Your hub for speaker reveals, past attendee interviews, behind-the-scenes features and stories celebrating SEJ’s legacy.
NEWS & UPDATES
A Chicago Welcome: Meet SEJ’s 35th Conference Co-Chairs
Lucia Priselac and Melina Walling
Lucia Priselac and Melina Walling are co-chairs of the Society of Environmental Journalists 35th Annual Conference, taking place April 15-18 at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Lucia is the founding director of The Uproot Project, where she works with an advisory board to bring diverse voices to the forefront of environmental journalism. Prior to her role with The Uproot Project, Lucia was the special assistant at Grist, where she supported special projects and the CEO's office. Lucia was also the newsroom manager of Global Press Journal, where she assisted with the operation of independent news bureaus in over 40 international communities. Lucia holds a master's degree in international and European politics from the University of Edinburgh.
Melina is an agriculture and climate reporter for The Associated Press, based in Chicago. She previously worked at The Arizona Republic as a general assignment and bioscience reporter, covering health, technology, agriculture, and the environment. Melina was the 2021 Mary Withers Rural Writing Fellow at Boyd’s Station in Harrison County, Kentucky, and has previously served as a tour leader at SEJ conferences. She graduated from Stanford University in 2021 with a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Environmental Communication.
Read the welcome letter from 2026 Conference Co-Chairs Lucia Priselac and Melina Walling →
Every beat needs environmental journalism and environmental journalism needs diversity
SEJ2026 Co-Chair Lucia Priselac on how environmental reporting intersects every beat
Lucia Priselac’s work is rooted in two core truths: environmental reporting intersects with every beat, and bringing diverse voices to the forefront is essential to fully understanding and communicating an issue. These cornerstones will guide her work as a co-chair for the Society of Environmental Journalists’ (SEJ) 35th annual conference, which provides a space for journalists from all backgrounds to convene, learn and share insights.
Priselac is the founding director of The Uproot Project, where she works to bring diverse voices to the forefront of environmental reporting. Under her leadership, Uproot has grown from about 10 members at its public launch in 2021 to 900 journalists worldwide, offering mentorship, fellowships, training and resources to help reporters cover communities most impacted by environmental crises.
During an interview at SEJ2025, Priselac explained why every journalist, regardless of beat, benefits from at least a baseline understanding of environmental reporting. She shared an example from sports journalism: during a freezing NFL playoff game, reporters discussed how snow and atmospheric pressure affected how the football was handled. While it may seem unrelated, understanding the environmental context allowed for more holistic coverage.
Hear Ana Bradley, executive director of Sentient Media, on how SEJ2025 helped spark collaborations with freelance reporters and strengthen the work of her nonprofit newsroom. Her story highlights how the conference creates space for connection, shared learning, and supports underreported coverage areas like food and agriculture.
For Bradley, the impact of attending SEJ has been immediate and measurable. At Sentient’s first SEJ conference, she connected with freelance journalists covering food and agriculture – relationships that quickly turned into active reporting collaborations. One of those freelancers went on to co-report an investigation with Sentient and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a story that Bradley says would not have happened without meeting at SEJ.
Beyond individual stories, Bradley describes SEJ as a learning environment that helped Sentient mature as an organization. Conversations with other newsroom leaders about collaboration models, republication strategies, and operational practices directly informed changes Sentient has since implemented. As a small, niche newsroom, she credits SEJ with accelerating that growth – demonstrating how the conference not only connects journalists, but strengthens the ecosystem supporting ambitious, high-impact environmental reporting.
Watch the video interview above to hear Ana describe these outcomes in her own words.
Member POV: Ana Bradley, Sentient Media
Photo: Philip Cheung
As environmental reporting increasingly shapes every beat, SEJ is working to provide more support for journalists beyond its annual conference. That work includes mentorships, regional events and year-round resources designed to help reporters, especially freelancers, connect with communities and produce impactful coverage.SEJ Executive Director Aparna Mukherjee has emphasized that environmental issues now shape reporting on health, energy, equity and local government. In a recent conversation with SEJ funder Walton Family Foundation, she underscored the importance of community-centered and solutions-oriented journalism, and expressed optimism about early-career reporters who are deeply connected to the communities they cover.From the field: Supporting the next generation
We’re highlighting reporting sparked or shaped by attendees’ experiences at SEJ2025 in Arizona. This work reflects the kind of in-depth, community-informed reporting SEJ conferences inspire.
