IRIS NRC is delighted to announce that UW-Madison senior Catherine “Cat” Carroll has been awarded a 2025 Reporting Fellowship by the Pulitzer Center. Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellowships support students pursuing independent journalism projects on underreported global topics including climate change, migration and refugees, global health, and human rights.
Carroll’s project “Critical Care: Two Nations, One Crisis, and the Race for Healthcare Workers” will report on the recently revitalized worker migration program in Austria that brings trained nurses from the Philippines. While much of Carroll’s reporting will be done out of Vienna, the nation’s capital, she will also travel to the Tyrol region of Austria to explore differences in the experiences of nurses being placed in rural settings. “Reporting on regional differences will enable me to bring to light the nuanced political dynamics that influence public reaction to this worker migration program across Austria,” Carroll says. “I will be conducting interviews with nurses who have recently moved to Austria as part of this program but also nurses who moved to Austria as part of the original version of this program half a century ago”. Hearing the stories of these two groups will help Carroll identify key differences in the revitalized program and enable her to assess the effectiveness of the improved integration measures Austria has introduced and promoted.
Carroll will be graduating in Spring 2025 with majors in journalism and mass communication, international studies and German with certificates in public policy, European studies, Middle East studies and Arabic language and culture. A recipient of an IRIS NRC Summer FLAS for the study of Arabic in 2023, Carroll is also a UW-Madison Center for Journalism Ethics 2024-2025 Fellow. She has served as Managing Editor of The Badger Herald and currently serves as its Chair of the Board of Directors.
This is the Sixth year of UW-Madison’s partnership with the Pulitzer Center, which provides a UW student with a $5,000 grant and guidance from the Pulitzer Center. Past UW-Madison consortium fellows have reported on migration in Tunisia, climate change in Zambia, and refugees in Greece. Reporting Fellows benefit from Pulitzer Center mentorship, networking opportunities, and journalism resources. Most importantly, they become part of a vibrant community. Articles, photo essays, video, audio, and interactives produced by Reporting Fellows are featured on the Pulitzer Center website and in multiple news outlets.
To learn more about the UW-Madison Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium please go to https://irisnrc.wisc.edu/pulitzer-center-campus-consortium/
Students interested in the Campus Consortium Fellowship may find more information about the program here.