U.S. Maternal Health Press Fellowship

U.S. Maternal Health Press Fellowship

The Every Mother Counts U.S. Maternal Health Press Fellowship is designed to deepen and expand U.S. media coverage of maternal health. This fellowship is a learning opportunity that will help journalists understand the challenges and solutions shaping maternal health in the U.S. and support more impactful reporting on the issue. 

Why we created this fellowship: Although maternal health has received more coverage in recent years, stronger context and community insight can be helpful for reporting on how policy changes and persistent disparities influence access to care. Raising awareness about maternal health through storytelling has been central to Every Mother Counts’ mission since our founding. This Fellowship builds on that work by creating opportunities for journalists to connect with the people, perspectives, and community-driven solutions that shape maternal health across the country. 

Program Details

The fellowship will run from April–July 2026.  A cohort of 10 journalists from across the country will deepen their understanding of the U.S. maternal health landscape through a blend of virtual learning and interactive site visits to Arkansas & Minnesota.

All travel and expenses related to the fellowship are covered. The fellowship does not provide project funding or salary. Fellows maintain full editorial independence.

The fellowship curriculum will include:

  • A virtual orientation session led by Every Mother Counts staff. 

  • Three-day site visits to Arkansas & Minnesota with opportunities to meet providers, community leaders, advocates, elected officials, policymakers and more.

  • Virtual learning sessions with maternal health experts focused on the maternal health policy landscape, the critical role of data, and the importance of maternal health storytelling.

Meet the Fellows

We’re thrilled to introduce the 10 fellows selected for the Every Mother Counts U.S. Maternal Health Press Fellowship—journalists with strong reporting experience and a clear commitment to solutions-oriented maternal health coverage. Together, they represent six states and Washington, D.C., bring a diversity of identities, lived and professional experiences, and work across a range of outlets in print, digital, radio, podcast, and photography.

Gray Chapman

Gray Chapman has worked as an independent journalist since 2014. Her work has appeared in dozens of online and print outlets, including the New York Times, the Guardian, Atlanta Magazine, The Bitter Southerner, Garden & Gun, Communication Arts, and more. In recent years, Gray has focused her writing on the lived experiences of vulnerable mothers, reporting on Georgia’s maternal mortality crisis, the experiences of incarcerated pregnant women during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the impact of a major urban hospital’s abrupt shuttering on accessible obstetric care. As a 2025-2026 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow, she is currently focusing on the intersection of maternal health and substance use disorder. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and two children. 

Tamara Gilkes

Tamara Gilkes is a senior producer at The Economist. She writes, presents, and produces episodes for “The Weekend Intelligence,“  The Economist‘s long-form podcast series. She also assists in the production of “Checks and Balance,” The Economist‘s US politics podcast. Tamara earned a PhD in education from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from New York University. During the PhD, she served as an education policy advisor for several organizations, including Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. Tamara was also a middle school science teacher for 5 years in New York City. 

Julianne McShane

Julianne McShane is a digital reporter for MS NOW, formerly known as MSNBC, where she has broken national stories on abortion and reproductive rights policy. She covered maternal and women’s health issues in her prior roles as a reporter at Mother Jones and NBC News Digital, and she has also written for the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian, among other publications. She is a two-time fellow of USC’s Center for Health Journalism and has earned degrees from New York University and the University of Cambridge.  

Hanna Merzbach

Hanna Merzbach is a reporter at Wyoming Public Media and the Mountain West News Bureau. Her award-winning work covering women’s health access in the region has landed on NPR and stations across the Rockies. Otherwise, she explores solutions to our historic housing crisis and other stories that unite rural mountain communities. Based in Jackson, Wyo., she spends much of her free time rock climbing or adventuring in the mountains.   

Anika Nayak

Anika Nayak is a freelance journalist focused on health equity. She has previously worked in maternal-child community health and research. She has been awarded the Solutions Journalism Network’s HEAL Fellowship, the Journalism and Women Symposium’s Health Journalism Fellowship, and the National Science-Health-Environment Reporting Fellowship. She holds a bachelor’s degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Hannah Pasternak

Hannah Pasternak is the Lifestyle Director at SELF magazine. She’s previously held positions at Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, and FADER; her work has been twice-nominated for the National Magazine Awards and featured in the New York Times, Bookforum, and several times on the TODAY show and Good Morning America. She studied English at Brown University and lives in Manhattan with her husband and daughter. 

Bek Shackelford-Nwanganga

Bek Shackelford-Nwanganga is a health equity reporter for the Kansas News Service, an NPR affiliate. She’s covered a wide-range of topics, including things like prescription drug prices, rural health access and various infectious disease outbreaks, but her passion lies in maternal health stories. Bek’s patient and empathetic storytelling puts moms and birthing people at the center of complicated stories about birth, maternal and infant health and motherhood. She is dedicated to helping people, especially marginalized people, amplify their voices and experiences. Outside of work, Bek is a new mom. She and her family live in Kansas City, Missouri.  

Maggie Shannon

Maggie Shannon is a photographer specializing in portrait and documentary work. Hailing from Martha’s Vineyard, she received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts and is now based in Los Angeles, California with her husband and daughter. Maggie aims to tell stories of smaller communities and social rituals, with the goal of lifting edge voices and building a more inclusive world. Her approach is reflexive and anchored by honesty, empathy, and endless curiosity. Maggie was selected as a 2018 PDN emerging photographer and has been recognized as part of Magnum’s 30 under 30. She is a member of Women Photograph and her work has appeared in American Photography 35-40. Her first book, Swamp Yankee, told the story of New England shark fishing and her newest book Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy was released in 2024 through Mother Tongue.  

Alanna Vagianos

Alanna Vagianos (she/her) is a senior national reporter at HuffPost where she covers gender and politics. She has reported extensively on sexual assault and intimate partner violence including major sexual assault cases like the Larry Nassar, Bill Cosby and R. Kelly trials. She has also traveled around the country to report on reproductive justice and abortion access, doggedly covering the policy approaches to reproductive health care under both the Biden and Trump administrations. Her work often highlights the human cost of political decisions around health care and bodily autonomy. She is based in New York City. 

Monique Welch-Rutherford

Driven by the disparities highlighted in the documentary Aftershock, award-winning Houston-based journalist Monique Welch-Rutherford has spent years reporting from the frontlines of the maternal health crisis. Her recent work with Capital B News—which identified Harris County, Texas, as the nation’s deadliest location for Black mothers—became a viral catalyst for national advocacy, sparking dialogue among the greater birthing community and civil rights attorney Ben Crump. By bridging rigorous data analysis with the lived experiences of Black women, Welch-Rutherford humanizes the maternal mortality crisis to drive institutional reform. Through her fellowship with Every Mother Counts, she aims to leverage new expertise to amplify unheard voices and continue centering maternal health as a fundamental human right. 

Want to connect and learn more about the fellowship? Email Mihika Srivastava, Director of Communications at msrivastava@everymothercounts.org.