In summary
The CalMatters intern program gives students an opportunity to hone their skills and CalMatters staff a chance to teach and benefit from new enterprising journalists.
CalMatters is excited to feature our summer interns helping to expand coverage of critical California issues in an important election year.
Our summer College Journalism Network interns are Julian Mendoza, who grew up in the Bay Area and just graduated from Chico State, and Mallika Seshadri, who’s from Encinitas and just finished up at UC Berkeley. They are covering higher education.
Seshadri is wrapping up four years at The Daily Californian, where she served as a reporter, news editor and managing editor. She majored in political science and global studies, and was part of the High School Insider journalism program at the Los Angeles Times.
Mendoza is interested in investigative reporting. He has covered politics, higher education, policing and more and was formerly a fellow in the CalMatters College Journalism Network.
CalMatters also has several interns working this summer.
Rui Ding is our video journalism intern.
Ding lives in Los Angeles and went to UC Davis before completing a masters degree at Columbia. Ding is a video intern at CalMatters. She is a recent graduate of Columbia Journalism School, with a focus on in-depth reporting and visual storytelling. For her master’s project, she spent four months covering illegal basement apartments in New York City.
Chelsea Le is working on social media and membership this summer.
Le is an Orange County native attending Villanova University in Philadelphia and a staff writer at The Villanovan. She has completed internships with the Urban Justice Center and Comfort Eats. Le has experience across news, social media engagement and nonprofit development. She joins CalMatters this summer as part of the Dow Jones News Fund program.
Evan Yang is our summer development intern.
Yang is a rising senior at Dartmouth College studying government and public policy. He’s passionate about advancing democratic engagement and reforming institutions to produce more equitable outcomes for society. Prior to joining CalMatters, Yang worked in policy analysis, academic research, political campaigns, and nonprofit initiatives including a nationwide youth-voter turnout initiative and civic engagement programs on multiple college campuses.
Agnes Lee is a summer data and interactive intern.
Lee is a recent graduate of Northwestern University, where she studied journalism and psychology. She previously interned at the San Francisco Chronicle, PBS, and New England Public Media.
Rahul Lal joins us as our photography intern.
Lal is a recent graduate of Sacramento State University. His freelance work has been featured by CalMatters, Comstock’s Magazine, Sacramento News & Review, The Elk Grove Citizen Newspaper, The State Hornet and multiple news wire services via photo agency Sipa USA.
Ariel Gans is joining in mid-August through November as a political reporting intern.
Gans is currently a White House press intern and won a Fulbright fellowship that she’ll do after her CalMatters internship. She recently earned her master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, including work as a reporter at Medill News Service in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, she earned from UC Berkeley a bachelor of arts in political science and a bachelor of science in society and environment. Previously she worked as a reporting intern at OpenSecrets reporting on how campaign contributions influence politics and government, and worked one-on-one with inmates at San Quentin to improve their work and to publish the state’s only inmate-run newspaper.