Nora Livesay was the Director of Finance at the nonprofit Institute of the Americas on the University of California, San Diego, campus from May 1998 until her retirement in March 2022. A native of Tennessee, she graduated Magna Cum Laude from Radford University in Radford, Virginia, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with an emphasis on accounting.

Since retiring, Nora has kept busy traveling, mainly visiting National Parks. Her hobbies include hiking, Yoga, reading and spending time with family and friends.

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Nancy Wyld, a founding member of InquireFirst, spent 17 years at The San Diego Union-Tribune where she was operations manager for the 400-person newsroom and handled budgets, contract negotiations and vendor relations. She also oversaw newsroom technology and was facilities manager for the Union-Tribune’s news bureaus. Prior to arriving in San Diego, she was production manager for a newspaper group on the East Coast.

After leaving the Union-Tribune, she spent seven years as a member of FEMA’s National Disaster Recovery Coordination cadre reporting on field operations and long-term recovery efforts.

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Iván Carrillo is a journalist, documentary maker and producer specializing in science, the environment and the oceans, with over twenty years of experience across the Ibero-American media landscape. He has published and produced work for media outlets such as National Geographic, Knowable Magazine, CNN en Español, Discovery Channel, History Channel, Expansión, NCC Iberoamericano, and El Universal, among many others.

He is the co-founder of Historias Sin Fronteras and has directed documentary series including El futuro del planeta, 1.5 grados para salvar al planeta, La ciencia del fútbol andLa ciencia a prueba.

Carrillo is also the co-founder of the radio program En Común: conocimiento en voz viva, and serves as editor and host of the pioneering program that connects Indigenous journalists with scientists to deliver useful, evidence-based knowledge to rural communities in Mexico.

His work has received international recognition, including the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communication 2025, awarded by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM)—one of the most prestigious honors in the field of science communication. He has also received the Covering Climate Now Award, the TED Countdown Journalism Fellowship, grants from the Pulitzer Center, the National Geographic Society, Earth Journalism Network, and the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT.

He is currently developing transnational projects focused on marine conservation, climate change and solution-driven narratives.

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In October 2024, the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) recognized our multimedia project SOS: Climate Change Threatens Our Traditional Foods with Second Place Honorable Mention in the Outstanding Explanatory Reporting, Small (newsroom) category. 

The SEJ Awards are the world’s largest and most comprehensive environmental journalism competition. This year, judges and subject-matter experts, including journalists and professors, read, listened and viewed 532 entries in 10 categories.

In recognizing our project, the SEJ judges said the reporting “is a sharp reminder of the unfair burden climate change imposes upon developing economies and Indigenous cultures where threatened traditional foods are staples. It is also a stark reminder for those in developed agricultural economies that climate change is an unwelcome guest at their own dinner tables who poses threats to global food security. Thought provoking, eloquent, powerful and sweeping in scope.”

This is the second international award that has recognized our climate change project. In July 2024, Covering Climate Now recognized our project as a winner in the Food & Agriculture category.

Covering Climate Now received 1,250 entries for this year’s awards from journalists in dozens of countries.  We are honored and thrilled that our Historias Sin Fronteras project written by a team of environmental journalists in Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia and Panama is among the winners. 

Our congratulations to the talented and committed and journalists who spent several months researching and writing the stories!  They are:

Johanna Osorio, Venezuela

María Clara Valencia, Colombia

Ruth Vargas, Bolivia

Sonia Tejada, Panama

InquireFirst awarded a reporting grant to these journalists during our day-long Historias Sin Fronteras (HSF) workshop at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Medellín in March 2023. After making a compelling pitch in a session attended by almost 50 Latin American science writers, their project was selected to receive a grant by HSF co-founders Iván Carrillo, who edited the project, and Lynne Walker, executive director of InquireFirst.

The 2024 panel of Covering Climate Now Award judges said:

“Arepas, pabéllon, bandeja paisa, and even rice itself: Many of Latin America’s staple foods, dishes that have defined culture for generations, are at risk due to extreme weather and declining crop yields. For Historias Sin Fronteras, journalists from across the region tell three interconnected stories that ask readers to contemplate climate change from the vantage points of their kitchen tables.

“Serving up intimate human stories with ample helpings of data and mouth-watering food photography, the stories impressively encapsulate many of the complex ties between climate change and agriculture and food. If more food writing dovetailed with climate reporting like this, we would all be better informed eaters.”

