Meet WSJ’s Summer 2021 Interns

Our summer interns have started! This talented group of 18 journalists will be our fourth and largest class to work remotely in the past year. In addition to a dozen interns selected for this summer, the class includes a handful of interns who deferred from last summer. They will be working across all of our platforms, including audio, video, design and digital, and reporting with bureaus across the U.S. and London.

Aiyana Ishmael (Management & Careers)

Aiyana is a recent graduate of Florida A&M University. A Miami native, she also serves as the student representative for the Online News Association’s Board of Directors. Previously she served as the editor in chief of her campus magazine, Journey. Aiyana is a freelance writer with published clips in Teen Vogue, Refinery29 and Poynter. In her spare time she hosts and produces her podcast, Black Fat Fashion. She also enjoys playing volleyball and basketball.

Amy Nailor (Product Design)

Amy hails from Raleigh, N.C., where she just graduated from NC State University with a major in graphic design and an anthropology minor. She is drawn to the interdisciplinary aspects of design and wants to learn a lot about (ideally) everything. She’s also interested in how knowledge and public opinion inform culture and vice versa. In her free time, you can find her reading, cooking with too much garlic, or watching movies off of her ever growing list.

Ava Sasani (Audio)

Ava recently graduated from Northeastern University. This year, her investigation into Customs and Border Protection was published on the front page of the Boston Globe. She has produced audio segments for On the Media and New Hampshire Public Radio. She often daydreams of quitting journalism to buy an alpaca farm in the Hudson Valley.

Aydali Campa (Education)

Aydali is a Roy W. Howard Fellow pursuing a master’s degree in investigative journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She was previously a Teach for America corps member in Oklahoma City teaching third and fourth grade. This spring, Aydali interned at the Arizona Republic covering community issues and education. In her free time, she likes traveling or watching documentaries.

Brittney Forbes (Digital)

Brittney, a Dow Jones News Fund digital intern, is originally from the Philippines and grew up in Houma, La. She is a 2021 graduate of Louisiana State University where she earned a bachelor of arts in English and a minor in linguistics. She worked at the Reveille, her college newspaper, as a news reporter, digital editor, managing editor and editor in chief over four years. She was previously an intern/contributing writer for 225 Magazine and a statehouse reporter with the Manship School News Service. She most recently worked as a digital content editor intern with the Advocate and NOLA.com. Brittney is passionate about digital media, and she wants to broaden the way people read, receive and engage with their news. When she isn’t working, you can find her dancing in her living room or playing Sims.

Bryan Mena (Econ)

Bryan is a senior political science student at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he served as the editor in chief of the student newspaper. He got his start at his community college’s newspaper before he transferred and has interned at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, El Paso Inc. and the San Francisco Chronicle. This spring he covered Texas’ Congressional delegation and federal politics through a fellowship with the Texas Tribune. He loves trip-hop and lo-fi music, cats, skateboarding and hiking. He has lived along the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso his whole life.

Elena Shao (Energy)

Elena is the Daniel Pearl Memorial Journalism intern who will be reporting with the energy team. A senior at Stanford University, she is working towards degrees in political science and communications, and is also learning Chinese, Arabic and French. Her work has appeared in CalMatters, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Stanford Daily, her campus paper. When she’s back at home in Georgia, she loves spending weekends hiking peaks in the Appalachians, painting outdoors or taking her dog Rocket on walks to the lake.

Hardika Singh (Markets)

Hardika, a Dow Jones News Fund business reporting intern, graduated magna cum laude from Ohio University with a degree in journalism and a minor in history. Growing up in India, she saw firsthand the role multimillion-dollar companies play in a rapidly developing economy. Interested in all areas of finance, she hopes DJNF will help her narrow her focus. In the past, she interned with Bloomberg News and reported on American and Canadian equities. She also worked as a small business reporter in Appalachia with Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs. Outside of work and classes, Hardika likes to cook for her friends, hike and practice yoga.

Karina Shah (London)

Karina is a 2020 graduate from Imperial College London, where she studied biomedical sciences. Previously, she has worked at Springer Nature as an editorial assistant and as a reporting intern on the news desk at New Scientist magazine in London, covering all things science. Karina is a member of the South Asian diaspora and is interested in investigating the experience of ethnic minority groups in the West. When not reporting, Karina can often be found listening to podcasts, cooking with her friends or fixated by a gripping docuseries.

