We are a community of journalists, truth-tellers, organizers, and justice seekers committed to delivering in-depth and thought-provoking news and analysis.
Prism is an independent and nonprofit news outlet led by journalists of color. We report from the ground up and at the intersections of injustice. Together, our journalists go where justice requires.
Activists, thought leaders, decision-makers, and all those who believe in justice for all come to Prism for deep reporting and honest insights on the most pressing injustices of our time—delivered through the lens of those who are most impacted.
Our Team
Alexandra Martinez | Senior News Reporter
Alexandra (she/her) is an award-winning, Cuban-American writer whose reporting spans such topics as immigration, the affordable housing crisis, and art-washing, and appears in VICE, Observer, Catapult magazine, CNN, and others. She received a B.A in Film Studies from Columbia University and has worked on documentary post-production teams as well as prison reentry programs in New York and Miami. She is based in Miami where she lives with her young daughter and enjoys tending to her native pine rockland garden. | @alex__mar
Ashton Lattimore | Editor-in-Chief (outgoing)
Ashton (she/her) is an award-winning journalist and former lawyer whose work sits at the intersections of racial justice, gender justice, and law. Her nonfiction writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Slate, CNN, and Essence. In 2021, she was named a Maynard 200 Fellow by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, and was part of the spring cohort of the Poynter Leadership Academy for Women in Media. She is a graduate of Harvard College, Columbia Journalism School, and Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Ashton is also an author, and her debut historical fiction novel, “All We Were Promised,” is forthcoming from Ballantine Books in 2024. She grew up in New Jersey, and now lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and two sons. | @ashtonlattimore
Caitlin Gaffin | Publisher
Caitlin (she/they) is a nonprofit strategy and operations leader whose work focuses on rethinking the traditional ways in which we organize and build power. They are a founding co-director of Holler Health Justice, a racial, economic, and reproductive justice nonprofit and abortion fund in Appalachia.
Carolyn Copeland | Managing Editor
Carolyn (she/her) is a passionate journalist with more than a decade of diverse experience in print and broadcast media. Her writing has been published by The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, HuffPost, POPSUGAR, San Francisco Examiner, San Leandro Patch, Daily Kos, and others. She has been with Prism since its founding year in 2019. In 2024, she was awarded a fellowship by the Maynard Institute for their front-line editors & managers track. Carolyn spent several years as a television news writer and radio producer, and has appeared as a guest commentator on CNN, PBS, KRON4, and various radio shows and podcasts. | @Carolyn_Copes
Kimberly Rooney 高小荣 | Copy Editor
Kimberly (they/them) is a Chinese-American adoptee from Jiangsu Province based in Philadelphia. They are a 2023 Periplus Fellow, and their writing often returns to racial, adoptee, and queer identities, the environment, and the body. Their writing was recognized as a 2022 Best of the Net finalist and has appeared in Waxwing Magazine, Chestnut Review, SAND Journal, The Offing, and more. They received a B.Phil. from the University of Pittsburgh for their thesis on racial identity formation in Chinese-American adoptees. In addition to writing, they enjoy crocheting, calligraphy, and cuddling with their cat Toaster. | @kimlypso
Kyubin Kim | Social Media Editor
Kyubin (she/her) is a writer and social media editor based in New York. She received her B.A. from Bowdoin College in English and Creative Writing where she wrote her thesis on Korean American affect and served as editor-in-chief of The Foundationalist literary journal. Previously, she has worked as a copy editor for The New Republic and helmed social media projects at The Los Angeles Review of Books and Guernica Mag, where she is a Publishing Assistant. When she’s not telling stories in 280 characters, she’s probably caught in the deep throes of internet subcultures.
Lara Witt | Editor-in-Chief
Lara (she/they) is an award-winning writer and editor. Their journalism career started at the Philadelphia CityPaper and the Philadelphia Daily News. Lara also freelanced for national publications like Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, and Teen Vogue before joining Wear Your Voice magazine as an editor and reshaping the publication to focus on pop culture and politics through a radical lens centering the voices of LGBTQIA+ Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). As the Editor-in-Chief of Prism, their goal is to provide platforms for marginalized voices and to reshape the landscape of media altogether.
