Announcement
We are excited to announce our selection of Transatlantic Media Fellows for 2025!
Each year, we sponsor a select number of journalists from the US and Europe for an independent transatlantic trip to research stories relevant to our work on Climate & Environmental Policy, Democracy, Digital Policy, Foreign & Security Policy, and Global Development Policy. Fellowships are selected annually and are open to journalists in any medium.
Climate & Environmental Policy
Michaela Cavanagh is a journalist and writer focused on telling the human stories of the climate crisis. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, the London Review of Books, Die Zeit, Undark, the Globe and Mail and elsewhere. Her writing and reporting has been supported by the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources, and the International Journalists’ Programme, among others. Her first book, PRESENT TENSE, is a globe-spanning work of environmental reportage forthcoming from The New Press and McClelland & Stewart in spring 2027. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King’s College (Halifax, Nova Scotia) and in 2024 she was a visiting researcher at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich. Born in Canada, she is now based in Berlin where she works as a freelance editor for Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcaster.
Dan McCarthy is a senior editor at Canary Media. He was previously senior editor at Morning Brew, where he ran tech coverage and edited stories on a range of topics, including climate tech. Dan grew up in New Jersey, graduated from the University of Delaware, and now lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife and two cats.
Democracy
Sophie Rebmann is a multimedia journalist based in Southern Germany. Her work focuses on migration and exploitation, intergenerational justice and debates about life, abortion and euthanasia. She also frequently reports about politics and society in Eastern Europe, with a focus on Poland. Sophie Rebmann was trained at the German School of Journalism and was a 2023 International Journalists’ Programs Fellow in Warsaw. She studied Political Science and Comparative Literature in Tübingen, Sarajevo and Cracow and holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Munich. Her work was published by Deutschlandfunk, Die ZEIT, ARD / SWR, ZDF, Y-Kollektiv and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, among others.
Jacob Wasserman is an engagement journalist from New Jersey. He is currently working as the engagement editor at the Forward. He holds a Master of Arts in Social Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and was a 2024 Fulbright Germany Berlin Capital Program fellow. Jacob will use his fellowship to report on how the rise of Alternative für Deutschland is impacting Jewish life and memory culture in the former East Germany.
Digital Policy
Julia Belzig is a freelance journalist based in Berlin, Germany, reporting on sociopolitical, cultural, and feminist issues. Her work has appeared in publications including taz.Die Tageszeitung, Der Tagesspiegel and Missy Magazine. She holds a master's degree in "Gender and International Relations" from the University of Bristol. Julia Belzig was part of the 2024 Daniel-Haufler-fellowship and the 2025 program by the International Women's Media Foundation: "Women on the Ground: Reporting from Ukraine's Unseen Frontlines."
As a Transatlantic Media Fellow, she will continue her research into the rollback of reproductive rights in the United States. Traveling to Washington, D.C., she will report on the digital battle for abortion access and investigate how online censorship restricts essential healthcare information. She will also explore how deepfakes and digital attacks are being used to push (congress)women out of politics, as cyber threats and online abuse increasingly silence voices in public life.
Simon Berlin is a reporter for Süddeutsche Zeitung where he covers Social Media and Artificial Intelligence. Together with Martin Fehrensen, he writes the Social Media Watchblog, a paid newsletter read by more than 7000 subscribers, including 100+ publishers, government departments, and tech companies. His goal is to explain the social and political impact of technology in a way that his parents can understand.
Foreign & Security Policy
Alexandra Karppi is a specialist in the Western Balkans/Southeastern Europe and a co-host of the weekly Talk Eastern Europe podcast. Her written work as been published in Just Security, Balkan Insight, New Eastern Europe, Lossi 36, among others, and she has been featured as an expert commentator on Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera Balkans, N1, and more. A researcher by training, she has held research and editorial roles at Freedom House in New York, the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, the Center for European Neighborhood Studies in Budapest, and the Post-Conflict Research Center in Sarajevo. She also has a background in humanitarian and development assistance. Alexandra holds a master's in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies from Columbia University’s Harriman Institute and a BA in Political Science and Slavic Studies from Columbia College. She is fluent in Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian and is learning Albanian. As a proud member of the ex-Yugoslav diaspora, she believes in raising up local voices from this region and aims to do so through her freelance writing, podcasting, and content creation.
Global Development Policy
Tsitsi Bhobo is a freelance, self-trained journalist and writer from Zimbabwe. She works in the countries of Southern Africa (covering South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia). She enjoys collaborative journalism. She covers the green transition and mobility, vaccine treatable infectious diseases, the climate-induced forced immigration, diplomacy, refugee rights, etc.
Her work is published in GAVI, the news section of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, The Xylom the Asian-American science news sites bases in New York, Goatpol, the nonprofit Canadian Literary Network, Down to Earth, the green transition focused global news site based in India, Vittles Magazines in the UK, and Earth Island Journal news site in California. Her proudest journalism moment was recently when she reported that cheap, and dirty used EV cars from Japan shipped to Africa are undermining the green transition and green recycling standards across the continent.
Her upcoming journalism work, to be published soon, is a multi-country investigation of how climate-induced extreme heat is depleting water levels in Africa’s great rivers, and thus making easier the job of human smuggling cartels who are shuttling desperate migrants down to South Africa. It will be co-published in Earth Island Journal news site in California, and Daily Maverick South Africa.