Climate Economics Journalism Fellows
Overview
Climate Economics for Journalists: An NYU Stern Fellowship
Climate change is transforming the economy as quickly and profoundly as it is reshaping the planet. For journalists who want to deepen their climate coverage, understanding these sometimes cryptic economic and financial shifts is as important as understanding the science and politics behind climate change.
The NYU Stern Climate Economics Journalism Fellowship will bring a group of journalists to NYU Stern’s Greenwich Village campus to learn from globally recognized experts in the emerging field of climate economics. Participants will discuss the fundamental factors and latest trends in climate economics and finance.
Application for the 2024 cohort are now closed. Applications for the 2025 cohort will open in Spring 2025.
FAQs
A two-day in-person series of academic and social events at NYU Stern’s Greenwich Village campus. The program is designed for journalists interested in better understanding the interactions between climate change, financial markets, and the broader economy. Taught by NYU faculty, the Fellowship aims to provide participants with both the fundamental factors and latest trends in climate economics and finance.
Applications are open to and welcome from all journalists (both reporters and editors, and including freelancers) interested in covering the interface between climate and the economy. While aspects of the course have a focus on U.S. policies and institutions, we also welcome applications from journalists based outside the United States.
NYU Stern will select the final group of Fellows based on the documents submitted by applicants including the letter of motivation.
The Fellowship dates are September 19–20, 2024. The following week is NYC Climate Week, providing numerous coverage opportunities. The Program’s activities will take place at NYU Stern’s Greenwich Village campus in New York City.
All the costs of operating the program including all meals will be borne by NYU Stern. In addition, Fellows admitted to the program who reside outside the New York Metro Area will receive a $2,000 stipend to cover travel and accommodation costs; those residing inside the New York Metro Area will receive a $1,000 stipend.
The Fellowship is fully funded by NYU Stern, and there is no corporate or advocacy-group sponsorship.
The sessions cover the fundamental economics and latest trends in climate economics. Prior training in economics is not required. Topics include:
- How Climate Change is Roiling the Housing and Insurance Markets
- Climate Risks to Financial Stability
- How Climate Change is Altering Corporate Decision Making
- The Economics of Climate Regulation + Carbon Markets
- Biodiversity Loss as an Emerging Economic Risk
- The Fast-Changing Economics of Renewable Energy and Electric Vehicles
- Emerging Regulatory and Legislative Trends in Climate Finance and Economics
Within these topics, we will consider urgent questions such as: Why are home insurance markets breaking down across the U.S.? What’s a carbon border adjustment mechanism and how might it affect global trade? How do cap-and-trade systems work? How do you calculate the Social Cost of Carbon, and why does it matter? What are the problems with carbon offsets, and how might they be solved? What are the economic and financial market effects of nature and biodiversity loss? How do the economics of renewable energy markets work?
Dan Fagin will lead a discussion of the challenges of reporting on the interactions between climate change and the economy.
There will be social events to allow for plenty of opportunities to get to know the other fellows and faculty in an informal setting.
Fellowship sessions are taught by faculty from across NYU who will be leading discussions closely related to their academic research. A list of fellowship faculty is presented below.
The Fellowship is organized by the Climate Finance Initiative at NYU Stern, under the leadership of Professor Johannes Stroebel. The steering committee includes NYU Stern Professor Theresa Kuchler and Professor Dan Fagin from NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
Alumni of the Fellowship will receive invitations to future events of the NYU Stern Climate Finance Initiative, including an annual reunion event that allows different fellowship cohorts recipients to interact.
No, this is not an NYU degree program, and participation will not make you an NYU student.
You can contact us at climate_reporting_fellowship@stern.nyu.edu.
Fellowship Faculty
Fellowship Director & Instructor: Johannes Stroebel
David S. Loeb Professor of Finance, NYU Stern
Director, NYU Stern Climate Finance Initiative
Steering Committee Member & Fellowship Instructor: Theresa Kuchler
Professor of Finance, NYU Stern
Steering Committee Member & Fellowship Instructor: Dan Fagin
Professor of Journalism, New York University
Director, NYU Science, Health & Environmental Reporting Program
Fellowship Instructor: Viral Acharya
C.V. Starr Professor of Economics, NYU Stern
Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India
Fellowship Instructor: Bryce Rudyk
Adjunct Professor of Law, NYU Law School
Director, International Environmental Law Program
Director, UN Diplomacy Clinic
Fellowship Instructor: Sanjay Patnaik
Senior Fellow in Economic Studies, Brookings
Director, Center on Regulation and Markets
2024 Fellows
Adrián Blanco Ramos
Adrián Blanco Ramos is a graphics reporter at The Washington Post where he creates, codes, designs, illustrates and also edits data-driven visual stories. Originally from Spain, he is based in Washington D.C. He holds an MS in Data Journalism from Columbia Journalism School. His work has been recognized by the Society of News Design, the Livingston Awards and the Overseas Press Club of America, among others.
