Silvia Elena Foster-Frau ’15 awarded Hearst Journalism Fellowship

Silvia Elena Foster-Frau ’15 has received the Hearst Journalism Fellowship, a two-year digital media journalism fellowship awarded to four to six aspiring journalists each year.

For the first year of her fellowship, Foster-Frau will be reporting for the Hearst Connecticut Media Group. She currently is reporting for the Greenwich Time newspaper in Greenwich, Connecticut, but will transition to The Connecticut Post in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for the second part of her internship. She aspires to be a feature writer for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, or The New York Times.

Foster-Frau's work already has made an impact. Her story about a homeless family in Greenwich inspired the community to rally together, setting up a fund of more than $4,000 and finding the family a home. A story she wrote about a transgender teen from Greenwich was picked up by the Associated Press and published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, and Hartford Courant, among others.

A 2010 graduate of Galesburg High School in Galesburg, Illinois, Foster-Frau took a gap year in Mexico before enrolling in Grinnell College in 2011. She was an English major and leader in publications on campus. She served as the writing editor for The Grinnell Review and co-host of KDIC Radio Show "The Prairie's Edge." During her fourth year at Grinnell, she was a senior interviewer for the Office of Admission.

The Hearst Fellowship is a two-year program focusing on multimedia journalism funded by the Hearst Corporation, which owns many top metro papers nationwide. Fellows work 12-month rotations at two of Hearst's top newspapers, ensuring they will gain experience in a variety of news and media environments.