Our 2024-25 student interns are paired with their respective Fellows below:

Fellow Sylvia A. Harvey's team

TJ Dysart, senior

TJ focuses on broadcast television news. He began his journey at the Marquette Wire, spending two years as an anchor, reporter, and producer. He gained real-world experience through internships at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and WISN-12 News. TJ now serves as the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation Fellow, advocating for journalism safety and hostage reduction in honor of Marquette graduate James Foley.

Jolan Kruse, senior

Jolan grew up in Arlington Heights, IL. She is majoring in journalism and social welfare and justice. Jolan worked on the investigative desk of the Marquette Wire her second year before becoming an intern at WISN 12 news. In the spring of 2024 she spent a semester abroad in South Africa where she took classes at University of Western Cape and taught English at a local primary school. She is interested in social justice reporting, solutions journalism and public service journalism.

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Fellow Joe Hong's team

Phoebe Goebel, senior

Phoebe, from Hinsdale, IL, is studying journalism, literature and communication studies. She has served as a News Reporter, Assistant Editor for Arts & Entertainment and Editor of Diversity and Inclusion for the Marquette Wire. Through her passion of art, she spent a summer with Hindman Auctioneers, and looks forward to spending her 2024 summer with Christie's.

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Fellow Abigail Kramer's team

Izzy Fonfara Drewel, senior

Izzy, from Papillion, NE, is majoring in journalism with minors in music and Spanish. In 2023-2024, she was the Executive Opinions Editor for the Marquette Wire and spent the last two summers as the Emma Bowen Fellow at KETV in Omaha. Izzy views journalism as a way to continue learning and then share that knowledge with her community.

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Fellow Rory Linnane's team

Gabriel Sisarica, senior

Gabriel, from Northbrook, IL is studying journalism and psychology. He served as a sports multimedia journalist for the past two years for Marquette University Television. Outside of journalism, Gabriel works with Marquette’s SSAIL lab, teaching social skills to adolescents. His interests include covering sports in all facets and promoting mental health awareness.

Chesnie Wardell, senior

Chesnie Wardell, a Milwaukeean, studies journalism and theology. She's a staff intern reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, covering news and events featuring Black and Latino communities.  Chosen for the New York Times Corps., she's mentored by Theater Editor, Nicole Herrington. Chesnie is also a preschool teacher, mentor and member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

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The O’Brien Fellowship is committed to providing experienced journalists with the tools to pursue ambitious long-term projects in service of the public interest. In this vein, each fellow is paired with a hand-selected team of student interns who provide quality reporting and production support over the course of the project.

Our interns aren’t assigned busy work. They’re treated as entry-level reporters whose work and skills have a real impact on our fellows’ success. Many students even gain byline credit or go on to work in the fellow’s home newsroom in a university-sponsored summer internship. In this way, we strive to not only empower experienced journalists to do great work now, but also to train up-and-coming reporters to do great work in the future.