Meet The 19th’s fifth cohort of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Fellows

The 19th is proud to welcome its fifth cohort of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Fellows — four HBCU alumni who will spend the next year growing their careers in reporting, audience and development while helping shape the future of journalism.

Last year’s news product fellow will return to The 19th as our first senior product fellow as part of a pilot of a renewable second year for the product fellowship. 

News product roles often require years of experience, but there are few clear paths for earlier-career journalists to gain experience and develop the strategic, technical and cross-functional skills employers are looking for. This pilot will help The 19th explore whether a longer runway better prepares emerging news product professionals for permanent roles in journalism.

This year, The 19th also launches a development fellowship — a critical and historically underrepresented career pathway in news. It’s designed to expand who participates in shaping how journalism is funded, while equipping the fellow with experience in fundraising strategy, donor engagement and the business of nonprofit journalism. 

“This fellowship has always been about ensuring talented HBCU graduates have the support, mentorship and opportunities to build lasting careers in journalism,” said Kari Cobham, The 19th’s director of fellowships and a graduate of Bethune-Cookman University. 

“Every year, we learn something new about how to best prepare fellows for the industry,” Cobham said. “I’m excited to welcome this new cohort and to continue to invest in the growth of emerging talent.”

The 2026-27 fellows are:

• Jerica Deck, audience fellow and Hampton University graduate
• Leah Proctor-Ford, inaugural development fellow and Spelman College graduate
• Afia Barrie, reporting fellow and Howard University graduate
• India Rice, reporting fellow and Clark Atlanta University graduate

Returning fellow:

• Kristina Ousley, inaugural senior product fellow and graduate of Dillard and Florida A&M universities

Named for the “mother of Black journalism,” the Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Fellowship provides early- and mid-career HBCU alumni with full-time opportunities across The 19th’s newsroom and business teams. Fellows receive individualized mentorship, professional development, career coaching, conference support, networking opportunities and personalized job-search guidance. Learn more about the program’s offerings.

Fellows have made meaningful contributions to The 19th and our journalism since the program’s 2022 launch, from launching the Instagram Surviving the News series to taking a story from pitch to distribution on our site and social media. Their work has also included collaborating on a powerful story about communities stepping up to keep people fed as SNAP funding ran out and redesigning navigation on certain site pages to make it easier for readers to find what they need on our website. 

Alums have gone on to work for outlets including The Marshall Project, Capital B, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, The Baltimore Banner, The Trace and The Nashville Banner.

Explore the work of the previous cohort at The 19th as well as the work of 2024-25 and 2023-24 fellows, and the 2022-23 inaugural cohort.

Audience Fellow

Jerica Deck is The 19th’s audience fellow. She is a Maryland-born, Brooklyn-based social strategist, journalist and storyteller.

Before joining The 19th, Jerica worked as a social media manager at Girls Who Code, a global nonprofit working to close the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) through representation, education and access. Much of her work focused on translating complex topics into engaging digital storytelling for students from historically underrepresented communities. She contributed to campaigns, including the world’s first codeable music video with Doja Cat and a student-created augmented reality filter for the Chadwick Boseman Foundation.

Jerica has covered race, gender, pop culture and systemic inequality at organizations like Global Citizen and The Afro-American Newspapers in Baltimore. She also served as a social media and editorial partnerships fellow at Business Insider.

She studied journalism at Hampton University, where she was an editor of the student newspaper, The Hampton Script. She later joined DoSomething.org’s Summer Ambassador Program as the digital content cohort lead for racial justice, helping lead the #DisruptRacism campaign to highlight Black stories and amplify marginalized voices.

Jerica is passionate about creating digital content that informs communities while remaining human, culturally relevant and accessible.

Inaugural Development Fellow

Leah Proctor-Ford is The 19th’s inaugural development fellow. Most recently, she supported growth at Outlier Media as social engagement consultant, sponsored content project manager and operations manager.

Leah’s media experience includes more than a dozen internships, fellowships and professional development programs, including two business internships at The New York Times and a reporting fellowship with The New York Times Student Journalism Institute. Leah also interned with NBCUniversal, supporting broadcast coverage for the Rio Olympics.

Leah is a graduate of Spelman College, where she earned a degree in U.S. history. Throughout her career and her studies, she explored the intersections of information, capital and power.