Krystal Hur (Corporate, Chicago)

Krystal, a Dow Jones News Fund business reporting intern, is a senior at the University of Michigan, where she is pursuing a dual degree in business administration and English. Krystal has previously interned for Automotive News and OpenSecrets, where she covered money-in-politics news. She also wrote and edited for the Michigan Daily, the University of Michigan’s student-run newspaper, and served as the 2020–21 president of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ann Arbor chapter. In her free time, she enjoys watching home tour videos and going on walks.

Madison Dong (Graphics)

Madison, a June 2021 graduate of Northwestern University, was born and raised in Central Illinois. She was recently a data visuals fellow at the Texas Tribune and interned twice with the Washington Post as a designer and developer. She also co-directs the Asian American Journalists Association News Nerds affinity group and loves e-sports, journaling and homemade scallion pancakes.

Meghan Bobrowsky (Tech)

Meghan is a recent graduate of Scripps College in Claremont, Calif. She’s interned at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Sacramento Bee, the Miami Herald and most recently the San Francisco Chronicle, covering California’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout. She loves doing investigative work and is excited that her article about Paycheck Protection Program fraud was one of a few that recently prompted Congress to launch an investigation into FinTech companies. She contributed to an innovative project that took personalized data and showed Floridians their risk of contracting COVID-19. Meghan also previously served as editor in chief of her school newspaper, the Student Life. She hails from Davis, Calif., and in her free time can be found searching for the best boba in Northern California.

Nikki Walker (Video Editing)

Nikki joins the video team after graduating from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in May. In her senior year, she headed Annenberg Media’s COVID-19 coverage and produced a video series on inherent worth called “Straight from the Source.” At graduation she was recognized with the Order of Troy award for contributions that enriched the USC community. While in college, she covered every major election — as both an anchor and producer — and even worked in election cybersecurity for a summer, creating videos for a non-partisan independent project supported by Google. In her spare time, you can find Nikki on TikTok or reading a good book.

Omar Abdel-Baqui (Corporate, New York)

Omar lives in Detroit and graduated from Wayne State University, where he studied journalism and Arabic, in the spring of 2021. He most recently covered law enforcement at the Detroit Free Press, where he worked intermittently for about four years. He has also worked at NBC News Investigations and was managing editor of Wayne State’s student newspaper, the South End. He is interested in how policy affects people. In his free time, he likes to run, travel and read in bustling coffee shops.

Rocky Baier (New Audiences & Community)

Rocky grew up in Phoenix and graduated from the University of Arizona in 2020 with a major in journalism and minors in political science and Spanish. While in college she interned at the Jerusalem Post in Israel, the Arizona Republic and the Arizona Daily Star, and held multiple editor positions at the Daily Wildcat, her school paper. Her journalism career took a turn when she began to study product development and won an Innovation Fellowship at the Daily Star, and then started working for Wick Communications as a journalist product manager where she helps the company innovate their markets all over the country. When she’s not working, you can find Rocky singing, running or cooking!

Ryan Nguyen (Entertainment, Los Angeles)

Ryan is the F. James Pensiero business news reporting intern. A recent graduate from the University of Oregon, Ryan led the student-run, independent newspaper, the Daily Emerald, and studied journalism and history. He’s previously interned for the Oregonian, Willamette Week and Eugene Weekly. When he’s not under deadlines, Ryan’s either playing Overwatch or drinking his weight in iced coffee.

Sami Sparber (Real Estate)

Sami, a reporting intern, is a Spring 2021 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and hails from the Chicago suburbs. Sami is passionate about politics and people, and she is motivated to tell stories that emerge where the two intersect. Previously, she interned at the Texas Tribune, NBC News in Washington and the Houston Chronicle’s Austin bureau. When not in the newsroom, you can find her taking workout classes and searching for the best cold brew in town.

Sarah Trent (Health & Science)

Sarah, an Overseas Press Club Fellow, is a 2020 graduate of U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She’s interested in covering the intersections of climate, environment, business and economics, especially conservation conundrums and the supply chains that connect and impact people all over the world. She has previously published at Yes! Magazine, Longreads, Nikkei Asian Review, Next City and more. She has spent most of the pandemic renovating two mid-century homes and becoming obsessed with birds.