Ellie Heffernan

Ellie is a senior from Ellicott City, Maryland, majoring in journalism and environmental studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. She has written for The Daily Tar Heel, UNC-CH’s student-run newspaper, where she pitched investigative stories on topics ranging from the university’s history of slavery to its stagnating faculty salaries. She has also written for several publications in the Triangle, including INDY Week, The Local Reporter, and the UNC Institute for the Environment’s monthly newsletter. She was a Reese Cleghorn Intern at The Daily Record, a newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland. While working there, she won an award from the MDDC Press Association for her reporting about COVID-19’s impact on Maryland’s crabbing industry. She hopes to become an investigative environmental journalist.