Our Team

Peter Bhatia is the chief executive officer of the Houston Landing. He is a media industry veteran who has overseen Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism and digital advances at news sites across the country. He was previously the editor and vice president of the Detroit Free Press where he started in 2017, after two years as editor and vice president of The Cincinnati Enquirer. Bhatia previously was director of the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State's Cronkite School of Journalism. He joined the university in June 2014 as visiting professor in journalism ethics after a two-decade career at The Oregonian in Portland. He led newsrooms that won 10 Pulitzer Prizes, including six in Portland. He is a seven-time Pulitzer juror. He is the first journalist of South Asian descent to lead a major daily newspaper in the U.S., running The Oregonian from 2010 to 2014. Peter and his wife, Liz Dahl, have two grown children, who live in Portland and Los Angeles, and one grandchild.

Manny García is the editor-in-chief of the Houston Landing. He held leadership roles at the Austin American-Statesman, ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative, USA Today Network, The Naples Daily News, Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald. García has a reputation for newsroom mentorship and organizational savvy — increasing impactful journalism, restructuring around areas of community interest and growing audiences.

Angel Rodríguez is the managing editor of the Houston Landing. Rodríguez grew up in Houston and is a champion of audience-first journalism, recently leading the creation of De Los at The Los Angeles Times, where he was General Manager/Assistant Managing Editor for Latino Initiatives. For decades, Rodríguez has focused on digital storytelling and audience identities, and how those can inform presentation, reporting and story choice.

Megan Finnerty is the Houston Landing’s chief of strategy, events and revenue. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and storytelling consultant who has created transformation for nonprofits, brands and communities. Megan was part of a team of journalists who won the 2018 Pulitzer for explanatory journalism. As founder and former director of the Storytellers Project, a nationwide series of live storytelling events from Gannett/The USA TODAY Network, Megan’s processes have helped more than 6,000 people tell stories in front of more than 100,000 audience members in more than 25 cities. She graduated from Purdue University, and was a features reporter at The Arizona Republic for 14 years.

Heather Houston is chief development officer at the Houston Landing. A Texas native, Heather is passionate about connecting corporations to their community and has been a critical part of many successful startups. During her early career in New York, Heather worked in the sports and music industries building sponsorship programs for brands including Pepsi, Lipton Iced Tea, Jim Beam, Rolling Rock Beer and The North Face. After moving to Houston in 2005, Heather joined the Houston Texans organization to help launch the inaugural Texas Bowl. In 2017, Houston turned to the nonprofit world where she served as interim executive director for Urban Harvest and most recently the executive director of Scenic Houston. Houston lives in Montrose with her husband and two sons. When not at work or volunteering, you can find Heather cheering on the sidelines at her children’s sporting events or walking around Rice University.

Sydney Fucci is the director of product engagement at Houston Landing. She comes to the Landing with expertise in content strategy, SEO, social media content creation, demand generation, and web analytics. Sydney is a graduate of St. John's University's Peter J. Tobin College of Business with a bachelor’s in marketing minoring in international studies. As a native Houstonian, Sydney believes Houston has one of the best culinary scenes in the world. Outside of work hours, she enjoys exploring Houston’s music and art scene, scouting out a new restaurant, and playing tennis. She is also an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Amber Bruner-Allicock is an experienced marketing, communications and fundraising professional who is passionate about philanthropic work and understands the impact that it has in transforming lives for a better future. She has been driven to pursue a career in nonprofit leadership through her involvement in volunteer service with youth and community organizations. In 2019, she earned her degree in media advertising and communications from the University of Texas at El Paso as a non-traditional student and president’s scholar. Amber is a fur parent to two rescue dogs, enjoys roller skating, thrift shopping, and playing video games with her husband.

Susie Hermsen is the director of people at Houston Landing, where she manages all aspects of recruitment, retainment and human resources. In 2014, Susie graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, applied for an agency recruiting job on a whim, and realized her love of conversation could lead to a career. She enjoys the fast-paced nature of hiring to scale, connecting with candidates and employees, and creating collaborative working environments. Susie has been in the recruiting field for nine years, working at everything from corporations to startups. When she isn't on the phone with a job candidate, you can find her walking her dog, Pear; keeping up with her Goodreads reading goal; or planning a nice beach vacation with her husband.

