Roberto Capocelli, Class of ’16, has won a $5,000 scholarship from the Foreign Press Association.
The FPA, which dispenses annual grants to international journalists with a record of excellence, presented him with the award on May 19 at a reception in New York City.
Capocelli, whose home country is Italy, began his journalism career as a freelance reporter in 2002, traveling to the West Bank and Gaza during the second intifada.
In 2012, he landed at the newspaper Avanti!, where he covered Italian politics.
Before coming to the J-School, Capocelli worked as a U.N. public information officer in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
He has also worked as a human rights officer for the NGO Peace Brigades International in Colombia, where he subsequently produced and filmed a documentary on the country’s gold mining operations.
Pursuing his M.A. at the J-School as a Fulbright Scholar, he is specializing in business and economics reporting. He will intern this summer at Newsday.