Alexa St. John
Alexa St. John is a climate solutions reporter for The Associated Press based in metro Detroit. She reports on the people and communities implementing scalable solutions to counteract human-caused climate change. Alexa previously spent more than four years focused on electric vehicles, infrastructure, and the battery supply chain through roles on Business Insider’s transportation desk and at business publication Automotive News. Alexa graduated from the University of Michigan.
Amanda Chu
Amanda Chu is a journalist at the Financial Times covering US energy, with a focus on the renewables industry and the country's transition to lower carbon sources. She also is a lead writer of the FT's twice-a-week newsletter, Energy Source, and joined the FT as an intern in 2021. She studied international relations at Georgetown University.
Ana Bueno
Ana Bueno, raised in Veracruz, Mexico, is a Bronze Telly and EMMY award-winning journalist specializing in environmental issues and climate change. In 2022, she became an environmental reporter for Univision 45. Among her many accolades, in 2023, she was selected as a fellow at the University of Rhode Island’s prestigious Metcalf Institute. Additionally, she was selected by the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources as a fellow this year for its Western Wildfire Institute.
Artis Curiskis
Artis Curiskis is a Ben Bagdikian fellow at Mother Jones, where he is a Climate Desk fellow and reports on the intersection of climate change and infrastructure. He previously produced and reported the Peabody-nominated series The COVID Tracking Project podcast with Reveal and led data reporting projects with The COVID Tracking Project at the Atlantic. He was also an artist-in-residence at UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art and a Thomas J. Watson fellow exploring global soccer diplomacy.
Brian Kahn
Brian Kahn has covered climate change for more than a decade. In his current role as Bloomberg Green's climate tech editor, he works with reporters to cover the next generation of carbon-cutting technology. He helped start Gizmodo and Protocol's climate coverage, and his work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and Grist.
Christine Spolar
Christine Spolar has edited award-winning investigative and business projects at both US and UK news publications. She was the investigative editor for the Financial Times, executive editor of KFF Health News and the international business editor at the New York Times. She was an overseas staff correspondent for the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune, reporting from Poland, Bosnia, Iraq, Israel, Egypt and Italy. She is the Pulitzer Center climate/labor editor and continues to report for KFF Health News and other news outlets.
Cici Zhang
Cici Zhang is currently an Harvard Business Review editor based in Beijing. A Chinese native, she had been educated in the States venturing from neuroscience to NYU’s Science Journalism program, which then lead to covering the Great American Eclipse as well as environmental stories about citrus greening disease and sustainable buildings. Now for HBR, she aspires to explore more ways combining science and business management in the articles she edits.
Clare Fieseler
Clare Fieseler, PhD covers renewable energy and climate tech for POLITICO and its sister site, E&E News. Prior to POLITICO, Clare was a fellow at The Washington Post and an investigative reporter covering the environment at the Post and Courier, South Carolina’s largest newspaper. She has freelanced for national outlets like Slate, National Geographic, and the Washington Post. Before journalism, Clare worked full-time as a research scientist. Clare holds a PhD in ecology from UNC Chapel Hill and a masters in environmental management from Duke University. She lives in Washington, DC with her family.
Clark Mindock
Clark is a reporter who has covered the intersection of climate and the law for years. He is always eager to explore new ways of understanding the complex financial, systemic and social issues facing the planet.
Colin Kinniburgh
Colin Kinniburgh is a reporter at New York Focus, covering the state’s climate and environmental politics. He has spent more than a decade in media, working in print, television, audio, and online news, and participated in fellowship programs at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism and the Metcalf Institute. His reporting has appeared in outlets including France 24, Grist, Dissent, and The Nation.