Konner Mackey is the director of finance for the Houston Landing. His career spans years of experience in financial management and budgeting. Konner served as a senior financial analyst with the city of Houston, where he played an integral role managing the city’s $5 billion operating budget, and he worked as a budget analyst for the Houston Independent School District. Konner graduated from the University of Houston and holds certifications in finance from Georgetown University. He is a lifelong Houstonian with strong ties to the community by way of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Barbara Bush Literacy Foundation, Texas Kidney Foundation and Higher Impact Ministries.

Forrest Milburn is the director of audience at the Houston Landing, where he leads strategy around distribution, audience growth and reader engagement. Before coming to the Landing, Forrest was the senior audience growth and engagement producer at the Miami Herald in sunny South Florida. At the Herald, Forrest led the newsroom's strategy with reader callouts and steered its flagship accounts on Instagram, Reddit and Tiktok, while also having a hand in newsletters, alerts and story pitches to news aggregators. Before moving to Florida, Forrest was a lifelong Texan, having grown up in the North Dallas suburbs. He attended the University of Texas at Austin and interned at newspapers all across the Lonestar State (he's very happy to add Houston to the list). When he's not working, Forrest loves tending to his indoor plant collection and playing with his two cats, Artemis and Apollo.

Kristina is a seasoned nonprofit management professional with a background in philanthropy. For over twenty-five years, Kristina has served Houston’s nonprofit sector in various roles from educator, administrator to fundraiser. Since 2008, her focus has been institutional fundraising, which has meant cultivating community engagement opportunities for stakeholders and the public. She sees great value in serving Houston’s distinctly diverse communities by connecting people to organizations and creating collaborations that provide new initiatives. Kristina believes how we define community engagement should welcome a dialogue of collaboration that benefits our diverse city. She moved to Houston in 1980 from Bangkok, Thailand, and considers Houston her home. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Houston, and remains an active supporter of the city’s cultural arts community.

Jacob Carpenter is a team leader for the Houston Landing, overseeing education and public safety news coverage. Jacob has reported for multiple newsrooms over the years, most recently as a freelance newsletter writer for Fortune and previously as an education reporter for the Houston Chronicle from 2017 to 2021. His stories explored the fallout from HISD's fractured governing board; the district's efforts to help students outside the classroom; and the reasons behind long-standing inequities between schools. His work has been honored by the National Headliner Awards, Investigative Reporters & Editors Awards and Livingston Awards.

Teresa was most recently the Executive Editor at WAMU, the public radio station in Washington, D.C., and prior to that, Executive Editor at Austin’s public radio station, KUT. She has more than 20 years of experience working for media organizations in the United States and Latin America beyond those mentioned above, including WLRN South Florida Public Media, CBS Miami, Univision Network, el Nuevo Herald, El Nacional (Venezuela) and El Universal (Venezuela). Teresa has a journalism degree from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, Venezuela, and has two Master’s degrees, one from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and one from the University of Miami. She was a New York Times fellow at the Maynard Institute for Leadership at Harvard University as well as a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan (Class of 2016), where she conducted research on social media strategies for legacy media. Teresa speaks Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Giselle Rodriguez Greenwood is lead editor of the Houston Landing. Previously, she served as editor-in-chief at the Houston Business Journal, the first Latina editor at the newspaper’s almost 40-year history, where she oversaw newsroom operations and strategy. Prior to that, she was managing editor at the paper, where she directly managed a newsroom of beat reporters. Giselle has been in business journalism for more than 20 years. She previously served as the Houston chapter president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. As the daughter of Colombian and Cuban immigrants, she strives to get more people of color into newsrooms. She was named female business executive of the year in 2019 by the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and also received the Breakthrough Woman of the Year award by the Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce. Although she was born in New York, she grew up in Houston, and you can typically find her kickboxing, climbing mountains in Colorado or cheering her sons on at their lacrosse games.

