FERN Staff

Tom Laskawy (he/him) is a co-founder, Publisher and Executive Director of FERN. A veteran of both online and traditional media with over thirty years of management and strategic planning experience for startup organizations in film, television, and the Internet, he was also a Contributing Writer at Grist magazine where he covered food politics and the environment. His writing has been published online in the American Prospect, Slate, The New York Times and The New Republic. He can be reached at [email protected].

Brent Cunningham (he/him) is Executive Editor. Cunningham was deputy editor of the Columbia Journalism Review from 2001-2014. He has written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Nation, Pacific Standard, Lapham’s Quarterly, Vox, CNN.com and Nieman Reports. His critical writing about the media was included in the anthology Our Unfree Press: One Hundred Years of Radical Media Criticism. His writing about food has been included in the Best Food Writing anthology. In 2020, he won a Mirror Award for a piece on the loss of local news in West Virginia. He can be reached at [email protected].

Dana Dugan (she/her) is Audience Engagement Editor. She has over two decades of experience in the environmental sciences. While in college getting her B.S. in Environmental Science, she interned at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. She followed up that experience as an instructor at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. Her professional development continued as she moved into the private sector, where she worked as a consultant, analyzing the impacts of transportation and other construction-related projects on natural resources. After many years in this industry, she decided it was time to head back to the nonprofit world. In 2007, she joined the team at Environmental Health News/The Daily Climate as a researcher and assignment editor. A few years in, when it was clear that a social media presence was essential for the organization, she was tasked with the newly formed role of Social Media Editor, and developed and managed their social media presence until the end of 2014. She’s been leading FERN’s audience engagement efforts since June 2015. Dana is a Philadelphia native currently residing in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. She can be reached at [email protected]

Deni Chamberlin (she/her) is the Director of Photography. Deni is an associate professor at the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University and teaches photojournalism and multimedia storytelling. She has over 25 years experience as a photojournalist for a variety of publications including National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, and TIME. A former staff photographer at The Denver Post, Deni was also a member of the staff at The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel that was awarded a Pulitzer in 1983. Growing up in the Midwest, she worked in Europe for many years and now calls Iowa home. [email protected].

Elizabeth Royte (she/her) is Senior Editor. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash; Bottlemania: How Water Went On Sale and Why We Bought It; and The Tapir’s Morning Bath: Solving the Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest, and has written on environmental issues for The New York Times magazine, National Geographic, Harper’s, Outside, and other magazines. Royte is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review and a contributing editor for OnEarth magazine. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Science Writing for 2004 and for 2009, the environmental omnibus “Naked,” and Outside Magazine‘s “Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison.” A former Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow, she is the recipient of Bard College’s John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service. She can be reached at [email protected].

Ted Genoways (he/him) is Senior Editor. He is a two-time James Beard Award winner (both for FERN collaborations) and author of six books, including Tequila Wars: José Cuervo and the Bloody Struggle for the Spirit of Mexico (W.W. Norton, May 2025). Over the past decade, he has reported and written several award-winning stories for FERN. He is also a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a contributing editor at The New Republic, and a President’s Professor of Media Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he also edits Switchyard, a twice-yearly literary journal and recipient of five National Magazine Award nominations in 2024 (including for two FERN collaborations). He can be reached at [email protected].

Chuck Abbott (he/him) is Editor of FERN’s Ag Insider. With three decades of Washington experience, Abbott is an old hand at covering U.S. food and agriculture policy at the national level, ranging from the “Nutrition Facts” labels on food and the never-ending tussle over food stamp rules to renovation of the farm program. Abbott, who grew up on a farm in northern Illinois, was a long-time Reuters commodities correspondent in Washington after a stint as national farm editor for United Press International. You can sign up for the Ag Insider daily newsletter, or purchase full access to all the stories, here on our Web site. He can be reached at [email protected].

Teresa Cotsirilos (she/her) is a Staff Writer and Producer at FERN, where she covers food systems, labor, and climate change in the Western US. Her work has been published by the New York Times, Reveal, NPR, Snap Judgment, the California Report Magazine, PRI’s The World and other outlets. Prior to joining FERN’s team, Teresa was a senior producer at WorldAffairs, a global politics show co-produced by World Affairs with KQED. She’s also reported for KALW, where she covered public health and climate equity in the Bay Area’s immigrant communities. She cut her teeth as a reporter and occasional host at KYUK, where she covered public safety and climate change in Western Alaska’s indigenous communities, winning seven statewide journalism awards, including Best Investigative Reporting in 2018. Teresa graduated from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where her thesis won the Reva and David Logan Prize for Excellence in Investigative Reporting. Before she became a journalist, she sold eye patches in San Francisco and taught sex ed in Namibia. In a past life, she wrote children’s stories for American Girl. She can be reached at [email protected].

Elizabeth Lucy (she/her) is a Development Advisor at FERN.  With over a decade of experience, she brings an analytical eye to the entire breadth of giving with a strategic focus on major gifts. In addition to her work with FERN, Elizabeth works as Senior Major Gift Officer at Consumer Reports where she is especially keyed into their food policy and sustainability efforts. She can be reached at [email protected].

Katie Gardner (she/her) is the Assistant Audience Engagement Editor. Her background is at the intersection of communications and environmental and food justice. She previously worked as the Communications Manager for Fair World Project, where she managed the organization’s social media presence and served as project manager for FWP’s podcast series, For a Better World. Her work at the intersection of storytelling and social change has also led her to work with organizations like Rainforest Foundation US and the fair trade brand Maggie’s Organics. Katie holds a B.A. in Geography and an M.A. in Communication & Development Studies, both from Ohio University. A native of Appalachia, Katie currently calls the hills of SE Ohio home. She can be reached at [email protected]