Amy Mayer
Amy is available for
I'm looking for contract or freelance work as a senior reporter or editor or as an executive producer. Also open to one-off reporting projects and grant-funded opportunities. Often available for tape syncs. Reach out and we'll see what we can do together.- Editing
- Producing
- Recording
- Reporting
- Scripting
- Voice
- Writing
- Teaching
About Amy
From a school lunchroom to the cab of a combine and the deck of a ship, my career has introduced me to people with amazing stories to tell. I've lived and worked in Iowa, Massachusetts, Alaska and California and have reported from places as disparate as Argentina, Australia and Panama on everything from a pig coronavirus to tiny penguins to climate change. My most recent beat was agriculture and agribusiness. I've done a lot of science reporting and writing and I'm comfortable recording in the field or studio, taking photos and collaborating on projects of various sizes. I've been developing my data analysis and visualization skills. In 2022, I spent two months onboard the JOIDES Resolution as an outreach officer. I produced 12 audiograms -- snippets of science in sound -- in English and another 6 in other languages (only one of which I speak).
My work has won awards in Alaska, Massachusetts and Iowa, including two regional Murrows in the same year for my ongoing and investigative reporting on animal diseases.
Amy's Portfolio
From onboard the research vessel JOIDES Resolution, I reported how scientists use a drill-equipped ship to unlock secrets of Earth's climate history. This story for a local Rhode Island/Massachusetts audience features two local scientists.
My 2011 documentary, "Peace Corps Voices," used archive audio recorded by Peace Corps volunteers from the 1960s through the 2000s to recognize the Corps 50th anniversary. Original music by PCVs, historic presidential recordings and interviews with volunteers, staff and academics complement the field recordings. Aired nationally.
I edited this Pulitzer Center-funded project to explore how the dividing line between the dry, arid west and the lush, green east has been moving ever eastward. The 100th meridian was the traditional marker for this shift, so we explored stories from around that longitude in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.
The capstone piece from my two-months of recording and reporting onboard a research ship aired on WHYY's The Pulse. "A team of scientists on the JOIDES Resolution drill for sediment cores off the coast of Portugal — an area rich with information about earth's history."
I received grant funding from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources to travel to Oregon for this NPR feature about how local tribes there were advocating to reintroduce sea otters... and what hurdles they were facing.
Harvest Public Media's video unit provided me the collaborators I needed for this video, which has been viewed more than 650,000 times on YouTube. I did the research, wrote the script, participated in storyboarding and voiced the narration.
Experience
Skills
- Tape Syncs
- Story Editing
- Social Media
- Show Development
- Scrubbing and Audio Editing
- Research
- Reporting
- Producing
- Mentoring
- Interviewing
- Hosting
- Field Recording
- Field Producing
- Voiceover
Equipment
- Tascam, short shotgun mic; Canon DSLR.
Previous Work
- Agriculture reporter at Iowa Public Radio/Harvest Public Media (2021)