Ray Levy Uyeda | Senior Features Reporter
Ray is a writer and poet based in the Bay Area, living on unceded Ohlone land. Prior to joining Prism, Ray worked as a freelance journalist, writing about reproductive, climate, and food justice for publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, Teen Vogue, and Yes! Magazine, among others. Ray’s journalism is grounded in service of the ultimate goal of liberation, and informed by projects like Media 2070’s essay on media reparations. Outside of the office, Ray reads poetry submissions and writes poetry reviews for a number of literary magazines, hikes the Bay Area’s redwood trails, and cooks as much delicious food as possible. | @raylevyuyeda
Rikki Li | Developmental Editor
Rikki (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based writer and editor whose works often revolve around themes of food, cultural identity, and queerness. She received her B.A. in English Writing and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, and her M.S. in Journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School. Rikki believes that to be a writer is to see, feel, and experience widely; before Prism, she was an ESL teacher at Disney English and a science editor at the University of Pennsylvania. Her essays and poems have been published in Under the Gum Tree, The Offing, Rising Phoenix Review, among others. In her free time, she can be found baking desserts for Instagram and caring for her beloved monstera plant, Sophie. | @writtenbyrikki
Saba Keramati | Operations Manager
Saba (she/her) is a writer and nonprofit professional focused on social justice. Prior to joining Prism, she worked in racial and reproductive justice. Her creative work focuses on racial hybridity and exploring racial, body, and language consciousness. She believes in the power of storytelling to shift dominant narratives and create change. She is the poetry editor at Sundog Lit and also works as a teaching artist. Saba is from California, and currently lives in Michigan. | @sabzi_k
Shabnam Banerjee-McFarland | Audience Director
Shabnam (she/her) is a marketer, editor, and producer who has worked in independent media aimed at providing tools, resources, and frameworks that support movement-building. As an editor, she has worked with New York Times bestselling authors, speakers, and activists on books and digital products around intersectionality, racial and gender justice, decolonization, identity, and community organizing. Most recently, she joined Odom Media Management as an associate literary agent. She received a B.A. from University of California, Berkeley and M.A. from Columbia University in American Studies. She currently lives in Oakland, California.
Shirley Vilca | Development Director
Shirley (she/her) is a seasoned nonprofit professional working toward advancing causes that allow for thriving communities. Her diverse background includes working with refugee youth, incarcerated youth, and LGBTQ+ youth, as well as advocating for education equity and LGBTQ+ literature access in schools. Prior to Prism, she worked in development for Rock the Vote. She received a B.A. from the Evergreen State College and M.A. in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from Antioch University. She resides in Joshua Tree, California. | @theshirleyvilca
Tamar Sarai | Staff Features Reporter
Tamar (she/her) is passionate about narrative writing and firmly believes that story sharing and truth-telling play a powerful role in changing hearts, minds, and ultimately the lived realities of communities across the world. Her reporting focuses on race, culture, and the criminal legal system. Prior to Prism, Tamar was a criminal justice researcher at Color Of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. She received a B.A. in Sociology and Africana Studies from Wellesley College and M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University. Originally from Brooklyn, she currently resides in the New York neighborhood of West Harlem. | @bytamarsarai
Tina Vásquez | Features Editor
Tina (she/her) is a movement journalist with more than a decade of experience reporting on immigration, reproductive injustice, gender, food, labor, and culture. Her writing has been published by The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, The Guardian, NPR, and Playboy. She is a 2021 McGraw Center Fellow reporting on back wages owed to migrant farmworkers. She serves on the board of Press On, a Southern journalism collective that strengthens and expands the practice of journalism in service of liberation. Tina splits her time between her family in Southeast Los Angeles and her home in the Piedmont Region of North Carolina. | @TheTinaVasquez
Yashwina Canter | Community Engagement Editor
Yashwina (she/they) is a publicist and digital strategist committed to an equitable digital future for indie media. They specialize in growing engaged audiences for marginalized creators, whether in publishing (where they’ve worked with National Book Award finalists, MacArthur Genius Grant recipients, and New York Times bestsellers) or in traditional marketing/PR (where they’ve worked with start-ups, nonprofits, podcasts, and award-winning major indie media outlets). After receiving a B.A. in English from Oxford University and M.A. in Publishing Media from Oxford Brookes, she returned to the United States to put down roots in Portland, Oregon. | @yashwinacanter
Contributors
Board of Directors
Ashton Lattimore
BOARD MEMBER
Editor-in-Chief (outgoing), Prism; Author
Emma Carew Grovum
BOARD CHAIR
Founder, Kimbap Media; Director of Careers and Culture, The Marshall Project
Joanne Griffith
BOARD MEMBER
Chief Content Officer, APM Studios; Founder, En(title)d! For Leaders of Color in Media
Sarah Eagle Heart
BOARD Member
Co-Founder and CEO, Return to the Heart Foundation
