Hi there! Glad you dropped by.

My name's Mel, and I'm an award-winning digital journalist looking for my next career move in data journalism.

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Most recently, I was a digital producer for the USA Today Network's South region Digital Optimization Team (DOT), where I worked remotely with more than 30 Gannett-owned papers across Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and the Carolinas. I got experience editing stories for SEO, writing engagement stories on trending news, analyzing newsroom metrics, writing social media copy, creating promotional plans for special projects, designing social media cards, designing web layouts for enterprise stories, editing podcast episodes and more.

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I also created dozens of interactive charts, maps and alternative methods of storytelling. I overhauled the workflow for Network reporters to request graphics, and I coached newsroom staff on best practices for data visualization and on working with our third-party program Flourish.

 

I'm a 2021 graduate of Indiana University-Bloomington, where I studied journalism and Spanish and got my start as a news reporter at the Indiana Daily Student. Additionally, I was selected in 2022 to participate in the ProPublica/OpenNews/Ida B. Wells Society Data Institute and in 2021 for the New York Times Student Journalism Institute and later the Dow Jones News Fund digital media internship cohort.