Kate Cimini is a reporter for The Salinas Californian covering economic inequality, housing and homelessness. A recovering public school teacher, she graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 2018 with a master's degree in national security journalism. Upon graduation, she joined The Californian as its enterprise reporter and has since led the newsroom's partnership with CalMatters, a nonprofit news outlet, as a reporter for the California Divide project. She also led The Californian's partnership with Catchlight Local, partnering with a photography fellow to illustrate the impact of the state's housing crisis on Salinas's farmworkers. She received a Center for Health Journalism Fund grant for her work on that project.