Great news! I was named the most outstanding journalist under 30 years of age in any medium and any beat in the Atlanta area. I couldn't make it to Atlanta Tuesday evening due to a scheduling conflict, but this is what I would've said had I accepted my award in person:

Thank you to the Atlanta Press Club for the honor. I am grateful to the Georgia Tech educators who prepared me for an environmental reporting career, particularly my Urban Sociology professor Dr. Allen Hyde, and those in The Center for Serve Learn Sustain. The behind-the-scenes work of colleagues Sarah Belle Lin, Amber X. Chen, and Mark Lannaman is also instrumental to the integrity and impact of my work.

The institutional obstacles and censorship I have faced while reporting about "Cop City" have been well documented. That is nothing remotely close in magnitude to the killing of at least 97 journalists and media workers in the Gaza strip; or the physical assault, unequal treatment, and threats of arrest that student journalists are facing right now as they report on Pro-Palestinian campus protests, especially those at Columbia University and UCLA.

America needs student journalists. Any functioning and healthy democracy needs journalists of all stripes. Bad actors may try (and fail) to discredit our work as amateurish and passionate, but we will always stand by our reporting and our commitment to the truth. I salute and stand in solidarity with those doing public service journalism, and I urge readers not to look away from the atrocities committed in Gaza and stateside.