Coral Davenport
Coral Davenport is a Washington-based reporter for The New York Times, specializing in energy and environmental policy with a focus on climate change. Since 2006, she has covered policy for Congressional Quarterly, Politico, and National Journal. She joined The Times in 2013 and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2020. Coral holds an English literature degree from Smith College
Ece Yildirim
Ece Yildirim is a young journalist, originally from Istanbul. She works at CNBC as a Digital News Associate, currently covering consumer business news with a focus on the retail, transportation and media industries. She previously worked in production at CNBC's post-markets show Closing Bell: Overtime, and covered work trends and success stories for CNBC Make It. Prior to her time at CNBC, she held several positions conducting research on the socioeconomic and political dimensions of a variety of environmental topics. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2023 with a major in Philosophy, Politics & Economics and a minor in Consumer Psychology.
Florian Sturm
Florian Sturm is a freelance journalist from Germany, contributing to various national and international media outlets. Specializing in science journalism, he frequently covers topics related to the marine environment, focusing on the intersection of science, conservation, and society. His work has been featured in publications such as Stern magazine (Germany), Greenpeace Magazine (Switzerland), The Guardian (UK), and National Geographic (US).
James Dinneen
James Dinneen is a science and environmental journalist from Colorado, now based in New York where he reports on climate, energy, biodiversity, and other earthly curiosities for New Scientist. His writing has also appeared in Science, National Geographic, The Boston Globe, Scientific American, Undark, Discover, Yale E360, Wired, bioGraphic and Smithsonian, among other outlets. His investigation for Undark on aging dam infrastructure was a 2022 National Magazine Award finalist and won the American Society of Journalists and Authors award for investigative journalism. He has a master's in science writing from MIT, and studied history and philosophy at Colorado College. He likes maps.
John Thomason
John Thomason is the Features Editor at Grist, a nonprofit newsroom that has covered climate change since its founding in 1999. Prior to joining Grist in 2020, John was the Research Editor at The Intercept. He has edited articles that have won awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Hillman Foundation, the Online News Association, and the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Katie Silver
Katie Silver is an award-winning senior business and economics reporter for the BBC based out of its Asia hub in Singapore. She regularly covers the intersection between science news and that of business and the economy. That includes reporting and presenting the BBC’s Radio 4 Science programs, breaking business news as well as TV and online. She has reported around the world including spending years in London, New York, Latin America, and Sydney. Prior to the BBC, she’s reported for CNN, Sky and the ABC. Katie has degrees from the University of Sydney in psychology, science and international business and speaks Spanish and some Indonesian.
Louise Osborne
Louise Osborne is Chief Climate Reporter at Germany's international broadcaster Deutsche Welle. She reports on climate-related issues ranging from the decarbonization of industry and climate financing to the impacts of extreme weather events on communities all over the world. She is an alumna of both the Oxford Climate Journalism Network and the International Journalists' Programme (IJP). Originally from the UK, Louise has lived in Berlin for more than a decade.
Lydia DePillis
Lydia DePillis has been an economics reporter with the New York Times since 2022, where she has written extensively about the intersection of climate change and the economy. Before that, she worked at ProPublica, CNN, the Houston Chronicle, the Washington Post, the New Republic and the Washington City Paper, covering everything from housing to energy to agriculture. She lives in Queens and hails from Seattle, with stops in Washington D.C. and Houston.
Mario Alejandro Ariza
Mario Alejandro Ariza is an investigative reporter and a Dominican immigrant. His byline has appeared in publications including the South Florida Sun Sentinel, The New Republic and NPR. A two-part series he co-reported with NPR and fellow Floodlight reporter Miranda Green was chosen as a finalist for the 2023 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and won the Los Angeles Press Club's award on misinformation. A story from the series won first place for the 2024 Southern Environmental Law Center's Reed Award for reporting on the environment. Mario wrote a book called Disposable City: Miami’s Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe, which was published by Bold Type Books. His essays have been featured in The Believer and selected for Best American Essays.
Mark Olalde
Mark Olalde investigates environmental issues around the American Southwest for ProPublica. He focuses on natural resources ranging from oil and coal to water and land, and he has reported from across the U.S., Southern Africa and the Caribbean. His projects have also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, PBS NewsHour, Popular Science, Grist and numerous other titles, earning him the Stokes Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award, a SEAL Environmental Journalism Award and others.
Michelle Chan
Michelle Chan is an award-winning journalist covering the intersection of climate change and capital markets for International Financing Review (IFR) in New York. She previously worked for The Wall Street Journal, where she wrote about the decoupling of US-China financial markets.
Nicholas Kusnetz
Nicholas Kusnetz is a reporter for Inside Climate News. Before joining ICN, he worked at the Center for Public Integrity and ProPublica. His work has won numerous awards, including from the Society of Environmental Journalists, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and has appeared in more than a dozen publications, including The Washington Post, Businessweek, The Nation, Fast Company and The New York Times.
