Rachel Livinal reports on higher education for KVPR through a partnership with the Merced FOCUS news team. Livinal’s work has received several awards, including a George F. Gruner Award for Best Feature Story for her local investigative coverage about how audits show thousands of items and remains belonging to Native American tribes are still being held by California’s public universities. She received a Mark of Excellence award from the Society of Professional Journalists for Best Conversational Podcast in 2023. Her work also was a finalist for Best Entertainment Reporting and Best Podcast at the Golden Mikes this year. 

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