Kunal Shankar is an award-winning investigative journalist passionate about reporting on caste discrimination, bureaucratic, judicial, and corporate fraud and climate change. He began his career in television in his hometown, Chennai, and has worked for ABC News Radio, Frontline magazine, India Today, and collaborated with American Public Media. Kunal loves beaches, having grown up by the sea in Chennai, and dabbles in South Indian recipes occasionally

Rajesh Mukkath is a Chennai-based sound designer with more than 15 years of experience working in feature films, television and radio. This is his first experience working with podcasts and he is very enthusiastic about exploring potentials of sound design in this visual-free medium.

Theo Merz is a British journalist based in Moscow. His work has appeared in The Economist, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times, VICE, and other news outlets. He was previously a Russia correspondent for Agence France-Presse, and has also reported for the news agency from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Lisa Jane Harding is a British breaking news reporter based in Hong Kong, where she has lived for the past 18-years. She has worked as a freelance correspondent for Deutsche Presse-Agentur, covering the anti-government protest movement and subsequent political fallout in the region, as China speeds-up the ex-British colony’s integration into the country. Her work has appeared in CNN, South China Morning Post, and several major news publications in Germany, Australia, US, and the Middle East.

Giovana Fleck is a journalist from the extreme south of Brazil, currently residing in Amsterdam. She has worked as a reporter and video editor with independent media that focuses on the narratives of social impact, women’s rights, indigenous causes, and the environment. Fleck is currently freelancing while in pursuit of her Master’s degree in political communication.

Alice Driver is the author of More or Less Dead and the translator of Abecedario de Juárez. Her long-form reporting, radio, and essays have appeared in National Geographic, Time, Oxford American, Longreads, and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Levi Bridges is an American audio journalist currently based between Mexico City and Moscow, Russia. He’s reported for outlets like Marketplace and Public Radio International, and produced audio documentaries in English and Spanish for NPR’s Radio Ambulante.

Patrice Citera is a freelance journalist based in Kinshasa, the DR Congo. He reports for a number of outlets, including Euronews, Deutshwelle English, and Voice of America. He spent 11 years (2003-2013) with the BBC World Service reporting news and current affairs in English, French, and Swahili, initially in radio and later online and television. He has also reported for the Associated Press and the New Humanitarian (formerly IRIN News).

From recording punk bands in his garage to touring with Joe Biden as a sound recordist, Craig has been a working audio engineer for over 20 years. He has been to all seven continents in pursuit of music and adventure, and is also the 2008 Air Guitar World Champion. He currently lives with his family in southern Oregon.

Alisa Zaira Reznick is a journalist and photographer from Flagstaff, Arizona. After several years in Amman, Jordan she returned to Arizona to document migration, human rights and the environment from a new border. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera, Mother Jones, NPR, PRX’s The World and the BBC, among others. She currently covers border and immigration issues for Tucson’s NPR affiliate, Arizona Public Media. 

Born next to the Bosphorus, Özge Sebzeci is a documentary and portrait photographer based between Turkey and Germany focusing on stories about gender, migration and ecology. Her approach revolves around establishing trust and intimacy with the people she photographs. She is deeply committed to diverse perspectives in visual storytelling. Sebzeci is a grantee with the National Geographic Society and Magnum Foundation. Her work has been published in National Geographic, Time, Die Zeit, NPR, The Atlantic, NRC Handelsblad,  De Standaard, Horizonte, VG, and 140journos among others. She is a member of Women Photograph and Diversify Photo and Varız Buradayız.

A physicist turned journalist, Umar’s reporting includes breaking news and investigative features, spanning four continents. He is a recipient of grants from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and the National Geographic Society. He has been a correspondent for The Los Angeles Times, Reuters, and Al Jazeera English, reporting from the Middle East and South Asia, and a national investigative reporter with ProPublica. His work has also appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Atlantic, the Nation, the Intercept, National Geographic, the Wall Street Journal, and the Christian Science Monitor. Born in Pakistan and raised in New Orleans, he is fluent in Urdu and can do pretty well in Arabic and Turkish.

A former engineer, Oscar is a visual journalist who has covered the global refugee crisis from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.He has been published in NBC News, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, PRI’s The World, Catholic News Service, The Guardian, Ozy, National Geographic Traveler, and other outlets. Among other projects, Oscar is currently working on a National Geographic Explorer’s Grant with Umar to tell the stories of Afghanistan’s refugees. He’s fluent in Spanish, and conversational in French and Turkish.

Fariba Nawa has been covering global news for 25 years from places like Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and now Turkey. She is also a speaker and author of the book Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords and One Woman’s Journey through Afghanistan. A native Afghan, Fariba’s fluent in Farsi/Dari and can get by in Arabic and Turkish. Some recent work can be found in The World, Time, The Christian Science Monitor,  The New Yorker, and The Financial Times.