Where are they now?

Former IRW interns are now reporting or editing at The Washington Post, the Center for Public Integrity, The Louisville Courier-Journal, the Treasure Coast newspapers, the Island Packet and the St. Cloud Times Media, among many other places. Former interns also have gone on to Colorado Public Radio and to FRONTLINE production teams.

We caught up with several former IRW interns recently:

• Jerrel Floyd is a government reporter at the Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina. He is developing stories around growth and potential gentrification in the area.

He previously was a health reporter, a beat he occasionally still tackles, and has also weighed in on election coverage, including a recent story about Dorchester County having to hand count absentee ballots. 

Floyd is a Morehouse College graduate who completed a master’s degree at American University in 2017 and then did a one-year reporting fellowship at ProPublica Illinois.

• Mandy McLaren continues on the eduction beat at the Louisville Courier-Journal, which posted her story on Black girls in Louisville and efforts this school year to help them value themselves — especially in light of Breonna Taylor’s killing. Taylor was a 26-year-old emergency medical technician shot and killed by police in Louisville earlier this year.

McLaren also recently did a deep dive into Louisville Public Schools’ use of mental-health staff and facilities to remove children from classrooms. Among the findings: that the schools called for crisis interventions 1,500 times during the last academic year, and that children as young as 5 were being referred for psychiatric evaluations.

McLaren joined the Courier Journal in late 2017. She previously covered national education issues for The Washington Post while completing her master’s degree in investigative journalism at American University. Before beginning her journalism career, McLaren worked in New Orleans Public Schools, where she spent seven years as a special education teacher and administrator. She’s a graduate of Boston University.  

• Jordan Houston started writing for Heavy.com this spring when she was furloughed from her magazine job because of the pandemic. She recently reported a story on the stimulus package.

Houston covers breaking news, politics and crime for the site. She, too, was part of the 2017 master’s class in Journalism and Public Affairs at American University and was in the graduate practicum at The Washington Post. 

If you’re interested in applying for an IRW summer 2021 internship, go here.