Matt Schwartz is a team leader at Houston Landing, overseeing reporters covering neighborhoods, local government and politics. A 1985 graduate of the University of Missouri, Matt has nearly four decades of journalism experience at newspapers in Pennsylvania, South Carolina and here in Houston, where he spent 26 years as a reporter and editor at the Houston Chronicle. Outside of work, Matt enjoys time with family and friends, taking walks, rockhounding and spending hours in the workshop cutting and polishing stones. He has a surprising number of photographs of dead trees on his phone.

Angelica Arinze is a senior audience engagement producer at the Houston Landing. She was previously the audience producer at Grist and served as an engagement fellow at the Texas Tribune. There, she cultivated her passion for audience engagement strategy and finding unique approaches to reach readers to promote a better-informed public. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Born and raised in Reno, Nevada, she moved to Houston at the age of 14. She is excited to return to the Bayou City and explore new things the city has to offer. When she’s not working, she loves trying out new food spots, sending her friends and siblings funny TikToks or diving into a good read.

Anna-Catherine (Anna-Cat) Brigida is the immigration reporter for Houston Landing. A Boston native, she began reporting on immigration as a journalism student at USC Annenberg in Los Angeles. Before joining Houston Landing, she previously worked as the Argentina correspondent for Reuters and spent seven years reporting from Central America, mainly El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, for outlets including The Washington Post, National Geographic, and Al Jazeera. Her 2018 story on the danger deportees face upon return to El Salvador was selected as a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. She speaks Spanish and is learning Portuguese. In her free time, you can usually find her trying a new Houston restaurant or out salsa dancing.

Elena Bruess covers the environment for the Houston Landing. She comes to Houston after two years at the San Antonio Express-News, where she covered the environment, climate and water. Elena previously worked in the Midwest as a reporter for Circle of Blue, a nonprofit newsroom where she focused on water issues in the Great Lakes region. Before that, Elena covered health and inequity in Chicago as a Pulitzer Center reporting fellow. She is originally from Northeastern Iowa and holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University and a degree from University of Iowa's undergraduate writing program. When not on the beat, Elena will be reading a book in the sun or getting ultra-caffeinated at a coffee shop.

Tim Carlin is a government solutions reporter for the Houston Landing. An Ohio native, Tim comes to Houston after spending a year in Greenville, South Carolina, covering Greenville County government for The Greenville News. There, he examined his beat through a resident-focused lens, highlighting concerns about Greenville County’s rapid growth and the censorship of LGBTQ+ materials in the county’s library system. Tim received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and American studies from Miami University of Ohio – Go Redhawks! When not at work, Tim enjoys watching too much reality TV, solving crossword puzzles and frequenting local coffee shops.

Javier Castillo serves as a project manager for Houston Landing. He spent the last few years working at Detroit startups in the financial tech, e-commerce, and hospitality industries. Before moving to Michigan, he was a lifelong Houstonian who graduated from the University of Houston with degrees in finance and marketing. He is passionate about photography, design, and music and actively looks for opportunities to blend these interests with his work. When not in the office, you can typically find him at a local coffee shop tuning into NTS radio.

Paul Cobler covers politics for the Houston Landing. Paul returns to Texas after covering city hall for The Advocate in Baton Rouge. During two-and-a-half years at the newspaper, he spearheaded local accountability reporting about a variety of topics and local agencies. A University of Texas graduate from Victoria, Paul previously worked in Washington, D.C., for the Dallas Morning News as a post-graduate fellow. Paul's reporting on local and state politics has been published in newspapers across Texas. When he's not working, he can be found playing sand volleyball or petting his cat, Lil Bit.

Céilí Doyle covers the region's suburbs and rural communities for the Houston Landing. She comes to Texas by way of the Midwest, most recently working for The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio through the national service program Report for America. In Ohio, she covered rural issues across the state with a special focus on Appalachia and she earned the Ohio Associated Press Media Editors' Rising Star award — given to journalists with less than five years of professional experience. Doyle is a Chicago native who earned her B.A. in journalism and political science from Miami University of Ohio.

