John Fairhall
John Fairhall, Editor In Chief, was a reporter and editor at the Baltimore Sun for 27 years. As an assistant managing editor, he oversaw health and science coverage as well as projects.
Peggy Girshman
Peggy Girshman, Executive Editor, is a former managing editor of National Public Radio, an Executive Editor at Congressional Quarterly and also worked as a producer for Dateline NBC and several PBS series. She has won two Peabody Awards for health policy coverage.
KHN SENIOR CORRESPONDENTS
Julie Appleby reports on the health care law's implementation, health care treatments and costs, trends in health insurance, and policy affecting hospitals and other medical providers. Her stories have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, MSNBC and others. Before joining KHN, Appleby spent 10 years covering the health care industry and policy at USA Today. She also worked at the San Francisco Chronicle, The Financial Times in London and the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, Calif. She serves on the board of the Association of Health Care Journalists and has a Master of Public Health degree.
Mary Agnes Carey has covered health reform and federal health policy for more than 15 years as an editor at CQ HealthBeat, as Capitol Hill Bureau Chief for Congressional Quarterly and at Dow Jones Newswires. A frequent radio and television commentator, recently featured on the Nightly Business Report, the PBS NewsHour and on NPR affiliates nationwide, Mary Agnes has a thorough understanding of both the policy and politics of health reform. She worked for newspapers in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
Phil Galewitz covers Medicaid, Medicare, long-term care, hospitals and various state health issues. He has covered the health beat for nearly two decades. He is a board member of the Association of Health Care Journalists. In 2004‐05, he was a Kaiser Media Fellow and wrote about community solutions to the uninsured. Before coming to KHN, he was at The Palm Beach Post and was a national health industry writer for the Associated Press and The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. He has a BA in health planning and administration and a master's in public administration with an emphasis in health policy.
Jay Hancock joined Kaiser Health News in 2012 from The Baltimore Sun, where he wrote a column on business and finance. Previously he covered the State Department and the economics beat for The Sun and health care for The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk and the Daily Press of Newport News. He has a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University.
Jordan Rau's stories have been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Politico, and on npr.org and nbcnews.com, among other media outlets. He came to KHN when it was started in 2009 from the Los Angeles Times, where he covered California government and health care politics in Sacramento. He previously reported for Newsday in New York, the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire and two newspapers in Vermont.
Sarah Varney reports on the implementation of the federal health law in the states and the effect of state budget woes on public programs, county governments and vulnerable populations including children and the elderly. Most recently, Sarah was the health reporter for KQED’s statewide news program The California Report. She began reporting for KQED in 2002 and covered a range of subjects: from the ethics, politics and science of stem cell research to the religious and legal challenges over gay marriage to a story that debunked "toxin-sucking" foot pads. Sarah reports regularly for NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered and for KHN’s print partners.
CORRESPONDENTS
Jenny Gold covers the health care industry, overhaul and disparities for radio and print. Her stories for KHN have aired on NPR and been printed in USA Today, the Washington Post, McClatchy and MSNBC. She was previously a Kroc Fellow at NPR, where she covered health and business, and a broadcast associate at the CBS Evening News. She is a graduate of Brown University.
WEB REPORTERS
Shefali Kulkarni is a web reporter for Kaiser Health News. Prior to joining KHN, Shefali wrote for The Daily Beast, The Village Voice and Willamette Week. She is a graduate of Columbia University's Journalism School where she concentrated in Digital Media. Shefali is a long-time member of the South Asian Journalists Association.
Ankita Rao is a web reporter for KHN and an alumna of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Her work has appeared in several publications including the New York Times, Slate, Huffington Post, and Washington City Paper. Originally from Florida, Ankita completed a one-year Indicorps fellowship in northern India where she designed and implemented a development project. She is focused on covering the practice of medicine and disparities.
Alvin Tran is a web reporter and fellow for Kaiser Health News. He holds a Master of Public Health degree from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. Before joining KHN, Alvin wrote for KQED Public Radio’s State of Health Blog, where he covered science and health issues. Alvin has also spent time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as a University of Washington (UW) Multidisciplinary International Research Training Fellow. He received his BA in Medical Anthropology and BS in Public Health from UW.
EDITORIAL STAFF
Carol Eisenberg
Carol Eisenberg, Senior Editor, has spent 30 years as a reporter and editor. She began writing about health policy in the 1990s for Newsday, where she was part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams. Before coming to KHN, she was social policy editor at Congressional Quarterly, overseeing coverage of the passage of the health care law. She graduated from Cornell University and studied health policy during a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard.
Karl Eisenhower
Karl Eisenhower, Senior Web Editor, first covered health care policy in 1991, when he was American Health Line’s first managing editor. Karl has helped launch several politics and policy Web sites, including PoliticsUSA, PoliticsNow, the Freedom Channel and nationaljournal.com. More recently, Karl was assistant managing editor for newsroom operations at washingtonpost.com, and new media strategy editor at National Journal.
Stephanie Stapleton
Stephanie Stapleton, Editor, oversees the news aggregation for KHN writing and editing the two morning emails – First Edition and the Daily Report. In addition, she supervises the web reporters and coordinates and edits KHN’s columns and stories as needed. She was an editor and a reporter at American Medical News newspaper and online site.
Lexie Verdon
Lexie Verdon, Senior Editor, came to KHN after 32 years at The Washington Post. Her assignments there included 10 years as deputy editor of the paper’s awardâ€winning Health section and an assignment editor in the Metro news section and she supervised the Continuous News Desk, which was responsible for getting staff breaking news stories to The Post’s website. She is a native of Montana.
Andrew Villegas, Associate Editor, coordinates story web production, produces graphics and photo illustrations and helps edit the Daily Report for KHN. He also acts as KHN's social media editor. Andrew covered politics in northern Colorado before coming to Washington in 2009. He is a graduate of School of Journalism at the University of Colorado and lives in Denver.
Diane Webber
Diane Webber, Project Editor, has 20 years’ experience covering health care, education and politics. She helped launch Politico Pro’s new health care news service. She is the author of five books for teens on science and health topics published by Scholastic and is a graduate of Barnard College.
PROGRAM COORDINATOR
A'ngela Thomas
A'ngela Thomas is the administrative and financial hub for KHN, providing project and contract administration support. She manages the budget, prepares financial reports, coordinates meetings and helps update the website. She previously served as the administrative coordinator KFF’s South African Program on HIV AIDS.
CARTOON CONSULTANT