate Review, and Estuary News. She was a 2022-2023 Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Fellow in Honduras and is a National Geographic Explorer.

15 Posts

Sonya Bennett-Brandt

is a freelance environmental journalist based in Berkeley. Her work on conservation and climate adaptation has appeared in Wired Magazine, the Guardian, and Bay Nature, among others. She lives next to a large tree that houses two squirrels, a scrub jay nest, a courteous skunk, and, intermittently, baby raccoons. @sbennettbrandt.

14 Posts

Stephanie Lam

is a freelancer based in the Bay Area. Her stories have appeared in The Mercury News, Next City and a number of regional and national news outlets.

4 Posts

Tanya Bricking Leach

is a freelance journalist who writes about people, change, and the world around them. Her work has appeared in Science Friday, GoodRx Health, AARP, and other national outlets.

1 Post

Twilight Greenaway

is a journalist and editor at Berkeley Journalism. Her work on climate and energy in California has appeared recently in Inside Climate News, Capital and Main, The San Francisco Chronicle, Bay City News, and Grist. Learn more on her website and follow her on Bluesky. https://bsky.app/profile/twyspy.bsky.social

1 Post

Wyatt Tong

is a landscape operations professional with a focus on designing and maintaining sustainable and beautiful outdoor spaces. Growing up alongside his mother’s landscape maintenance company, Tong has always had his hands in the dirt; many of his first memories are of “helping” her plant and weed at job sites. After earning a B.A. in History at the University of Puget Sound, his passion for the outdoors led him to Portland Community College, where he studied landscape maintenance, water-wise gardening, organic cultivation, integrated pest management, and small business administration. He lives in the East Bay with his fiancé, two cats, and a large potted plant collection.

1 Post

Stories by County

Magazine Team & Contributors

Journalism matters.

Managing Editor

Senior Editor

Assistant Editor & Metro Reporter

Research & Social Media Editor

Art Director

Original Website Design

Website Support & Development

Find Your Local Reporter

KneeDeep has reporters who live in or near your county, and who are familiar with your local issues and concerns. Feel free to reach out to them with your story ideas.

Contra Costa County

Solano County

Sonoma County

San Francisco County

Alameda County

San Mateo County

Santa Cruz County

Marin County

Southern California

Contributors

Alastair Bland

Aleta George

Allison Kidder

Amy Mayer

Angela Swartz

Ariel Rubissow Okamoto

Ashleigh Papp

Audrey Mei Yi Brown

Cariad Hayes Thronson

Christina Andrea Alvear

Christopher D. Cook

Constance Sommer

Cristina Deptula

Daniel McGlynn

Duncan Agnew

Eliana Pérez

Elyse DeFranco

Emily Harwitz

Isaac Pearlman

Jacoba Charles

Janet Byron

Joanna Thompson

Joe Eaton

John Hart

Juan Moreno Haines

Juan Pablo Pérez-Burgos

Kate Bradshaw

Kathleen M. Wong

Kimberly Hickok

Kristine Wong

Lilah Burke

Lonny Ivan Meyer

Magali Gauthier

Marianne Messina

Mary Catherine O’Connor

Meg Duff

Michael Hunter Adamson

Nate Seltenrich

Nik Altenberg

Otito Obi

Ozola Cody

Patrick Barnard

Puja Changoiwala

Robin Meadows

Santiago Flórez

Sierra Garcia

Sonya Bennett-Brandt

Stephanie Lam

Tanya Bricking Leach

Twilight Greenaway

Wyatt Tong