I am the staff writer at the non-profit Rural Community Assistance Corporation, based in Sacramento, Calif. I cover rural poverty and economies, the environment, and tribal issues across the 13 states of the American West, including Alaska and Hawaii. I am also a 2015 media fellow at Stanford University's Bill Lane Center for the American West. My reporting project has been on the notable increase of women farmers and ranchers in the U.S. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/women-expand-their-home-on-the-r...). My work appears in The New York Times and The Washington Post, among other publications. I am a 1996 graduate of Columbia University's Bill Lane Center for the American West, and I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Poland from 1993 until 1995. More about me and my writing and travels can be found at www.elizabethzach.com