FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 24, 2009

Contact: Felisa Neuringer Klubes 202.663.5626
E-mail: fklubes@jhu.edu

International Reporting Project Fellows Selected at JHU SAIS for 2009 Program

Washington, D.C. – Ten U.S. journalists have been awarded International Reporting Project (IRP) Fellowships at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) for the 2009 program, including four journalists focusing on global environmental topics and three on stories dealing with loose nuclear materials.

The nine-week fellowships, which provide mid-career U.S. journalists with opportunities to do in-depth overseas reporting projects, will begin in late August 2009.

The 2009 IRP Fellows will report from Bangladesh, Brazil, Georgia, India, Kenya, the Middle East, Pakistan, Russia, Rwanda and Thailand. The IRP Fellows, their affiliations and the countries from which they will report are:

• Perry Beeman, environment reporter, The Des Moines Register – Rwanda
• Theresa Bradley, freelance journalist – Brazil
• Joanna Kakissis, freelance journalist – Bangladesh
• Miranda Kennedy, freelance journalist – India
• Julia Lyon, reporter, The Salt Lake Tribune – Thailand
• Tara McKelvey, senior editor, The American Prospect – Russia
• Amna Nawaz, producer, NBC News, Pakistan
• Jessica Silver-Greenberg, staff editor, BusinessWeek – Kenya
• Joby Warrick, national staff reporter, The Washington Post – Middle East
• Sharon Weinberger, freelance journalist – Georgia

“Global environmental coverage has been a major focus of our program for years,” said IRP Director John Schidlovsky. “With the global climate change conference in Copenhagen coming up this December, we’re delighted that we’ll be underwriting so many timely stories on international environment-related issues.”

Judges for this year’s competition included David Lamb, contributing writer for Smithsonian and a 2001 IRP Journalist-in-Residence; Tyler Marshall, a former Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent; Katie Thomas, a reporter with The New York Times and 2006 IRP Fellow; Louise Lief, deputy director of the IRP, and Schidlovsky. This year’s competition attracted a record number of nearly 200 applications from U.S. journalists.

Since its founding in 1998, the International Reporting Project has enabled more than 300 U.S. journalists to pursue reporting projects overseas from more than 90 countries. IRP Fellows’ prize-winning stories have appeared in hundreds of U.S. media organizations, including online, TV, radio, newspapers and magazines.

The next deadline for applications for the IRP Fellowships is April 1, 2010, for the program to be conducted in the fall of 2010. For more information, call 202.663.7761, fax 202.663.7762, e-mail irp@jhu.edu or visit www.internationalreportingproject.org.

For 11 years, IRP has been based at SAIS, one of the country’s leading graduate schools devoted to the study of international relations. Located in downtown Washington, D.C., the school enrolls approximately 600 full-time graduate students and mid-career professionals and has trained more than 15,000 alumni in all aspects of international affairs. SAIS also has campuses in Bologna, Italy, and Nanjing, China.