Nieman Foundation welcomes new staff

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard is pleased to introduce four new staff members who will work on Nieman publications, audience engagement and other initiatives. 

In welcoming the new staff, Nieman curator Ann Marie Lipinski said: “These talented journalists come to Nieman with exciting skills and experience and we are fortunate to learn from them. As our foundation and publications continue to explore and explain industry changes, we look forward to the impact these women will have on our work.”

Nieman Reports 

Laura Colarusso is the new senior editor at Nieman Reports. She joined Nieman from GBH News, where she was digital managing editor. In that role, she oversaw digital strategy, content creation and audience engagement while also reporting and writing pieces including “The Original Old Boys Club,” an article on gender diversity in local politics that won a regional 2020 Edward R. Murrow Award for innovation. Prior to joining GBH News, she was a member of the Boston Globe's editorial board and a reporter at Newsweek. Colarusso began her career in Washington, D.C., covering the Pentagon and Congress. Her work has also appeared in The Daily Beast, the Washington Monthly and The Star Ledger of New Jersey. She has a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and earned a master’s in political journalism from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Natalie De Rosa, the new assistant editor at Nieman Reports, is a recent graduate of Amherst College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in history, summa cum laude. De Rosa was editor-in-chief of The Amherst Student, where she led a team of 15 managing editors and nearly 50 staff writers through coverage of the pandemic and the nationwide racial reckoning in the U.S. She won the college’s Samuel Bowles Prize, awarded to a student who has demonstrated proficiency in journalism. Her tenure at The Student resulted in an overhaul of how the paper conducts its reporting, especially with respect to marginalized communities. 

Nieman Journalism Lab

Shraddha Chakradhar is Nieman Lab's new deputy editor. A science journalist by training, she previously wrote Stat's award-winning daily "Morning Rounds" newsletter as well as news and feature stories on topics ranging from race and gender disparities in science to artificial intelligence in health care. Before that, she served as a news editor for Nature Medicine, and as a researcher and fact-checker for PBS's documentary science show “NOVA.” Her freelance work has appeared in Nature, Scientific American and NOVA Next, among outlets. Chakradhar has a master’s degree in science and medical journalism from Boston University and received her bachelor’s degree from Murray State University.

Nieman Foundation

Adriana Lacy is Nieman’s new digital and audience engagement editor. Most recently, Lacy was an adjunct lecturer at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, where she taught classes on engaging diverse communities and conducted workshops on best practices for social media and audience development. She has consulted for The 19th*, Guardian US and the Thomson Reuters Foundation, among other outlets. Lacy previously held audience engagement and growth roles at Axios, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. While an undergrad at Penn State, where she earned her bachelor’s degree, she was the founding editor-in-chief of The Underground, an alternative media site focused on untold stories of race, identity and politics.