Miranda Dunlap is a reporter covering Houston Community College, Lone Star College and San Jacinto College. Her work focuses on highlighting opportunities available to students, holding college leaders accountable for providing a high-quality, affordable education, and addressing barriers to community college entry, success and completion. She previously covered K-12 education for the Landing. A native Michigander, Miranda studied political science pre-law and journalism at Michigan State University. Prior to joining the Landing, she worked at Automotive News, covering all things automotive industry, and she served in various capacities at The State News, Michigan State's student newspaper. When she's not writing, you can find Miranda attempting to exceed her GoodReads goal and spoiling her cat, August.

Eileen Grench covers public safety for the Houston Landing, where two of her primary areas of focus will be the Houston Police Department and Harris County Sheriff’s Office. She is returning to local news after a year as the national justice reporter at The Daily Beast. Eileen previously covered juvenile justice for a nonprofit newsroom, THE CITY, in New York as a Report for America Corps member. At THE CITY, she was a 2021 Livingston Award finalist for her coverage of inequities in child welfare, and won the Newswomen’s Club of New York Front Page Award in Local Investigative Reporting for her series on education in juvenile detention centers during the coronavirus pandemic. Eileen also worked as an investigative reporting fellow at the Global Migration Project at Columbia University, covering immigration issues for outlets such as The New Yorker, The Intercept, The Nation and Documented.

Maggie Gordon is a senior storyteller who has worked at newspapers across the country, including the Stamford Advocate and the Houston Chronicle. She has covered everything from the hedge fund industry and education to craft beer and alligator hunting. No matter the topic, Maggie’s favorite stories combine quirky characters, adventure and humanity. Bonus points if she can find a love story. Maggie grew up on a cow farm in upstate New York, and graduated from nearby Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. These days you can find her at her home in Houston’s East End – or on Twitter.

Hanna is the City Hall reporter at the Houston Landing. Previously, she reported at the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville on local government and independent authorities. Prior to that, she worked on The Washington Post’s investigative team as a graduate reporter through American University, where she earned her Master's degree in Journalism and Public Affairs. She previously interned at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She graduated with a degree in Global Journalism and Spanish from Webster University.

Brooke is an education reporter covering Aldine, Alief, Pasadena and Spring ISDs. Her work focuses on helping families get a better education for their children and holding school leaders accountable for providing a high-quality education to all students. She previously reported for Chron.com and the Vineyard Gazette. She also served as an associate editor at Martha's Vineyard Magazine, covering housing, immigration and conservation. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue and The New York Times. Born and raised in Houston, she graduated with a degree from the College of Letters from Wesleyan University. Ella habla español.

Fiza is an audience engagement producer at the Landing, where she works closely with the education team. She previously interned at the Washington Post on the multiplatform and audience desk, and has worked as a freelancer covering HISD for Axios. Prior to that, she was an audience fellow at the Texas Tribune, and an intern at Texas Monthly. From the Houston area, she has a degree in journalism and government from University of Texas at Austin. She is fluent in Malayalam.

Asher Lehrer-Small is an education reporter covering Houston ISD for the Houston Landing. His work focuses on helping families understand how HISD policies and practices impact their children, holding district leaders accountable for providing a high-quality education and giving students a voice in their school experience. He previously spent three years covering schools for The 74, a nonprofit education news outlet, where he was recognized by the Education Writers Association as one of the top three education beat reporters in the nation working at a small newsroom. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Fast Company, The Guardian and other outlets. He graduated from Brown University after studying education policy, and he worked as a summer school math teacher in Providence, Rhode Island. Off the clock, you can find him tending to houseplants or frying up homemade donuts for a crowd.

Hillary Ma is an audience engagement producer for The Houston Landing, focusing closely on public safety and diverse communities. Previously, she was a reporter for Southern California News Group where her bylines were passed around in local SoCal newspapers like the Long Beach Press-Telegram, Torrance Daily Breeze, The Orange County Register and more. Despite having roots from Madison, Wisconsin, she lived in Houston for 10 years and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Government and a certificate in Japanese Language and Culture. She speaks Mandarin, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. Off the clock, you can find Hillary indulging in on her favorite childhood dishes in Bellaire Chinatown or playing with her cat Francis.

