John Klopotowski is a freelance journalist and translator based in Northern California and is currently interning for The World. He speaks Arabic and Turkish. John has recently enjoyed reporting on local politics and current events in Oakland, CA—some of this coverage can be read in Oaklandside. He spends his free time wrapping grape leaves and walking his Old English Sheepdog, Augie.

Uzair Ahmed, a Berklee College of Music graduate from Pakistan, elevates storytelling with the power of sound and music. A skilled audio engineer and producer, Uzair brings his global influences and a genre-infusing approach to projects across different mediums.

Hatiye Garip is an illustrator, comic artist and designer based in Istanbul, Turkey. She likes to draw birds, flowers and ordinary moments. Her works have been exhibited and published in many countries, including Portugal, Belgium, Lithuania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, South Korea, the USA and UK. She was one of the Adobe Creative Residency Community Fund 2020 recipients in last December. She has recently completed her first picture book Making My Own Way, which focuses on her childhood memories with her grandmother. Hatiye illustrated our third and fourth seasons, and the art for our website. You can see her works at hatiyegarip.com.

Ibby Caputo is a journalist based in the United Kingdom. She was the Senior Editor of “Overheard” at National Geographic for the first three seasons. She has worked as a story editor for The World and West Virginia Public Broadcasting and for several podcasts including “The Breakthrough” from ProPublica, and “Seeking Peace” from the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.

Chris Harland-Dunaway is a senior producer at The World. He splits his time between chasing interviews for the daily edition of the show and working on longform audio projects like, “Lethal Dissent.” Before joining The World, he was a freelance reporter and producer. He’s produced extensively for Reveal and written investigative features for The Verge.  He’s a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where he concentrated on investigative reporting and audio. Outside of journalism, Chris loves riding and racing his road bike.

Beril Eski is an investigative journalist based in Istanbul. Her work focuses on immigration, government accountability and gender across Turkey. She has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times and more. With over a decade of reporting, she was part of a team with the New York Times that won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 2024. She has also received the Overseas Press Club Award of America, The New York Times Publisher’s award and the Polk Awards with other investigative colleagues. Native in Turkish and fluent in English, she is still working on Arabic.

Nafisa Haji is an American novelist of Indo-Pakistani descent, acclaimed for her explorations of identity, displacement, and cultural heritage. Born in Los Angeles, she spent parts of her childhood in Karachi, Manila, Chicago, and London, experiences that deeply inform her storytelling. Her debut novel, The Writing on My Forehead, was a finalist for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award. Her second novel, The Sweetness of Tears, continues her examination of personal and political boundaries. With a background in American history and education from UC Berkeley and UCLA, and experience teaching in bilingual classrooms, Haji brings a nuanced perspective to her work. She resides in Northern California with her family and maintains close ties to Pakistan.

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.

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.