FERN Staff

Tom Laskawy (he/him) is a co-founder, Publisher and Executive Director of FERN. A veteran of both online and traditional media with over thirty years of management and strategic planning experience for startup organizations in film, television, and the internet, he was also a Contributing Writer at Grist magazine where he covered food politics and the environment. His writing has been published online in the American Prospect, Slate, The New York Times and The New Republic. He can be reached at [email protected].

Laura Heckman (she/her) is Director of Development. She is a seasoned nonprofit executive with deep experience in fundraising, public space management, and community engagement. Raised on a farm in Ohio, she brings a lifelong appreciation for land stewardship, sustainability, and community to her roles. She has served as Executive Director of New Canaan Nature Center and VP of Operations for Riverside Park Conservancy in New York City, where she guided the organization through strategic growth, expanding public programming, and building a sustainable fundraising model in partnership with NYC Parks. Additionally, Laura served as Executive Director of Mill River Park Collaborative in Stamford, CT, overseeing all aspects of park operations and fundraising. She also served in Advancement at Amber Waves Farm, a nonprofit farm in Amagansett, where she led development strategy, major donor engagement, institutional fundraising, and events to support agricultural education and food access. She can be reached at [email protected].

Brent Cunningham (he/him) is Executive Editor. Cunningham was deputy editor of the Columbia Journalism Review from 2001-2014. He has written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Nation, Pacific Standard, Lapham’s Quarterly, Vox, CNN.com and Nieman Reports. His critical writing about the media was included in the anthology Our Unfree Press: One Hundred Years of Radical Media Criticism. His writing about food has been included in the Best Food Writing anthology. In 2020, he won a Mirror Award for a piece on the loss of local news in West Virginia. He can be reached at [email protected].

Dana Dugan (she/her) is Audience Engagement Editor. She has over two decades of experience in the environmental sciences. While in college getting her B.S. in Environmental Science, she interned at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. She followed up that experience as an instructor at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. Her professional development continued as she moved into the private sector, where she worked as a consultant, analyzing the impacts of transportation and other construction-related projects on natural resources. After many years in this industry, she decided it was time to head back to the nonprofit world. In 2007, she joined the team at Environmental Health News/The Daily Climate as a researcher and assignment editor. A few years in, when it was clear that a social media presence was essential for the organization, she was tasked with the newly formed role of Social Media Editor, and developed and managed their social media presence until the end of 2014. She’s been leading FERN’s audience engagement efforts since June 2015. Dana is a Philadelphia native currently residing in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. She can be reached at [email protected]

Deni Chamberlin (she/her) is the Director of Photography. Deni is an associate professor at the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University and teaches photojournalism and multimedia storytelling. She has over 25 years experience as a photojournalist for a variety of publications including National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, and TIME. A former staff photographer at The Denver Post, Deni was also a member of the staff at The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel that was awarded a Pulitzer in 1983. Growing up in the Midwest, she worked in Europe for many years and now calls Iowa home. [email protected].

Ted Genoways (he/him) is Senior Editor. He is a two-time James Beard Award winner (both for FERN collaborations) and author of six books, including Tequila Wars: José Cuervo and the Bloody Struggle for the Spirit of Mexico (W.W. Norton, May 2025). Over the past decade, he has reported and written several award-winning stories for FERN. He is also a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a contributing editor at The New Republic, and a President’s Professor of Media Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he also edits Switchyard, a twice-yearly literary journal and recipient of five National Magazine Award nominations in 2024 (including for two FERN collaborations). He can be reached at [email protected].

Teresa Cotsirilos (she/her) is a Staff Writer and Producer at FERN, where she covers food systems, labor, and climate change in the Western US. Her work has been published by the New York Times, Reveal, NPR, Snap Judgment, the California Report Magazine, PRI’s The World and other outlets. Prior to joining FERN’s team, Teresa was a senior producer at WorldAffairs, a global politics show co-produced by World Affairs with KQED. She’s also reported for KALW, where she covered public health and climate equity in the Bay Area’s immigrant communities. She cut her teeth as a reporter and occasional host at KYUK, where she covered public safety and climate change in Western Alaska’s indigenous communities, winning seven statewide journalism awards, including Best Investigative Reporting in 2018. Teresa graduated from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where her thesis won the Reva and David Logan Prize for Excellence in Investigative Reporting. Before she became a journalist, she sold eye patches in San Francisco and taught sex ed in Namibia. In a past life, she wrote children’s stories for American Girl. She can be reached at [email protected].

Amanda Vicari (she/her)  is FERN’s Assistant Engagement Producer. She is a multimedia producer and audience engagement specialist. She began her career in New York working in production and post-production on web, broadcast, and live performance projects, with early credits including Elton John & Leon Russell: Live from the Beacon Theatre and Lady Gaga Presents: The Monster Ball Tour. She later worked extensively in digital video and livestreaming with platforms including Howcast, Livestream, and Vimeo, as well as producing promotional audio for outlets including National Geographic, Discovery Channel, and TLC. Outside of media, Amanda has hands-on experience starting and managing small-scale farm and market garden projects in Seattle and Hawaiʻi, grounding her storytelling work in lived experience with food systems, and has worked with nonprofit organizations and state agencies in Maryland, Delaware, and Hawaiʻi on food systems initiatives including food hub development, institutional procurement, and regenerative agriculture projects. She lives in Washington, D.C., and can be reached at. She can be reached at [email protected]