José worked as a data reporter at the Connecticut Mirror. Prior to that, he’s held internships or fellowships at the Wall Street Journal, Texas Tribune, American Public Media Group, ProPublica, Bloomberg and the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. A native of Houston, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in journalism. He is fluent in Spanish.

Dion worked for The Wall Street Journal in several high-profile roles, stationed in Brussels, Beirut, Istanbul, Kabul and Jerusalem. He has served as a bureau chief, a Middle East correspondent, a war correspondent and a senior correspondent. He’s covered national security, the Pentagon, and counterterrorism policy. Earlier in his career, Dion served as a state capitol reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in Sacramento, producing reporting that contributed to the forced resignation of state officials, changes in California laws and calls for special investigations of former Gov. Gray Davis. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for International reporting in 2022 and in 2017, and received the James K. Batten Excellence Award in 2003, among many other awards. He published “A Street Divided: Stories from Jerusalem’s Alley of God” in 2015.

McKenna Oxenden is a reporter covering Harris County for the Houston Landing. She most recently had a yearlong fellowship at the New York Times on its breaking news team. A Baltimore native, she previously covered criminal justice and breaking news at the Baltimore Sun. Prior to working for her hometown paper, McKenna worked at the Tampa Bay Times in a variety of roles including, reporter, social media/homepage editor and podcast producer. Her work has also appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. McKenna is a graduate of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisc. with a degree in journalism, photography and digital media. She is a self-proclaimed “horse girl” who competes in three-day eventing. McKenna is also an avid ultimate frisbee player, firmly believes that being the cool aunt is a personality trait and is always looking for a new brewery to try.

Lexi Parra is a photo editor for Houston Landing. Before moving to Houston, she worked as an independent photojournalist in Caracas, Venezuela and New York, NY, and her work has been published in The New York Times, NPR and The Washington Post. Parra focuses her lens on topics that resonate locally but appeal globally: youth culture, migration, the personal effects of inequality and violence and humanity’s resilience. Parra is a Getty Images and the Pulitzer Center grant recipient. A Bard College graduate, Parra put her Photo and Human Rights degree to work and founded Project MiRA in 2018. The photo education initiative fosters visual literacy and encourages young women in the barrios of Caracas to become empowered.

Angelica Perez is a general assignment reporter on the Landing's education team. Her role primarily involves covering education news in five local school districts, helping families advocate for their child in school, and engaging with communities to increase readership and viewership of the Landing's work. Angelica previously served as a civic engagement reporter at the Landing, writing explainers and guides that helped empower Houstonians. A Houston native, Angelica previously worked at the Dallas Morning News as a breaking news intern. She graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington, where she studied journalism and served as editor in chief of the student newspaper, The Shorthorn. In her free time, Angelica can be found spending time with her family, traveling to new places, or reading a good book.

Adriana Rezal is a data visualization engineer at the Houston Landing. Prior to joining the Landing, Adriana worked as a data reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. There, she wrote data-driven news articles covering topics ranging from demographics to city services. Adriana grew up in Baytown, Texas, and is excited to return to Houston after spending two years in the San Francisco Bay Area. When not at work, she can usually be found watching movies at home with her cat, Hantu, or playing D&D with her friends.

Danya Pérez is a diverse communities reporter for the Houston Landing. She returned to Houston after leaving two years ago to work for the San Antonio Express-News, where she reported on K-12 and higher education. Prior to that, Danya was a digital producer at the Houston Chronicle, where she worked on community engagement efforts by developing and writing daily newsletters. She previously spent 4 ½ years covering education at the Monitor newspaper in the Rio Grande Valley. Danya lived most of her childhood in Mexico before migrating with her family to their second home in El Paso. She is a proud University of Texas at El Paso graduate (Picks up!). When she's not writing about our communities, she might be found taking her loyal travel companion, Wakko, a 16-year-old Schnauzer, for slow walks at his favorite spots along Buffalo Bayou.