Patricia Vilas Boas
Patricia is a Brazilian journalist based in Sao Paulo. She currently works at Reuters as a Headline News Reporter covering business and economics news. She started at Reuters as an intern in 2021. Previously, Patricia worked at Agencia Mural de Jornalismo das Periferias, an independent media outlet focused on low-income communities, where she covered a variety of topics, including financial, political, and environmental issues. Her work at Mural contributed to her winning the Empiricus and Journalist of Impact awards, and being a finalist for the C6 Journalism Prize. She is also a fellow of the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF) and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).
Rebecca Leber
Rebecca Leber is a climate journalist and senior investigative researcher for Center for Climate Integrity. D.C. She has reported on climate and the environment as a staff writer and editor at Vox, Mother Jones, Grist, and The New Republic. She has also served on the board of directors for the Society of Environmental Journalists and her work has been recognized by Covering Climate Now and SEAL Awards. She is based in Washington, D.C.
Ronojoy Mazumdar
Ronojoy Mazumdar covers emerging market sovereign debt, currencies and climate finance for Bloomberg. He has written about how the debt crisis in developing countries limits their ability to act on climate change, making them more vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather events, rising seas, higher temperatures and sinking deeper into debt. Based in Mumbai, he has closely covered these issues especially in the South Asian region. He seeks to bring to the fore more stories on the linkages between debt, finance, and building resilience for countries on the frontline of climate change.
Russell Leung
Russell Leung is a recent graduate of Northwestern University, where he studied journalism, environmental sciences and Spanish. A lifelong New Yorker, he is interning on the copy desk at the Boston Globe this summer and will join CNBC's Digital Rotational Program in the fall.
Sarah Emler
Sarah Emler is a TV and Radio journalist. She works for the Austrian Public Broadcaster (ORF) in the breaking news department covering foreign affairs. Before that, she worked as a freelance journalist for the Reuters News Agency and wrote articles for media outlets such as the Austrian daily newspaper derStandard. Her reporting on a Viennese student from Egypt who was wrongfully detained in Cairo gained international attention and ended in his release from prison. She was a fellow at the Journalism Summer School at the Reuters Institute at Oxford University. She is part of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network and a guest lecturer for the Human Rights Master's program at the University of Vienna.
Seth Borenstein
Seth Borenstein is a Washington-based national science writer for The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization and a journalism instructor at New York University’s Washington, D.C. campus. His primary beat at the AP, where has been since 2006, is climate change. He has covered disasters, hurricanes, the environment, astronomy, physics and the space program for decades. He is the winner of numerous journalism awards, including the 2010 George Polk Award for Environment Reporting. He is the co-author of three out-of-print books, has flown in zero gravity and once tried out for the Florida Marlins baseball team, unsuccessfully.
Simon Jessop
Simon leads a team tracking how the financial system and companies more broadly are responding to the challenges posed by climate change, nature loss and other environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues including diversity and inclusion.
Sophie Alexander
Sophie Alexander is a reporter at Bloomberg News. She's been writing for Bloomberg for six years. Her magazine cover story on billionaire Larry Ellison's near-total control of Lanai, Hawaii won a Deadline Club award and her investigation into Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen led to sweeping internal reforms to better protect staff. Now, she's turning her attention to climate, working with Bloomberg's Green team to cover the changing insurance industry. Alexander studied economics and languages (French and Arabic) at Kenyon College, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 2018.
Sue Allan
Sue Allan is POLITICO’s Canada editor. She is on the board of World Press Freedom Canada and a member of the fifth cohort of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network. Prior to joining POLITICO in 2019, she worked as a senior editor at Maclean’s, iPolitics and the Ottawa Citizen.
Yifan Yu
Yifan Yu is an award-winning bilingual journalist currently covering technology for Nikkei Asia in Silicon Valley. As the US Tech Correspondent, she writes about cross-border tech companies with a special focus on Asia. Previously, Yifan worked as a leveraged finance reporter for Debtwire, covering the US credit market. She has also reported for Dow Jones in New York and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.
Zoe Deceuninck
Zoë Deceuninck (1994) is a Belgian freelance journalist. Since 2017 she lives and works in Suriname, South America. She writes for the local magazine Parbode and for various international media outlets about political, economic and environmental developments in the region. In 2015 she graduated as Bachelor of Journalism at Thomas More Hogeschool in Belgium.