The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) is proud to partner with Facebook to establish the Facebook Journalism Project Scholarship, which offers financial assistance for students who aspire to pursue a career in journalism and media. This partnership fosters AAJA’s and Facebook’s commitment to supporting quality journalism that strengthens and connects communities.
Facebook has awarded AAJA $250,000 to provide $50,000 in scholarships across five years. Beginning in 2018, AAJA will award five scholarships worth $10,000 each for students to use toward their college tuition. Please join us in congratulating the 2018 Facebook Journalism Project Scholarship recipients!
Michelle Hanks
Western Kentucky University
Michelle Hanks is a student studying photojournalism and sociology at Western Kentucky University. She discovered her passion for photojournalism as a senior in high school when she flipped through a Best of Photojournalism book from the 1980s and was captivated by photos that captured individuals and their emotions in a way not found in other photography. Since starting the photojournalism program at WKU, Michelle has learned how journalism can promote empathy and understanding for people whose stories are under-told and has also realized how the profession requires photographers to use their heart before their lens when telling someone’s story. Michelle currently works as a summer intern at Louisville Public Media where she makes photos and videos for the web. After graduating, she hopes to make photo stories and short documentaries for a newspaper. Her passion currently lies in producing and telling in-depth, narrative-driven stories.
Thomas Oide
University of Missouri at Columbia
Thomas Oide is a senior at the University of Missouri at Columbia where he is majoring in data journalism and minoring in computer science and information technology. He currently works as an intern at The Boston Globe and previously interned at The Sacramento Bee the two previous summers. The scholarship will help him offset undergraduate education costs so that he can pursue a master’s degree in the future. His goal is to eventually work as a data reporter or a news developer.
Darleen Principe
California State University, Northridge
Darleen Principe is a multimedia journalist and mass communications graduate student at California State University, Northridge. She is a former news reporter and editor for the Acorn Newspapers, a family of five community weeklies headquartered in Agoura Hills, CA. She has won awards for breaking news, education reporting and best writing through the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Her work has also appeared in the Huffington Post, Filipinas Magazine and Taste.Company. Darleen holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge and a master’s degree in visual culture from the University of Westminster in London, England. Her current master’s research focuses on the Filipino diaspora and ethnic media in Los Angeles. She has a Pomeranian named Penny Lane and likes to spend her free time baking artisan sourdough bread.
Nicole Tam
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Nicole Tam was born and raised in Hong Kong and moved to Honolulu, Hawaii when she was 10 to pursue something she loved since third grade: talking to strangers and sharing their stories. She currently attends the University of Hawaii at Manoa, studying journalism, Chinese and geography while serving as the editor-in-chief of the campus student newspaper, Ka Leo. She also works part-time as a digital media producer at the local ABC-affiliate KITV and as a freelance magazine writer. Nicole hopes to become a broadcast journalist after she graduates. As a member of AAJA for the past two years and serving as a co-director for the AAJA Student Broadcast Journalists group, she hopes to help other students to practice ethical journalism.
Nani Sahra Walker
University of California, Berkeley
Nani Sahra Walker is a multimedia journalist, educator and graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work includes projects for The Atlantic, BBC, Guardian, The San Francisco Chronicle and AJ+. She has worked on productions that won prestigious awards, including the Student Academy Award, MTV Music Video Award and commercial projects placed among the ten most highly valued in Ads of the World. She is currently leading an augmented reality (AR) team at UC Berkeley, developing AR/VR prototypes in partnership with the Center for Augmented Cognition and The Fung Institute.
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