Irene McKisson
Principal Executive, Co-founder
Irene McKisson spent 18 years in local news at the Arizona Daily Star where she started as a sports designer and copy editor and became the General Manager of Niche Audience Development, co-founding and editing #ThisIsTucson. She is a past ONA speaker and member of the Women’s Leadership Accelerator cohort; a participant and speaker in Google News Initiative programs including the Google Audience Lab, GNI Innovation Challenge and GNI Startup Boot Camp with LION; she is a GNI fellow in the 2022 class of the Media Transformation Challenge at Poynter and among the recipients of a 2019 Tow Center for Digital Journalism research grant. She is an adjunct instructor at the University of Arizona, a mother, reader, baker and AP Style nerd. She was born in Tucson and plans to stay forever.
Contact: imckisson@azluminaria.org
Dianna M. Náñez
Executive Editor, Co-founder
Dianna M. Náñez is an investigative journalist, narrative writer/editor and storytelling coach whose story of Indigenous and borderlands communities was part of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning Arizona Republic team coverage. She served as a board member for NAHJ and is a member of the 2017 cohort of ASNE’s Emerging Leaders Institute. She’s a frequent public speaker for journalism and community forums, taught journalism ethics and diversity at ASU and is an expert in workplace standards for mentorship, diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging. When she’s not in hype-woman mode or ruminating on life and news, she’s channeling her Mexican ancestors, talking to birds, and eating tacos weekly and menudo on Sundays with her familia.
Contact: dnanez@azluminaria.org
Becky Pallack
Operations Executive, Co-founder
Becky Pallack was a reporter at the Arizona Daily Star and the Arizona Daily Sun and she has covered just about any topic you can think of. She’s a three-time winner of the Arizona Newspapers Association’s Freedom of Information Award. She was co-founder of #ThisIsTucson, and she and Irene are among the winners of the 2019 Google News Initiative’s Innovation Challenge. Becky was a 2020 fellow at the NewStart local news ownership initiative at West Virginia University. She has volunteered with the Arizona Press Club, local startup communities, Girl Scouts, and Saguaro National Park. She grew up in Yuma and lives in Tucson.
Contact: bpallack@azluminaria.org or @BeckyPallack on Twitter.
Rafael Carranza
Reporter, ProPublica Local Reporting Network
Rafael Carranza is a bilingual multimedia reporter born in Mexico and raised in Arizona who has covered the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and immigrant communities for the past 15 years. He previously worked as a border and immigration reporter for The Arizona Republic and the USA Today Network, where he led several multimedia projects, including an investigative podcast about a cross-border shooting in Arizona. Carranza was part of the reporting team awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for “The Wall” and received an Emmy for his video reporting on the project, which looked at the impacts of the construction of border barriers.
Contact: rcarranza@azluminaria.org
Shannon Conner
Reporter, Education Solutions
Shannon Conner is the education solutions reporter for Arizona Luminaria supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Fund. A reporter and editor, Shannon’s work has appeared in sports and news sections of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Santa Cruz Sentinel, and the Arizona Daily Star. Shannon brings years of first-hand experience to the education beat: Parenting two kids in public and charter schools; participating for more than a decade in parent-teacher organizations; and teaching for 12 years as an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Arizona. Raised in New Mexico, Shannon is a semi-retired cross-country coach for K-8 runners, a Boston Marathon finisher and a certified yoga instructor.
Contact: sconner@azluminaria.org
Carolina Cuellar
Reporter
Carolina Cuellar is a bilingual journalist based in Tucson covering Southern Arizona. Previously she reported on border and immigration issues in the Rio Grande Valley for Texas Public Radio. Her work has appeared in news outlets such as National Public Radio and ABC News. She has an M.S. in Science Communication and worked as a laboratory researcher before pivoting to journalism.
Contact: ccuellar@azluminaria.org or @Wzrd_of_Lnlynss on Twitter.
