The Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism has selected the 2026 class of RJI Professional Innovation Fellows, who will work to build free, open-source resources for journalists.

This year, two projects in the fellowship’s new emerging technology category will focus on building AI-powered systems that help newsrooms deliver more informed and impactful coverage to audiences. Two additional projects will create collaborative journalism platforms aimed at making it easier for independent journalists and newsrooms, respectively, to develop and publish stories that rely on deep research and documentation.

“These projects bridge cutting-edge technology and innovation with the values of community journalism,” said Randy Picht, executive director of RJI. “Local journalism continues to face the challenge of doing more with less, and these practical solutions can ease that burden while helping reporters tell stories that matter.”

The Fellows will receive stipends of $75,000-$100,000 over the course of the 8-month fellowships, which officially begin June 29. The resulting tools and resources will be freely accessible to journalists and newsrooms.

Kat Duncan, director of innovation at RJI, emphasized the tangible impacts she expects from the highly targeted projects.

“This year’s RJI Fellows are building vital tools and platforms that will move the journalism industry forward through harnessing emerging technology, creating shared infrastructure support and inspiring civic action in service to our communities,” Duncan said. “I am excited to get started and see their ideas become a reality that will benefit journalists across the country.”

Meet the Fellows

Nina Ignaczak and Ashley Woods Branch

Emerging Technology Fellowship

As the founder, publisher and editor of digital media startup Planet Detroit, Ignaczak is working alongside Woods Branch — chief partnerships and revenue officer of Planet Detroit — to build an AI-powered platform and tool that will help local newsrooms systematically connect journalism to civic participation. The Civic Action Builder will analyze articles to generate sidebars showing readers how they can take action.

“We built the Civic Action Builder because we kept seeing the same problem: someone reads a story about a rate hike or a zoning decision, they want to do something, and there’s nowhere to go,” Ignaczak said. “We’ve been running it on Planet Detroit and have already seen readers use it to reach out to elected officials and push for open public meetings. Newsrooms have been asked to prove civic impact for years, but most don’t have the tools to do it. CAB changes that, and we’re building it so any outlet can have it on day one.”

The sidebars will feature upcoming meetings, comment deadlines, organizations and officials to contact in the community. Using national databases covering all 50 states and federal agencies, this platform will provide the ability for newsrooms to integrate these “civic participation boxes” into any coverage. 

“Civic data infrastructure is what makes the connection between reading a story and civic participation possible at scale: public meetings, comment periods, and officials, indexed regionally and surfaced where readers actually encounter them,” Woods Branch added. “That layer doesn’t yet exist in a form newsrooms can draw on. The RJI Fellowship is our chance to build it with other newsrooms and civic actors, test what works, and develop the evidence the field needs to figure out what this infrastructure should become.”

Ignaczak is an award-winning Metro Detroit-based editor, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Woods Branch is a journalism founder, coach and strategic operator helping independent news organizations grow audience, revenue and resilience.

Nikita Roy

Emerging Technology Fellowship

Roy is the founder of Newsroom Robots Lab, an AI training, strategy and product development company for media organizations. She is building Newsroom Radar, an AI-powered audience intelligence system that proactively surfaces editorial insights, audience risks, and coverage opportunities.

Local newsrooms can already derive audience data from newsletter signups, survey responses, article comments, donation records and website analytics. Newsroom Radar connects these and unifies them using an open-source data standardization pipeline and then runs continuous AI analysis to detect patterns, anomalies, and opportunities.

“Newsroom Radar doesn’t wait to be asked,” Roy said. “It watches. It thinks. It tells you what matters.”

Roy is a data scientist, journalist, and Harvard-recognized AI futurist. She also hosts the Newsroom Robots Podcast, which has ranked among the top technology podcasts in more than 30 countries on Apple Podcasts. She was named one of twelve pioneers and power players shaping the future of news in the 2025 Future Today Strategy Group Tech Trends Report.

Mariann Martin

Individual Fellowship

Martin is the co-founder and editorial director of Canopy Atlanta. She is building the Civic Memory Project, a platform that provides an issue-based, shared documentation workspace — allowing newsrooms nationwide to collaborate more effectively and serve their communities with deeper, more nuanced reporting.

“This collaboration tool is the kind of infrastructure I wished for during my six years as a co-founder in a community newsroom — something that would have transformed how we covered complex, ongoing stories,” Martin said. “It will give newsrooms the ability to pool documents, FOIA requests and on-the-ground reporting around a single issue, empowering journalists to stop duplicating efforts and deliver more comprehensive information to our communities. I’m thrilled that the Reynolds Journalism Institute is providing the resources to build this much-needed tool.”

Civic Memory Project will provide a shared record infrastructure that allows outlets to collectively share and organize public documents, interview transcripts, FOIA results, legislative timelines and verified claims around a single complex civic issue. 

Prior to founding Canopy Atlanta, which launched in 2020, Martin reported for the Chattanooga Times Free Press and The Jackson Sun.

Margaux Maxwell and Arya Surowidjojo

Individual Fellowship 

Maxwell is the director of platform and product and Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB); Surowidjojo is a documentary filmmaker and executive producer of OPB’s “Oregon Experience” documentary series. Together, they are building a journalist-run cooperative digital publishing platform for independent and creator journalists doing investigative and community reporting across the country. It includes a shared publishing layer that allows journalists to publish on their own domains while relying on collectively governed infrastructure, rather than big-tech platforms whose incentives and algorithms may not align with journalism’s values.

“Across the U.S., newsroom closures, hedge fund ownership and layoffs have dramatically reduced institutional reporting capacity,” Maxwell and Surowidjojo said in a joint statement. “Creator and independent journalists are filling the gap, but without traditional newsroom supports. Many come to rely on platforms where algorithm changes or demonetization can destabilize entire reporting operations. This puts accountability reporting, the core function of journalism and one we cannot afford to lose, at risk. This civic journalism technology aims to build the collective infrastructure needed to support and protect it.”

Planned features include opt-in legal risk review, guides and resources such as physical and digital safety planning, opt-in editorial mentorship and peer review, secure document management, FOIA tracking tools and censorship-resilient publishing. This decentralized newsroom model is designed to empower independent journalists serving their communities outside of institutional media structures.

Before OPB, Maxwell has served at The Seattle Times, The Somerville Times and the U.S. Department of State. Surowidjojo’s body of work has focused on histories, indigeneity, immigrant experiences and foodways, crafting stories through an inclusive and experiential lens.

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Cite this article

Fitzgerald, Austin (2026, May 21). Introducing the 2026-2027 RJI Fellows. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/introducing-the-2026-2027-rji-fellows/