In April 2024, our multimedia project titled Traces of Oil in the Peruvian Amazon won Third Place in the Fetisov Journalism Awards in the category of Excellence in Environmental Journalism.

This project, meticulously reported and beautifully written by journalists Barbara Fraser, Marilez Tellez and Leonardo Tellez in Peru and photographed by Ginebra Peña, put an international spotlight on the devastating impact of 50 years of oil exploration in the Peruvian Amazon. The project was edited by Bolivian environmental journalist Eduardo Franco Berton, founder of RAIBolivia.org.

Barbara Fraser, a freelance journalist who has lived in Peru for more than 30 years, and Marilez Tello, an indigenous journalist working at Radio Ucamara on the banks of Peru’s Marañón River, traveled to Istanbul for the April 2024 award ceremony.

Some 400 entries from 96 countries were submitted for this year’s Fetisov Journalism Awards — and more than 100 of those entries were in the Excellence in Environmental Journalism Category.

Fraser said, “It was interesting to see how many of the (Fetisov) winners are freelancers. It made me realize how important projects like InquireFirst are. Without grants, it’s next to impossible to do the kind of reporting that wins this kind of award.”

Most of the $10,000 in prize money will be used by Radio Ucamara to expand its reach to more indigenous communities in Peru’s Amazon. 

We are also excited to report that a team of four early-career journalists in Quito, Ecuador, whose compassionate and data-driven project In the bubble: how to survive Down Syndrome in Ecuador was awarded Honorable Mention for Reporting in Digital Media by the National Journalists’ Union of Ecuador in February 2024.

Gabriela Coba, an Ecuadorian journalist with Primicias, Kevin Hidalgo with Revista Vistazo, Emilia Paz y Miño with GK Ecuador and Manuel Novik with Plan V, produced their in-depth project in just six weeks during our Voces Emergentes Ecuador program in the summer of 2023. 

Working as a team and guided by editor Gabriel Pasquini, a columnist with The Washington Post, the four journalists researched, wrote and published their multimedia project in August 2023.

In more good news, HSF editor Iván Carrillo was recognized by Covering Climate Now in a separate category for a short documentary that he and an international team of journalists produced, “Glaciers: A World Without Ice?”  

The judges called his work “a model documentary” and said, “At a time when many people’s understanding of climate change is still limited, we need more well-crafted explanatory journalism like this.”

Thanks to our Sponsors

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Iván is one of only four journalists in the world to receive this prestigious fellowship. The three other journalists who have been awarded the Fellowship are from Kenya, Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil.

Since 2019, when InquireFirst launched Historias Sin Fronteras at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Lausanne, Switzerland, Iván has guided 14 cross-border science, health and environment projects from idea to reporting to writing to publication.

He has worked with 40 journalists from countries throughout Latin America whose Historias Sin Fronteras projects have been published by 52 media organizations.

Ivan has focused much of his own reporting on climate change and the impact on biodiversity. His work has appeared in National Geographic and the Latin American editions of Newsweek. And he has collaborated with Discovery Channel, CNN in Español, El WESO, Radio Mexiquense, Grupo Expansión and many other media organizations. 

We are also thrilled that Iván is the co-founder and executive producer of our science, health and environment radio program, En Común: conocimiento en voz viva.

Iván traveled to London in February 2024 to attend an EJN orientation and training workshop that focuses on subjects such as covering global biodiversity policy, guidelines for reporting on Indigenous conservation practices, strategies to unpack climate science for audiences, the crucial role of ocean diplomacy, and much more.

Iván will be focusing his reporting during the Fellowship on biodiversity.

EJN Biodiversity Trainer Mike Shanahan, who will be working with Iván on story production and professional development, said, “There is no shortage of stories to tell about the many environmental challenges facing humanity, but it is rare for journalists to have the freedom to report in depth on these issues. EJN’s year-long fellowships will enable four highly committed journalists to immerse themselves in their chosen topics while developing their knowledge and skills through tailored support and training.”

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Gabriela Coba, an Quito-based journalist with Primicias, Kevin Hidalgo with Revista Vistazo, Emilia Paz y Miño with GK Ecuador, and Manuel Novik with Plan V,  produced their in-depth project, In the bubble: how to survive Down Syndrome in Ecuador, in just six weeks during Voces Emergentes Ecuador.

Working as a team and guided by editor Gabriel Pasquini, a columnist with The Washington Post, the four journalists researched, wrote and published their multimedia project in August 2023.

