Denisse Salazar is a staff writer for The Orange County Register covering local government. Over the years, she has also covered crime, courts, human trafficking and breaking news, such as team coverage of Orange County’s worst mass killing, which won first place in online breaking news from the California Newspaper Publishers Association (2011).

Salazar has won local awards for her work. She graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a bachelor's degree in communications with an emphasis in journalism and a minor in Spanish. She earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from USC.

For her Fellowship project, she will take a deep dive into the mental and physical and developmental effects of multi-generational gang violence on children in urban communities such as Santa Ana in Orange County.