The new American inequality: The cooled vs. the cooked
As extreme heat becomes a defining feature of daily life, conversations at SEJ2025 examined how rising temperatures are reshaping daily life and deepening inequality, separating those who can escape the heat from those whose jobs leave them dangerously exposed.Those exchanges shaped both conference-week coverage and subsequent reporting. Veteran climate reporter Jeff Goodell has continued to explore these themes in his national reporting, building on ideas discussed during his SEJ panel with Eliza Barclay, climate editor for The New York Times Opinion. The Arizona Republic, through SEJ’s student newsroom, captured highlights from the conference’s author program and discussions.
Why Navajo activists oppose a proposed hydrogen pipeline that could be the world's longest
During a panel discussion with Navajo Nation activist Jessica Keetso and Capital & Main investigative journalist Jerry Redfern on energy development and environmental justice, Keetso voiced strong opposition to a proposed 200-mile hydrogen pipeline through her homeland, arguing that new energy projects repeat a long history of extraction that has left the Navajo Nation environmentally harmed and economically underserved.The conversation raised deeper questions about sovereignty, accountability and who ultimately benefits from so-called clean energy development. The Arizona Republic, through SEJ’s student newsroom, captured highlights from the discussion, and Redfern continued to follow the story after the conference.
Stories shaped by SEJ2025
For 35 years, SEJ has convened North America’s largest gathering of environmental journalists, covering climate, energy, agriculture, water and public health. Attending an SEJ conference means connecting across beats, backgrounds and newsrooms. That mix strengthens journalism through shared learning, real-world reporting and editing support.
At SEJ2025, Alex Ip, founder of The Xylom — which he proudly describes as “the only Asian American-run news outlet dedicated to health, climate and environmental coverage” — spoke in a workshop focused on supporting environmental journalists and newsroom leaders of color. In this video interview, he discussed the importance of covering stories traditionally left out of the news industry and what it takes to sustain a healthy reporting culture.
Working alongside journalists from different backgrounds is also key to Ip’s work at The Xylom, strengthening cultural competency and sharpening how stories get told.
“Having a great variety of journalists from different walks of life helps us do better journalism,” Ip said. “When we’re able to cover stories that have been traditionally left out of the news industry, it helps us shed light on broader injustices.”
Ip’s experience highlights why SEJ supports attendance across the spectrum of journalism, from established newsrooms and independent journalists to first-time attendees and students. That mix leads to richer reporting and stronger community, at our conferences and year-round.
The community behind SEJ conferences
Sponsor Profile:
Ethan Breitling has made SEJ’s conference an annual, can’t miss date on his professional calendar since 2018. He returns because the annual convening consistently delivers concrete outcomes that pay off long after the closing party.
As Vice President of Strategic Communications of National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO), Breitling values SEJ for the opportunities to connect directly with reporters covering climate change, wildlife, water quality and public lands. He says those conversations help journalists better understand private working forests — nearly half of U.S. forestland — and their role in timber supply, conservation and long-term land stewardship. The result is coverage that reflects the full forestry landscape, not just public lands.
The impact continues after the conference. Breitling routinely receives follow-up calls and interview requests from journalists he first met at SEJ, leading to ongoing source relationships and more nuanced reporting. In several cases, those connections have also developed into collaborations with environmental nonprofits he encountered at the conference, moving from initial conversations to real-world projects.
Watch the video interview above to hear Ethan describe these outcomes in his own words.
Why NAFO’s Ethan Breitling keeps coming back to SEJ conferences
Six tracks, one mission: Strengthening your journalism amid rapid climate and policy change
Environmental journalism is entering one of the most consequential periods in decades.
Federal climate protections are being rolled back. Regulatory authority is being challenged in the courts. Agencies are shrinking. States and cities are charting divergent paths. Communities are navigating uncertainty around water safety, extreme weather, food systems and public health.
For journalists, this is not simply a political story. It’s a governance story. A science story. A public health story. A business story. An equity story.
It’s also a moment that demands depth, expertise and clarity – and a professional community equipped to meet it.
That’s why the 2026 conference programming is organized around six core tracks, each designed to strengthen your reporting and expand your toolkit in a time of rapid change.
Food accounts for a major share of global emissions, yet reporting on diet and climate is increasingly shaped by political and cultural divides.
This track focuses on producing rigorous, evidence-based reporting that avoids common pitfalls — especially around meat, land use and agricultural emissions — while engaging ideologically diverse audiences.
Sessions also examine labor in U.S. food production, providing practical tools for investigating conditions on farms and in meatpacking plants using visa records, safety data and public documents.
Clean Energy, Renewables & Green Tech
The energy transition is transforming communities in ways that are often hidden.
Climate, Science & Extreme Weather
From heat waves to hurricanes, climate disasters are becoming everyday realities.
