El Tímpano is thrilled to announce three new members of our newsroom, expanding our capacity to produce in-depth journalism with, for, and about the Bay Area’s Latino and Mayan immigrant communities.
Heather Tirado Gilligan is El Tímpano’s new Managing Editor, supporting the operations and editing of a growing reporting staff. Heather is a longtime Oakland-based journalist whose work has focused on health and equity. She has written for publications including Slate, The Nation, CNN, the Washington Post and USA Today. She’s also worked as Executive Editor of the California Health Report, a news nonprofit covering disparities in health and access to health care. She comes to El Tímpano from CalMatters, where she supported newsroom operations.
Cassandra Garibay joins as our new Senior Housing Reporter. She is the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants and was born and raised in California with roots in the Bay Area and Central Valley. She has a background in housing and health equity reporting and community engagement journalism, and is a proud first-generation college graduate with a B.S. in Journalism from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Prior to joining El Tímpano, Cassandra served as the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism California Engagement Editor and has previously reported for Fresnoland, The Fresno Bee and The San Luis Obispo Tribune.
Erica Hellerstein is our new Senior Labor & Economics Reporter. She brings to El Tímpano more than a decade of experience reporting on global human rights issues. Before joining El Tímpano, Erica was a senior reporter with the international newsroom, Coda Story, covering the roots of global crises, from technology’s acceleration of authoritarianism to the use of historical revisionism to serve nationalist political agendas. Before that, she was a poverty and inequality reporter with the San Jose Mercury News, and an investigative reporter with the North Carolina alt-weekly, INDY Week. Erica was born and raised in the Bay Area and lives in Oakland with her partner and enormous rescue dog.
With the addition of Heather, Cassandra, and Erica, El Tímpano’s newsroom is now a team of nine, led by Editorial Director Maye Primera. Jasmine Aguilera covers health equity, Vanessa Flores is our Community Reporter, and Ximena Loeza, a California Local News Fellow, covers Central and East Contra Costa. Hiram Alejandro Durán is a Catchlight Local/Report for America photojournalist, and Katherine Nagasawa supports the engagement and impact of our journalism. You can see all staff bios on the Team page of El Tímpano’s website.