This prestigious recognition of Voces Emergentes is the latest honor bestowed on work produced by Latin American journalists who are supported by InquireFirst grants.

The post Voces Emergentes Ecuador team wins 2024 national journalism award appeared first on InquireFirst.

Historias Sin Fronteras co-founder and editor Iván Carrillo awarded first-ever Earth Journalism Network fellowship

Our congratulations to Iván Carrillo, co-founder and editor of Historias Sin Fronteras, who received a 2024 Year-Long Reporting Fellowship – the first ever awarded by the Earth Journalism Network (EJN).

Iván is one of only four journalists in the world to receive this prestigious fellowship. The three other journalists who have been awarded the Fellowship are from Kenya, Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil.

Since 2019, when InquireFirst launched Historias Sin Fronteras at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Lausanne, Switzerland, Iván has guided 14 cross-border science, health and environment projects from idea to reporting to writing to publication.

He has worked with 40 journalists from countries throughout Latin America whose Historias Sin Fronteras projects have been published by 52 media organizations.

Ivan has focused much of his own reporting on climate change and the impact on biodiversity. His work has appeared in National Geographic and the Latin American editions of Newsweek. And he has collaborated with Discovery Channel, CNN in Español, El WESO, Radio Mexiquense, Grupo Expansión and many other media organizations. 

We are also thrilled that Iván is the co-founder and executive producer of our science, health and environment radio program, En Común: conocimiento en voz viva.

Iván traveled to London in February 2024 to attend an EJN orientation and training workshop that focuses on subjects such as covering global biodiversity policy, guidelines for reporting on Indigenous conservation practices, strategies to unpack climate science for audiences, the crucial role of ocean diplomacy, and much more.

Iván will be focusing his reporting during the Fellowship on biodiversity.

EJN Biodiversity Trainer Mike Shanahan, who will be working with Iván on story production and professional development, said, “There is no shortage of stories to tell about the many environmental challenges facing humanity, but it is rare for journalists to have the freedom to report in depth on these issues. EJN’s year-long fellowships will enable four highly committed journalists to immerse themselves in their chosen topics while developing their knowledge and skills through tailored support and training.”

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The project by Ciudad Juárez journalist Gustavo Cabullo Madrid and photojournalist Juan Antonio Castillo in collaboration with El Paso journalist Aracely Lazcano, was recognized in October 2023 with the top reporting award for compelling, science-based storytelling that took readers to a period in time when the northern Mexican desert was a placid sea rich with biodiversity.

The narrative artfully wove together the present and the past through the voices of police detectives who, in their search for the human remains of victims of violent crimes, often find the vestiges of a geological past.

On receiving the award, Aracely Lazcano told our Historias Sin Fronteras team, “I am super happy and honored to have collaborated on this project with all of you. I appreciate the invitation, the patience, and above all the opportunity to learn and continue growing. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think that something like this could happen!!!”

The post Historias Sin Fronteras project wins gold medal in state journalism award appeared first on InquireFirst.

Enrique produced a six-part, long-form television report titled Frontera for his media organization, Sistema Zacatecano de Radio y Televisión (Sizart). 

In December 2023, his series won an international award from Premios TAL in the category of Special Reports. TAL (Televisión América Latina) is a network of public, cultural and educational television stations in Latin America. 

Enrique wrote, “This a new beginning for me.”

We received more good news in December – this time from Geneva, Switzerland!

Our Montañas y Selva: Voices from the Andes and the Amazon project on the impact of 50 years of oil exploration in the Peruvian Amazon is a finalist for Excellence in Environmental Journalism in the international Fetisov Journalism Awards.

The post Mexican journalist Enrique Cordero wins Premios TAL international award for Special Report on immigration appeared first on InquireFirst.

We are honored by the recognition of the outstanding reporting and writing by journalists Alejandro Saldívar in Mexico and Daniel Wizenberg in Argentina.

Their reporting garnered international attention and was published by several prominent media organizations, including the weekly news magazine Proceso in Mexico and Earth Island Journal in the United States.

The project was edited by Historias Sin Fronteras co-founder Iván Carrillo, a Mexico-based science editor and journalist.

InquireFirst, in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education (HHMI), launched Historias Sin Fronteras at the 2019 World Conference of Science Journalists in Lausanne, Switzerland.  Since awarding the first grant at that year’s conference, Historias Sin Fronteras has published 13 cross-border projects.

In addition to publishing on our own website, 52 media organizations from Canada to Argentina have published one or more of our Historias Sin Fronteras projects.

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