Conservation, Land & Indigenous Stewardship
Many environmental stories are also stories about sovereignty, displacement and survival.
Water, Oceans & Great Lakes
Water connects climate, health and economic security.
Public Health & Environmental Justice
Environmental harm often shows up first in people’s bodies and neighborhoods.
Why Attend
Together, these tracks reflect how climate change is reshaping the systems that sustain human life.
Join us in Chicago and be part of a community strengthening environmental journalism when it matters most. Early-bird rates end February 18th — register now.
The SEJ2026 local conference subcommittee, part of SEJ’s Programming Committee (ProCom), is shaping a conference built for this reporting moment.As climate policy shifts, public health threats intensify and environmental accountability becomes more challenging, the committee is grounding SEJ2026 in the real-world systems that define Chicago and the Great Lakes region: water infrastructure, industrial legacy, public transit, housing, food systems and community health. The local host committee reflects that mission, bringing together investigative rigor, community-centered storytelling and public health reporting with regional and national leadership in environmental journalism.Meet the SEJ2026 Local Host Committee
At the center of the committee’s work are co-chairs Lucia Priselac and Melina Walling, who bring complementary strengths and a shared vision for grounding SEJ2026 in Chicago’s day-to-day realities.
In their welcome letter, they describe how environmental issues in the region are experienced through daily life along Lake Michigan, on public transit and in local community hubs; and how climate impacts such as wildfire smoke, extreme heat and shifting winters affect health and community stability.
As founding director of The Uproot Project, Priselac works to elevate diverse voices across environmental journalism. Walling brings experience translating complex environmental systems for national audiences as an agriculture and climate reporter for The Associated Press.
Public, mental health in environmental journalism
The work of local committee members Michael Hawthorne of the Chicago Tribune and Dilpreet Raju of the Illinois Times highlights how environmental reporting increasingly intersects with multiple beats, particularly public and mental health.
Hawthorne has spent more than two decades investigating PFAS, “forever chemicals,” and water contamination, demonstrating how environmental reporting can protect public health and prompt regulatory scrutiny. A Pulitzer finalist and a 2025 StoryReach Midwest Fellow with the Pulitzer Center, he has reported extensively on pollution in the Great Lakes and the Chicago River, toxic chemicals in consumer products, and lead in homes and drinking water, translating complex data into clear, accessible information for affected communities.
Raju brings a focus on health issues and systemic gaps in care, reflecting how environmental reporting increasingly intersects with mental health care disparities and reform. Together, their work underscores why SEJ2026 places public health and community well-being at the center of climate coverage and why journalists must be equipped to follow environmental harm across multiple systems.
Centering community
Strong environmental reporting begins with communities and how climate change shapes daily life. These committee members center people, place and public trust in their work.
Caleigh Wells, a reporter with Marketplace by APM based in Cleveland and an SEJ board member, reports on how people’s choices shape environmental outcomes. A 2023 National Edward R. Murrow Award winner for her work on BURNED, which examined failures by the U.S. Forest Service to protect communities from wildfire risk, her storytelling highlights resilience and community response.
Scholar Jill Hopke, an associate professor of journalism, researches climate change communication, climate journalism and extreme weather, including how climate issues are discussed on social media. A contributing writer to Nieman Reports, she is a leading voice on the future of climate journalism.
Independent journalism
SEJ board member and author Madeline Ostrander is an award-winning journalist whose reporting documents communities on the frontlines of climate change. Her book At Home on an Unruly Planet traces how families and towns are adapting to environmental disruption.
An independent journalist, she’s an advocate for freelancers, who now make up the majority of SEJ’s membership, and an example of what they can achieve with a supportive community.
Strengthening the field
The SEJ2026 local host committee represents the full ecosystem of environmental journalism: investigative reporting, community trust, health coverage, climate communication and narrative craft.
They are part of the conference because they embody what SEJ seeks to strengthen — journalism that is rigorous, ethical and rooted in the communities it serves. Their work helps ensure that when journalists gather in Chicago, they are building more than a program. They are strengthening a field.
Photo: An abandoned oil well sits on a hillside on Tribal land near Farmington, New Mexico. Credit: Jerry Redfern.
Land use conflicts, resource extraction and sovereignty debates are accelerating, and so are the risks for communities most affected. Covering these issues demands historical context, cultural fluency and careful framing.The Conservation, Land & Indigenous Stewardship track brings together Indigenous Indigenous, Asian, and Latino journalists, some of them investigative reporters, who understand land as history, culture, livelihood and identity. Across sessions, participants are invited to consider how reporting can better reflect those realities, particularly in places shaped by extraction, displacement and long-term environmental harm.Track focus: Conservation, land & Indigenous stewardship
This panel will explore what it means to report on climate collapse from within the systems that caused it, pushing attendees to consider whether climate journalism, as currently practiced, can care for climate at all—or whether it remains trapped in colonial and capitalist frameworks that reduce catastrophe to data, solutions to products, and land to something interchangeable.
