Cecilia Phillips

Coordinating Producer and Digital Food Producer

Check, Please! Bay Area Coordinating Producer and On-Camera Reporter Cecilia Phillips began her journalism career as a reporter at KIEM in Eureka, California, before joining KQED as an intern for Check, Please! Bay Area. She has long been a part of the Bay Area food scene, working under several celebrity chefs and serving as a food tour guide for many years in San Francisco. In her special series "Cecilia Tries It," she scours the Bay Area in search of off-the-beaten-path spots for exciting, culturally diverse culinary experiences that fans can’t miss. Recommend your favorite hidden-gem food spots to her on Instagram at @ccroundthetown.

Eliza Peppel

Eliza is an award-winning journalist living in Oakland. She was previously a reporting fellow at KALW, where she reported daily news and long-form radio features. Eliza studied journalism at Fordham University in The Bronx during the COVID-19 pandemic. She grew up mainly in California and spent a few childhood years in Aix en Provence, France.

Gabe Meline

Senior Editor, KQED Arts & Culture

Gabe Meline entered journalism at age 15 making photocopied zines, and has since earned awards from the Edward R. Murrow Awards, the Society for Professional Journalists, the Online Journalism Awards, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Prior to KQED, he was the editor of the North Bay Bohemian and a touring musician. He lives with his wife and daughter in his hometown of Santa Rosa, CA.

Janea Melido

Intern, KQED Arts & Culture

Janea Melido is an intern for KQED Arts & Culture. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and minor in Ethnic Studies from the University of Portland. She's drawn to the quiet power of everyday stories, especially ones that often go overlooked. When she's not reporting, she enjoys cutting up her old print stories and making collages out of them.

Josh Decolongon

Audience Engagement Producer, KQED Food

Josh Decolongon is the audience engagement producer for KQED Food and Check, Please! Bay Area as well as the host and producer of No Crumbs, KQED's first vertical video Food series. His flavorful adventures have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Vice News, SFGate and Thrillist. On his spare time, Josh enjoys experimenting with flavors for a new cocktail or finding the next exciting wine pairing.

Lori Halloran

Series Producer

For her work in arts and current affairs programming for KQED, Check, Please! Bay Area Series Producer Lori Halloran has garnered five Regional Emmys and multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the NorCal RTNDA, the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club and the Los Angeles Press Club. At KVIE in Sacramento, she produced the national adventure program Off Limits, where she flew in the Goodyear Blimp, got towed out to sea on the Navy’s FLIP ship and spent a long, cold night checking bear traps in Yosemite. Originally from Canada, she’s partial to poutine, butter tarts and salt n’ vinegar chips.

Luke Tsai

Food Editor

Luke Tsai is KQED's food editor and resident stinky tofu connoisseur. Prior to KQED, he was an editor at Eater SF, San Francisco magazine, and the East Bay Express, and his work has also appeared in TASTE, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Best Food Writing anthology.  When he isn't writing or editing, you'll find him eating most everything he can get his hands on.

Nastia Voynovskaya

Editor and reporter

Nastia Voynovskaya is a reporter and editor at KQED Arts & Culture. She's been covering the arts in the Bay Area for over a decade, with a focus on music, queer culture, labor issues and grassroots organizing. She has edited KQED story series such as Trans Bay: A History of San Francisco's Gender-Diverse Community, and co-created KQED's Bay Area hip-hop history project, That's My Word. Nastia's work has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists and San Francisco Press Club. She holds a BA in comparative literature from UC Berkeley.

Pendarvis Harshaw

Community Engagement Reporter

Pendarvis Harshaw is an educator, host and writer with KQED Arts.

Rae Alexandra

Reporter/Producer

Rae Alexandra is a Reporter/Producer for KQED Arts & Culture, and the creator/author of the Rebel Girls From Bay Area History and Bizarre Bay Area series. Her debut book, Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area was published by City Lights in March 2026. In 2023, Rae was awarded an SPJ Excellence in Journalism Award for Arts & Culture. Rae was born and raised in Wales and subsequently — even after two decades in Northern California — still uses phrases that regularly baffle her coworkers.

Sarah Hotchkiss

Senior Editor

Sarah Hotchkiss is a San Francisco artist and arts writer. In 2019, she received the Dorothea & Leo Rabkin Foundation grant for visual art journalism and in 2020 she received a Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California award for excellence in arts and culture reporting.

Ugur Dursun

Engagement Producer, KQED Arts & Culture

Ugur Dursun is a reporter and audience engagement producer for KQED Arts. Previously, her reporting has appeared on SFGate, East Bay Times, The Mercury News, KTVU, NBC Bay Area, The Stanford Daily, and other Bay Area local news outlets. In 2023, she was a recipient of Online News Association's MJ Bear Fellowship, which honors six standout journalists under the age of 30 who are pushing innovation in digital news.