Introducing the 2021–22 O’Brien Fellows
New Fellows to focus on inequities in education, healthcare and business
By Rachel Ryan
The J. William and Mary Diederich College of Communication announced today that four journalists will join the Perry and Alicia O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism in August 2021.
The incoming fellows for the 2021–22 academic year are:
- Katherine Reynolds Lewis, independent journalist, author and speaker specializing in education, parenting, science, diversity and social justice.
- Sari Lesk, reporter for the Milwaukee Business Journal covering banking, retailand the restaurant industry.
- Sarah Carr, independent education reporter, editor and author. Most recently, she’s served as education team leader at the Boston Globe.
- Guy Boulton, reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel specializing in the Affordable Care Act, health care reform, insurance, health care systems and related topics.
Resulting from an $8.3 million gift from the Frechette family foundation announced in 2013, the O’Brien Fellowship program has enabled journalists to produce in-depth public-service journalism projects for their home news organizations or other outlets. In 2021, the Fellowship received an additional $5 million from the Frechettes to expand the program’s reach.
Every year, the Fellowship pairs professional reporters with Marquette journalism students on nine-month reporting projects aimed at holding American institutions accountable and uncovering potential solutions to difficult problems.
The 2021–22 Fellows plan investigations into concerns in education, healthcare, and business. Past projects have covered topics such as water quality, racial injustice, education, immigration and maternal health.
“We look forward to working with these journalists as they investigate inequities in education, healthcare and business,” said Dave Umhoefer, O’Brien Fellowship director.
Lewis is an independent journalist and the author of “The Good News About Bad Behavior; Why Kids Are Less Disciplined Than Ever — And What To Do About It.” Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post and more. Her story for Mother Jones magazine about school discipline went viral after it was published in July 2015, becoming the site’s most-viewed piece.
Lewis worked as a national correspondent for Newhouse News Service writing about money, work and family, and as a national reporter for Bloomberg News. She began her career in New York City with the Bond Buyer. She got her degree in physics at Harvard University.
Lesk was previously a reporter at the Stevens Point Journal and The Journal Times in Racine, both Wisconsin publications. She has covered local government, education and business. Her work has appeared in USA Today. As a Milwaukee Business Journal reporter, she has contributed to national coverage of the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.
Lesk graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in journalism.
Carr has reported on education for nearly two decades, starting as an education reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and continuing at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. For five years, she oversaw The Teacher Project, an award-winning education reporting fellowship at her alma mater, Columbia University. She earned her master’s in journalism at Columbia Journalism School and her bachelor’s in english from Williams College.
Carr has published work on education in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Slate, and the Washington Post. She is the author of “Hope Against Hope: Three Schools, One City, and the Struggle to Educate America’s Children,” which was chosen as the campus-wide read at Tulane University and Macalester College. Most recently, Carr has led The Great Divide, an investigative education reporting team at the Boston Globe focused on race and inequality.
Boulton covers health policy and the business of healthcare for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He contributed to “Poor Health,” an award-winning series led by O’Brien Fellow Lillian Thomas of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He was also part of a team of reporters that won the 2012 print award from the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine.
Boulton has also worked at The Tampa Tribune, Cincinnati Enquirer, The Wichita Eagle and The Salt Lake Tribune. In 2009, he was a Kaiser Media Fellow. He attended Colgate University.
The current class of O’Brien Fellows includes independent journalist Tim Bannon, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Rick Barrett and independent journalist Ashley Nguyen. Bannon’s team is investigating youth sports safety, Barrett’s team is looking at urban and rural Internet access and Nguyen’s team is delving into maternal health.
Applications for 2022–23 O’Brien Fellowships open December 1, 2021 and close mid-to-late January.