Further, panelists will discuss why mainstream climate coverage fixates on prevention and techno-solutions while sidelining adaptation, sovereignty, grief and survival — and ask what responsible climate journalism looks like in practice.
In “Making Global Environmental Stories Matter to U.S. Audiences in the Trump Era," led by global freelance journalist Nithin Coca, panelists will examine how international environmental reporting has struggled for visibility as U.S. media attention narrows under the renewed presidency of Donald Trump, even as global climate and extraction crises intensify.
Panelists will share strategies for sustaining international coverage, building cross-border collaborations and connecting global environmental harm to American readers.
The track also includes “Covering Environmental Crimes on Indigenous Lands Accurately, Ethically and Responsibly” led by Karla Mendes of Mongabay News. This panel focuses on reporting on illegal mining and extraction with nuance, emphasizing trust-building, source development and attention to environmental health impacts.
These sessions reflect a shared understanding: effective environmental journalism requires historical awareness, cultural fluency and a willingness to question long-standing assumptions about objectivity and neutrality. At a time when land conflicts, resource extraction and climate displacement are accelerating, this work has become increasingly urgent.
Sonia Narang still remembers the moment she learned her journalism project had earned an SEJ Award for Outstanding Student Reporting back in 2009."For the first time, I felt acknowledged by this prestigious honor. Journalism is a hard career, and journalists are often the target of vile commentary. It was nice to get positive feedback and realize there are people who value our work. I thought, ‘Wow, this is something I could pursue.” How the SEJ Awards Launched Sonia Narang’s International Reporting Career
“It fueled me to continue on the track of international reporting, specifically environmental journalism, and examine how natural disasters and climate change impact women and girls globally.” It also encouraged Narang to focus on multimedia storytelling, because the judges called out how those components brought the reporting, a three-part series on uranium mining in India, to the next level.
For Narang, the SEJ Awards offered more than a line on a resume. They provided credibility, visibility, and validation. The kind that can shift a journalist’s trajectory.
That recognition not only opened doors, it also opened a community.
“One of my editors was a longtime SEJ member, so it caught his attention, and he encouraged me to report environmental stories for PRI’s The World radio program. I also connected with folks from other journalism training organizations that nurtured me along the way, including the Metcalf Institute at the University of Rhode Island and the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources.”
Now, years later, she is an active SEJ member and serves on the SEJ Awards Committee. She’s moved from entrant to advocate, helping other journalists step into the same spotlight and utilize the resources that SEJ offers.
From her perspective, too many reporters underestimate the value of simply putting their work forward. “If you’re a freelancer, it’s beneficial because you’re making yourself known to judges, who could turn out to be editors accepting pitches. For staff journalists, it’s important to promote your stories so audiences can understand the implications of environmental degradation around the world. These stories need to be seen on a larger scale. School teachers, farmers, policy-makers, and people of all backgrounds need to read these stories. If you enter your work and win, it’ll be amplified, raising awareness. It’s for saving the world.”
Her journey is proof: the SEJ Awards can be a catalyst for both recognition and journalistic connections that last well beyond the awards night.
You can support journalists like Sonia by joining us at the SEJ Awards Luncheon during the SEJ2026 Annual Conference, where we gather to celebrate excellence in the industry and the future of environmental journalism.
Calling all environmental reporters: Do you have a big reporting idea? What if you could tap into the expertise of a crack team of editors and leaders in data-driven reporting, narrative storytelling, visual journalism, audience engagement, and social media to make your work reach even further?
The Environmental Journalism Story Incubator at SEJ2026 in Chicago is a one-day workshop and mini-fellowship that gives journalists the opportunity to build a plan for turning an idea-in-progress into a deeply reported project, in consultation with editors from publications such as bioGraphic Magazine, Sentient Media, Mongabay, Grist, and the Food and Environment Reporting Network, along with the Pulitzer Center and Covering Climate Now.
We are holding an open call for submissions and will accept four reporters for this workshop. Applicants must be available to attend SEJ2026 on April 15. With financial support from Covering Climate Now and the Pulitzer Center, successful applicants will be awarded registration to the SEJ2026 conference April 15-18 and a $1,000 stipend to help cover travel and lodging. Application deadline is March 2, 2026.
Go to https://www.sej2026.org/schedule (Wednesday, Workshop 4) to learn details and apply.