The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY has selected nine working journalists from across North America to participate in its second “Aging Beat” workshop to be held in May 2026.
This three-day intensive training will equip reporters with skills to cover aging-related issues with greater depth and sensitivity. Participants will receive hands-on training on census data analysis, Medicare coverage, and age-inclusive reporting while gaining insights from experts on intergenerational communities, aging in prison and the effects of climate change on older adults. The event is made possible with support from the Congregational Home Legacy Fund.
Each journalist is actively reporting an aging-related story. They will be paired with experienced journalist mentors for support in developing these stories, and will each receive a $1,000 stipend.
Juhie Bhatia is a freelance journalist, writer, and editor who specializes in health and gender issues. She has worked for numerous publications and organizations, has contributed to TIME, National Geographic, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Rolling Stone, Lonely Planet, and Ms. Magazine, among others, and was formerly the managing editor of Women’s eNews. Her reporting has also been supported by fellowships and grants from organizations such as the International Reporting Project, Solutions Journalism Network, and the Nova Institute of Health. She will examine the potential of intergenerational residential communities to reduce social isolation among older adults while also addressing caregiving and housing shortages.
Rose Broderick is a multi-platform science journalist who covers disability and mental health for STAT. Her work has appeared in publications such as Scientific American, Slate, and New Scientist, and her story debunking a bogus theory about transgender kids was nominated for a 2024 GLAAD Media Award. Her story will follow older adults trying to access therapy and other mental health care as the federal government slashes Medicare dollars and insurance giants like UnitedHealth Group retreat from covering these critical services.
Rhaina Cohen is a producer and editor for NPR‘s Embedded podcast and the bestselling author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center. Her writing about social connection has been published by The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME and is forthcoming in the anthology Living, Together. Her work has been recognized by numerous awards, including a National Headliner Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Greater Good Science Center. She will report on estate planning, inheritance, and kinlessness among older Americans.
Mónica Cordero is an Ortega y Gasset Award–winning investigative journalist and recipient of the 2026 A-Mark Prize for Investigative Reporting. She covers agriculture, global trade and environmental policy for Investigate Midwest and the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, combining collaborative reporting with data-driven analysis. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, openDemocracy, Univision and Radio Ambulante. She is a graduate of the Universidad de Costa Rica and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. She will produce a data-driven project on how the aging of farmers in America’s heartland intersects with agricultural labor shortages created by federal efforts to deport immigrant workers.
Ellen Eldridge is the senior health care reporter for the NPR affiliate Georgia Public Broadcasting. She previously worked as a breaking news reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Eldridge earned bachelor’s degrees in psychology and communication before working as a staff writer for the hyperlocal Reporter Newspapers (which is now Rough Draft Atlanta). Her focus on narrative nonfiction style of writing comes from a decades-long love of creative writing. As a storyteller and news reporter, Eldridge brings a person-centered approach to reporting on public health policy. Her story will focus on the science around why music moves us and how the arts can protect cognition as we age.
Panashe Matemba-Mutasa is a reporter at The Mercury News covering aging and long-term care across the Bay Area. Her reporting focuses on public health, housing, policy, and explores how communities can better support an aging population. She will examine how Bay Area senior living facilities are responding to climate change and whether retrofitting is occurring equitably as climate adaptation accelerates.
Eleni Schirmer is a freelance writer living in Montréal. She holds a PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology and history of education. She has authored many scholarly publications, including the 2024 book, Lend and Rule: Fighting the Shadow Financialization of Public Universities. Her journalistic writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Nation, and elsewhere. She is currently a Spencer Fellow at Columbia University, where she is working on a book about the rise of aging debtors. Her story will follow families as they straddle the impossible dilemma of managing care for an older family member and losing a home.
Natalie Skowlund is an award-winning bilingual audio and digital journalist focused on in-depth multimedia storytelling across the Americas, from Colorado to Colombia. Her work often focuses on health disparities, immigration and human rights, with recent bylines including NPR, The World from PRX and more. As a 2025 Journalism & Women Symposium Health Fellow, she covered health disparities in Colorado’s Latino communities. She is a Fulbright scholar who has worked and studied in Colombia, Taiwan, Bolivia, Spain and Mexico. She will produce a story about how a religious organization is pioneering sex education for older adults.
Aiola Virella García is the editor in chief of Metro Puerto Rico. Throughout her more than 30-year career in print, radio, and multimedia journalism, she has worked as a government affairs and political reporter and has held several leadership positions. Although most of her professional career has been based in Puerto Rico, she also served as global editor of Metro World News. Her work has been recognized by the Puerto Rico Journalists Association and the Overseas Press Club. She is a fellow of the Journalists in Aging Fellowship Program and has taught communications at the University of Puerto Rico and Ana G. Méndez University. She will examine dehydration and heat-related illness among older adults in licensed long-term care facilities in Puerto Rico.
THE WORKSHOP MENTORS
Two journalists with deep experience covering aging issues will serve as guides and sounding boards for workshop participants as they develop their individual stories. Our mentors are:
Tara Bahrampour spent two decades as a staff writer at The Washington Post, where her coverage included aging, demography, immigration and education. She has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, and other publications, and is the author of To See and See Again: A Life in Iran and America. She is a fellowship coach at the OpEd Project.
Paula Span, a former staff writer for The Washington Post, writes The New Old Age column for The New York Times, now a co-production with KFF Health News. She is currently at work on a book about octogenarians, tentatively titled “The Ninth Decade,” for Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Random House. She has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1999.
THE WORKSHOP PARTNER
Sophie Okolo is a health and science journalist specializing in aging. She regularly contributes to Forbes, covering trends and insights regarding healthy longevity. Her writing has also been featured in Salon, PBS Next Avenue, MarketWatch, and more, with several pieces earning Editor’s Pick honors.
THE WORKSHOP ORGANIZER
Emily Laber-Warren heads the health and science reporting program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. A longtime science journalist and educator, she writes on ageism, circadian rhythms and other topics for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek and other publications. She recently authored a series of free, email-based Science Journalism Master Classes, published by The Open Notebook with funding from the Kavli Foundation.
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The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY is a public graduate journalism school that prepares students from diverse economic, racial, and cultural backgrounds to produce high-quality journalism. In 2024, the school launched a campaign to provide free tuition, in perpetuity, to all of its students. www.journalism.cuny.edu
The Congregational Home Legacy Fund (CHLF) supports policy and program initiatives addressing the issues of aging and the lives of the elderly in New York. CHLF was funded with the proceeds of the sale of the New York Congregational Nursing Center, the successor to the Congregational Home for the Aged (established in Brooklyn in 1906) which served the frail elderly of New York City for more than a century. CHLF currently supports projects related to housing, advocacy, and public awareness of aging issues.