GRAND RAPIDS — Stella Mayerhoff joined the KAXE staff as a Report for America corps member on July 13.
She will cover local stories about water, agriculture and the environment in partnership with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk.
Mayerhoff graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz Science Communication program in 2026. Previously, she wrote for the Monterey Herald, the San Jose Mercury News, Stanford University’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and Mongabay. The Society of Professional Journalists named her a regional finalist for the Mark of Excellence Award in Science/Environment Reporting.
Mayerhoff found her way into journalism by way of science. Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, her sense of curiosity brought her around the world — from Puerto Rico to the Democratic Republic of Congo — to study monkeys and apes. That same curiosity now drives her to cover stories about people, science and the environment.
“I am really excited to bring what I love about science into a journalism role and take my work as a scientist and turn it into journalism work,” Mayerhoff said in her introduction on the KAXE Morning Show.
In her first week, she got a crash course on Minnesota geography and the names of lakes and rivers in our region by covering the latest edition of the state's impaired waters list.
She is thrilled to return to the Midwest. She looks forward to covering the issues important to rural communities in her work with Report for America.
Report for America recruits, places and supports talented journalists in local newsrooms across the United States to expand coverage on critical, often overlooked issues and strengthen trust with their audiences. Report for America’s journalist-first model offers a practical, hopeful solution to rebuilding local news — one community at a time.
Listen to Mayerhoff's full introduction above, and subscribe to the Up North Report podcast to catch more of the KAXE News Team’s local coverage.
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