The Asian American Journalists Association is proud to introduce the 2026 cohort of VOICES, our premier multimedia journalism fellowship dedicated to uplifting the next generation of student journalists. This year’s fellows will work closely with an accomplished group of editors and newsroom leaders, gaining hands-on experience and thoughtful mentorship as they report on stories that matter to their communities.
For over 30 years, the VOICES program has provided student journalists with hands-on opportunities to sharpen their reporting and leadership skills. Our alumni have gone on to shape the future of journalism at major outlets such as CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and the Texas Tribune.
We are especially grateful to the AAJA-Los Angeles chapter for their generous support of this year’s cohort, helping ensure that more students have access to this transformative experience. Their commitment plays a vital role in sustaining and strengthening the VOICES program, and we deeply appreciate their investment in the future of our field.
Meet the 2026 VOICES editors:
Allison Cho, VOICES 2026 Managing Editor, is a business editor at CNN. She edits business, tech and media stories, and helps lead the business team’s evening coverage. Before this, she was a multiplatform editor at The Washington Post, where she edited news and helped produce the print newspaper. She’s currently based in New York but is originally from Chicago.
Russell Leung, VOICES 2026 Deputy Editor, is an associate producer for CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” where he works with guests and produces segments on the top business news of the day. He started at CNBC as a digital rotational program associate, where he worked on consumer news, social media and “Closing Bell: Overtime.“ Russell graduated from Northwestern University in 2024 with a degree in journalism and environmental sciences. He hails from Queens, New York.
Fareeha Rehman, VOICES 2026 Editor, is a news producer at The Seattle Times, where she strategizes to bring stories to a digital audience through SEO analysis, homepage curation and alerts. Before that, she was on MSNBC’s digital editorial team (renamed MSNOW), producing newsletters, writing headlines and collaborating with broadcast teams to break global news online. Her writing has been published across local news outlets in top media markets such as D.C., New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Katrina Pham, VOICES 2026 Editor, is an audience engagement reporter with Borderless Magazine, a nonprofit, nonpartisan immigration newsroom in Chicago. There, she’s bridging the gap between digital audiences and critical news through social media video and community-centered reporting. Her award-winning vertical video work has focused on topics including criminal justice and immigration, and her and her colleagues’ award-winning investigative reporting has revealed inhumane conditions in Chicago’s largest migrant shelter. Katrina has worked for The Marshall Project, ABC 7 Chicago and In These Times, and is currently memberships director for AAJA Chicago and a co-organizer for the Chicago hub of the Video Consortium.
Mythili Sampathkumar, VOICES 2026 Editor, is a freelance journalist based in New York. Her reporting work can be found in The New York Times, L.A. Times, Vox, Teen Vogue, NBC News, Fortune, Forbes, The New Republic, Daily Beast, and more. She was also a staff reporter for The Independent’s New York bureau and former president of SAJA. In recent years, she has written textbooks, edited a photojournalism coffee table book, and managed several newsletters including her own, called Export Quality. She’s also a collage artist in her spare time.
AAJA is proud to accept the following students for VOICES 2026:
2026 VOICES COHORT:
Anna Hu, Harvard Extension School
Charlie Bloomer, Barnard College
Christina Lee, Yale University
Delphine Liu, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Emilie Takahashi, University of California, Irvine, AAJA-Los Angeles fellow
Hyeyoon Cho, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
Indra Dalaisaikhan, Northwestern University
Khadeejah Khan, University of California, Davis
Krish Dev, New York University
Larissa Liao, University of Michigan
Nicholas Corral, University of Southern California, AAJA-Los Angeles fellow
Sena Chang, Princeton University
ABOUT VOICES
VOICES is a student fellowship program that equips student journalists with skills to succeed in the continually evolving media landscape. The program aims to help journalists understand how audiences engage with them, how communities view the work they produce, and how they can understand the impact of their work. By nurturing relationships between students and professional volunteers, VOICES gives fellows the opportunity to tap into editors’ networks and grow their own. Learn more here, and see past student work on the VOICES website.