Sophia Pirani is a rising junior at Northwestern University. She is currently majoring in journalism and global health studies and minoring in data science. For fall 2024, she will be working as an audience engagement fellow. She is excited to meet everyone and eager to help out in any way she can at Houston Landing.

Paula Solis is a senior audience engagement editor for the Houston Landing. She studied journalism at Baylor University, and after graduation, she took a short drive (and ferry ride) up to Juneau, Alaska, where she covered crime and education. Returning to the lower 48, Paula wrote for Teach For America's One Day magazine, focusing on educational inequities across the country. She later joined the national communications team as a content development director. A lifelong Houstonian, Paula is thrilled to be part of a team dedicated to telling the stories of her beloved city and its people. In her free time, you can find Paula walking around her Montrose neighborhood with her dogs or catching an Astros game with her family.

Antranik Tavitian is a photojournalist at the Houston Landing. He previously worked at The Arizona Republic, where he covered the border, Arizona politics, Mezcal production in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Phoenix’s wide range of communities. A Los Angeles native, Antranik has lived in many parts of the country while interning at newspapers such as The Commercial-Dispatch in Mississippi, the Detroit Free Press and the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. In his free time, Antranik enjoys cooking his family's native Syrian and Armenian foods, watching soccer, and feeding disturbing amounts of ice cubes to his two-year-old mostly Labrador border rescue dog, Miko.

Monroe Trombly covers public safety for the Houston Landing. He was raised in Cincinnati and, prior to moving to Houston in 2023, spent his reporting career in Ohio, working for Gannett-owned papers in Columbus, Mansfield and Cincinnati. Monroe most recently covered breaking and trending news at the Columbus Dispatch. Before that, he cut his teeth as a city hall reporter and breaking news reporter at the Mansfield News Journal. When not writing, you can find Monroe at the cineplex or out on the hiking trails.

Ambika is a senior audience engagement editor for the Houston Landing. She brings more than a decade of experience in social media and public relations, and enjoys telling stories through any medium. Ambika has worked in both corporate and agency settings with a variety of clients, including food and beverage, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, entertainment and energy. Most recently, she led social media strategy at Sysco Corporation. When she’s not working, she’s pursuing portrait photography. Ambika’s love for photography started at Baylor University, where she studied journalism and worked as a photojournalist for the student newspaper. After graduating, she started her career in New York and studied strategic design and management at Parsons. Ambika lives in Houston with her husband, daughter, and their gentle, goofy Great Dane.

Monique Welch covers diverse communities for the Houston Landing. She was previously an engagement reporter for the Houston Chronicle, where she reported on trending news within the greater Houston region and across Texas, and occasionally contributed to the Chronicle's race and identity newsletter, HouWeAre. A native Baltimorean and previous Tampa resident, Monique joined the Chronicle in the summer of 2021 after nearly four years at the Tampa Bay Times, where she worked on all things digital, launched the newspaper's first race and identity newsletter, Regarding Race, and covered local news. Monique holds a bachelor's degree in Communications and Media Studies from Goucher College.

Alison is Houston Landing’s associate editor for investigations and an investigative reporter specializing in health, environmental and consumer issues. Her work has revealed safety lapses at biological research labs, food manufacturers and nursing homes; hazards in municipal water systems and near-forgotten lead factories. She is a past president of Investigative Reporters and Editors, and the former Washington, D.C., program director for the University of Missouri School of Journalism. In 2023 she published “Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk.” She has a journalism degree from the University of Kansas. She has reported for USA Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Knight Ridder’s Washington Bureau, Detroit Free Press, The Arizona Republic and the Dallas Times Herald. Her journalism honors include three Gerald Loeb Awards, three Scripps Howard Awards and a duPont-Columbia Award.

Michael is a fourth year sociology major from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to his internship with Houston Landing, Michael was a FOIA intern with the Daily Dot, an investigative intern/later a digital data producer with KPRC Houston, and an AI researcher in UT’s Media Innovation Lab. Michael has lived in the Houston area for most of his life, so he is super excited to have the chance to improve his journalism skills in a community he's grown to know so well.