She studied in Seville, Spain, taking coursework entirely in Spanish through the Council on Educational International Exchanges’ Communications, New Media + Journalism semester program.

After graduation, Leah’s curiosity about technology and innovation led her to Venture For America, a two-year fellowship that connected aspiring entrepreneurs to opportunities in startups. As a 2024 HBCUvc fellow, she conducted research at a venture capital firm to better understand how funding shapes outcomes. 

In 2022, she launched her own consulting practice, partnering with startups, nonprofits and small businesses led by women and LGBTQ+ founders with ambitions to scale.

Leah was raised in the Philadelphia suburbs and is a fourth-generation Detroiter. She earned her first byline at her hometown newspaper, The Pottstown Mercury.

Reporting Fellows 

Afia Barrie is one of The 19th’s reporting fellows. She graduated from Howard University in 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in human development.

Most recently, she was a summer 2025 intern at The Washington Post on the local enterprise reporting team, covering the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

She previously interned at PBS NewsHour as a Gwen Ifill Fellow, where she supported the show’s production, and at CNN as a newsgathering intern on the justice team. She also served as an academic fellow on The Washington Post’s local team.

At Howard, Afia was a writer for the student-run 101 Magazine, covering campus life and pop culture. She later became a variety reporter and variety editor at The Hilltop, the nation’s oldest Black collegiate newspaper.

Afia is from Oakland, California, and grew up in Los Angeles County, where she is based now.

India Rice is one of The 19th’s reporting fellows. She has a background in multimedia reporting with a passion for telling meaningful stories about culture, politics and entertainment.

Before joining The 19th, she worked at SiriusXM as a production intern for The Sporkful and Atlas Obscura podcasts, producing and editing episodes about food and travel. She also narrated several Atlas Obscura episodes exploring eccentric locations in pop culture.

India previously interned at New York Public Radio, where she worked on WNYC’s All Of It with Alison Stewart and produced culture-focused segments on tastemakers. She also interned for Joy-Ann and Jacque Reid’s podcast, Reid This Reid That, conducting research, producing segments, and creating digital content on politics and culture. 

In 2023, India was a Forbes HBCU Scholar covering the business of STEM, from breaking news to profiles on tech startup founders.

During the 2024 election cycle, India was a reporting fellow for Canopy Atlanta’s Voting Barriers and Bridges project, dedicated to identifying barriers to civic engagement. She conducted interviews in communities with low voter turnout. Her work led to a story about the third-party presidential candidates whom Atlanta residents turned to after being disillusioned by the electoral process.

India earned a bachelor’s degree from Clark Atlanta University, where she helped revive The Panther, CAU’s independent, student-run newspaper. She was also a member of her school’s first NBCUniversal scholarship cohort and went on to produce a documentary about the impact of Black journalists in the media.

India recently earned a master’s degree in journalism from New York University, where she covered topics ranging from sexual misconduct in New York City juvenile detention centers to African diasporic tensions in braiding salons. She is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Inaugural Senior Product Fellow

Kristina Ousley returns to The 19th as our senior product fellow. She’s a doctor of science candidate in information and interaction design at the University of Baltimore, where her research explores how augmented reality and immersive media can support cognitive development in young adults.

During her first year of the fellowship, Kristina led several projects to make The 19th’s website easier to use and maintain. She developed a new breadcrumbs navigation feature that helps readers understand where they are on the site and move more easily between related sections. She also led the redesign of the sitewide banner, helped prioritize and resolve website issues, implemented security improvements, and conducted research and testing to inform product decisions.

Kristina also worked closely with engineers to improve the website experience for people with accessibility needs and helped make content easier to navigate and use. Her work supported The 19th’s broader commitment to creating an inclusive digital experience while strengthening the systems and tools that support our journalism.

A two-time HBCU graduate of Dillard and Florida A&M universities, Kristina brings experience across user experience, design and emerging technology. Before joining The 19th, she managed user experience projects at Healthcare Service Corporation, leading cross-functional work on digital products and a career readiness platform. 

Her previous work also includes developing government websites, extended reality applications and data visualizations, serving as creative director for the American Journal of Evaluation, and producing news and visual content for small businesses and nonprofits.

Kristina serves on the board of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, where she mentors design students and supports event media. She is based in Baltimore.

Please join us in welcoming Jerica, Leah, Afia and India to The 19th, and welcoming Kristina back as our first senior product fellow!