María Inés Zamudio is an award-winning investigative journalist with the Center for Public Integrity. Previously, she was a radio reporter covering racial inequalities for WBEZ, the Chicago NPR station. Her coverage of the city’s water affordability crisis led to a moratorium on water shutoffs, the creation of a city-wide program to help low-income homeowners, and a state-funded $42 million water emergency assistance program for homeowners who can’t afford their water and sewer bills. Zamudio has spent the last decade investigating racial inequalities and the policies behind them. Her coverage has received multiple awards, including the National Press Foundation’s Poverty and Inequality Award, and multiple regional Edward R. Murrow Awards. In 2019, she was named the best radio reporter at the Peter Lisagor Awards held by the Chicago chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. And in 2022, her body of work and her commitment ensuring her reporting is accessible to the affected communities was honored with the Studs Terkel Award, which recognizes excellent coverage of Chicago's diverse communities. For the California Health Equity Fellowship, Zamudio and colleague Amy DiPierro will investigate why some Californians don’t have access to affordable and safe drinking water – and who profits from that unequal access. 

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