Chelsea Curtis
Reporter
Chelsea Curtis is a Diné (Navajo) journalist covering the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit and Transgender People injustice in Arizona. Her reporting is supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two Spirit and Transgender People. She previously covered criminal justice topics and breaking news as a reporter at The Arizona Republic and a wide range of community news at Today’s News-Herald (Lake Havasu City) and the Arizona Daily Sun (Flagstaff). She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northern Arizona University.
Contact: 602-492-1684, ccurtis@azluminaria.org, on Facebook, or @curtis_chels on Twitter.
Yana Kunichoff
Reporter
Yana Kunichoff is a reporter and Report For America corps member based in Tucson. She previously covered education for The Arizona Republic and Chalkbeat Chicago, worked as a special projects editor for Migratory Notes newsletter, produced a feature-length documentary on the experience of elderly prisoners in Illinois jails and oversaw a team of reporters as an editor at The Moscow Times. Her investigation into the Chicago police union’s misinformation about fatal police shootings won a 2016 Sidney Hillman award. In her free time, you can find Yana climbing rocks and reading books, all preferably outside.
Contact: ykunichoff@azluminaria.org or @yanazure on Twitter.
John Washington
Reporter
John Washington is an investigative journalist with a focus on immigration and borders, as well as criminal justice and literature. His first book, “The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexico Border and Beyond,” was published in 2020 by Verso Books. Washington is also a translator, having co-translated, most recently, “The Hollywood Kid,” by Óscar Martínez and Juan Martínez, and “Blood Barrios,” by Alberto Arce, which won a PEN Translates Award. He has been living in and out of Tucson since 2008. Find more of his work at www.jblackburnwashington.com.
Contact: jwashington@azluminaria.org or @jbwashing on Twitter.
Samantha Munsey
Fundraising Coordinator
Samantha, a lifelong resident of Southern Arizona, found her passion for journalism in her hometown of Bisbee. After studying at the University of Arizona, she joined the Arizona Daily Star, where she held various roles during her nine years there, including digital editor, product developer, and online producer. She also served as the first digital producer for #ThisIsTucson. With News Revenue Hub, she helped local, national, and nonprofit newsrooms expand and maintain membership programs. Samantha has presented for the Institute for Nonprofit News and participated in the Google Audience Lab. When not in community journalism, she enjoys exploring the Sonoran Desert with family and friends.
Contact: smunsey@azluminaria.org.
Beatriz Limón
Journalist and translator
Beatriz Limón is an award-winning print and photojournalist who has been a correspondent in Arizona and New Mexico for Agencia EFE, the world’s largest Spanish-language newswire organization and fourth largest global wire service in any language. She is a regular columnist for the Mexican newspaper El Imparcial and a contributor to palabra., a digital news site launched by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists to offer in-depth journalism that fully and fairly reflects Latino/a/x communities. She worked at The Arizona Republic’s Latino-focused publication La Voz, where she earned numerous Arizona Press Club recognitions. Her photojournalism has won awards from The Photographic Society of America. Beatriz was an editor and investigative journalist for leading Mexico newspapers La Crónica and Frontera.
Contact: blimon@azluminaria.org or @betylimon on Twitter.
Michael McKisson
Contributing photographer
Michael McKisson is an award-winning multimedia journalist and Associate Professor of Practice in the University of Arizona School of Information. McKisson specializes in digital storytelling, drone journalism and photography. Prior to becoming an educator, he founded BicycleTucson.com, an online news site devoted to reporting about Tucson’s bicycle infrastructure and community. He is currently producing a multimedia project called #EveryStreetTucson, biking all 2,800 miles of Tucson streets and documenting it through mapping, street photography and aerial images. McKisson’s work has appeared on PBS Newshour, Arizona Illustrated – AZPM, AZ Luminaria and more.
Contact: michaelmckisson@gmail.com or @mikeonline on Twitter.