Environmental Engagement Journalist and Media Researcher
About Me
Diara J. Townes (she/her) is an environmental engagement journalist.
Originally from Long Island, NY, she graduated from Hampton University, an HBCU, with a bachelors in marine and environmental science. She currently reside s in Central North Carolina.
She leverages her experiences in physical science, informal education, journalism and disinformation research to develop a career that builds solutions for underrepresented and underserved populations affected by the climate and information crises.
Using community engagement methodologies, she strives to create effective strategies that will address both societal challenges on local, regional and international levels.
Diara’s media and research experience
February 2026 - present
Audience and engagement manager for The Margin, a nonprofit publication that is exclusively dedicated to environmental justice reporting.
October 2025 to present
As Program Manager at NC Local, I lead initiatives that strengthen journalism infrastructure across North Carolina and beyond. I currently manage Emergency Mode for News—a nationwide disaster preparedness resource for newsrooms developed through a Press Forward infrastructure grant in partnership with OpenNews and NewsPack.
Additionally, I’m overseeing the 2026 NC News & Information Summit, scheduled for March 27, 2026, at NC State's McKimmon Center.
I also work as a freelance contributor to NC Local, covering local government, municipal affairs, and environmental justice stories across the state.
August 2024 to July 2025
I manage audience engagement and membership growth for the Sunlight Research Center, overseeing newsletters, social media, and Slack communications to promote training sessions, research desk services, and partner collaborations. I cultivate relationships with newsroom leaders, encouraging them to sign up for membership and participate. I track audience engagement through metrics to assess impact.
I lead event strategy, securing Sunlight’s presence at industry conferences and fostering partnerships with organizations like Trusting News and MuckRock. I develop and execute content strategies to ensure the timely publication of newsletters and campaigns. I strengthen Sunlight’s visibility in investigative journalism by driving community engagement and expanding newsroom collaborations.
June 2022 to March 2025
I support the research efforts of the Disinfo Defense League, a program of the Media Democracy Fund, as a Disinfo Research Consultant. The DDL is a distributed national network of organizers, researchers, and disinformation experts disrupting online racialized disinformation infrastructure and campaigns that deliberately target Black, Latinx, Asian American/Pacific Islander, and other communities of color. DDL was created by and for these communities and is supported by services and insight provided by expert partners and organizations.
January 2022 - February 2023
Within my media and research role at the Tow-Knight Center at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York (CUNY), I’m working to answer the question of “Who designs the Internet?” I’m using the community design principles of Burning Man to outline my work for the center’s new grant-funded “Initiative in Internet Studies.”
January 2021 - Present
I teach students at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY investigative and advanced research techniques, including document discovery and exploration, digital verification, and database navigation, to inform their reporting and storytelling.
March 2020 - December 2022
At Bloc by Block News, I built relationships with community leaders and residents of Baltimore City by developing effective editorial engagement strategies with crowd-focused campaigns.
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As a program manager with Aspen Digital, I supported various ongoing projects through research and programming coordination within the Aspen Institute and partner organizations. In 2021, I provided research, digital, and social content support for academics, elected officials, and philanthropists while in the role of Research Manager for the Aspen Institute's Commission on Information Disorder, whose final report was published in November.
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I was an investigative researcher and the community engagement lead for the nonprofit misinformation research organization First Draft. I researched disinformation around U.S. election issues, breaking news events, and misinformation in public health and climate science.
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I provided production support as a summer intern with CNN’s Headline News’ True Crime unit. Work included transcription, social media research and third-party content logging. Featured content: Lies, Crime and Video
Continuing my internship into the fall, I supported the Documentary Unit’s long-form special reports on climate change, political disinformation and vaccine misinformation.
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I co-created the resource website TheRockawayProject.org for marginalized residents of the Rockaways peninsula in Queens, NY. Several community leaders and residents expressed their distress and discontent with the city, state and federal government in terms of the disproportionate support and subsequent resiliency projects that followed the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
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As an intern with the Marine Biological Laboratory, among other world-renowned science and government institutions in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, I analyzed the effects of a recently developed fisheries anesthetic on an estuarine species while researching topics in oceanography, marine biology and ecology.
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Fall 2022: Headstream professional advisory board member.
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September 2022: Recorded a podcast on historical inequity, mis and disinformation, and community design with All Tech is Human for the Unfinished Live 2022 conference in NYC.
August 2022: I spoke on two cybersecurity panels at the National Association of Black Journalists / National Association of Hispanic Journalists 2022 Convention in Las Vegas.
October 2020: I crafted and led a virtual panel discussion with three journalists on effective climate storytelling, environmental justice, and COVID-19 in partnership with the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and Climate Nexus.
October 2020: I co-led a virtual workshop with First Draft’s Training Manager Laura Garcia for members of the Association of Health Care Journalists in a master reporting class for the most common types of online health disinformation.
May 2020: I received the Newsweek Alumni Prize in journalistic achievement. I applied digital communications skills to environmental storytelling, volunteered for environmental nonprofits, and mentored students. I was selected for CNN’s Media Leadership program, served on the Graduate Student Council, and worked full-time at First Draft News upon graduation. As part of my practicum, I co-created the resource website TheRockawayProject.org for marginalized residents of the Rockaways impacted by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
November 2019: I was selected to participate in a weekend science journalism fact-checking workshop hosted by the Knight Science Journalism fellowship program at MIT.
September 2019: I served as a panelist during Climate Week NYC, hosted by Lemonade Insurance, a B corp organization. The climate and impact discussion topics included youth activism, environmental justice, and engagement journalism.
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B.S. in Marine and Environmental Science from Hampton University, 2010.
M.A. in Social [now Engagement] Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, 2019