Founded in 2018 and based in Atlanta, The Xylom grows healthy, interconnected communities across the world.
As the only Asian American-run news outlet dedicated to science, climate, and environmental coverage, we leverage our lived experiences to become your most trusted resource on environmental health impacts and democracy.
Our name is derived from the Ancient Greek word ξύλον (xúlon), the plant tissue that transports water and nutrients from the roots up to the stems and leaves. We envision ourselves as the connective tissue between those who do science and those who need science.
Drawing on the indomitable spirit of the American South and the sensibility of our forebearers from the Global South, our award-winning multilingual, multimedia reporting seeks to bring you clarity, complicate the narrative, and drive actionable solutions.
The Xylom is an independent, nonprofit website whose work is written, reported, and owned by human journalists. We will never have a paywall, and we don't take money from fossil fuel companies, lobbyists, or politicians either. That's because our intended audience is real people, not AI scrapers, bots, or search algorithms.
MEET THE TEAM
ALEX IP 葉清霖
Publisher and Editor
Alex weaves deeply reported narratives on the future of cities and environmental justice with original photography and open-source intelligence. His reporting on false statements from the City of Atlanta regarding "Cop City" led to him being named the Atlanta Press Club's 2024 Rising Star.
Born and raised in Hong Kong and fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin, Alex also led a team to translate the KSJ Science Editing Handbook into Chinese (Traditional and Simplified). Alex holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering from Georgia Tech and a master's degree in Science Writing from MIT.
Laasya is The Xylom's Managing Editor, based in Chennai, India. She is a veteran of two venerable local independent news outlets, Citizen Matters and Newslaundry. As a freelancer, she has written extensively on environmental issues, women's and children's rights, and other critical social and civic issues for the BBC, Thomson Reuters, Nature, Dialogue Earth, and Mongabay India. She holds a Master's degree in Journalism from Bharathiar University.
AORUI PI 皮奧睿
Engagement Editor and Public Health Writer
Aorui is a bilingual journalist and news producer based in Los Angeles. She manages The Xylom's social media presence and reports on the future of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the United States. With living experience abroad and a keen interest in reporting international stories, Aorui brings a global perspective to her work. A recent journalism graduate from the University of Southern California, her bylines include Initium News, RADII, and USC Annenberg Media.
KANG-CHUN CHENG 鄭康君
Editor-at-Large
KC is a Taiwanese-American photojournalist based in Nairobi, Kenya covering how climate change exacerbates insecurity, Indigenous communities' response to development, China-Africa relations, and outdoor adventure. She uses photography as a tool for storytelling.
KC has herded reindeer in the Arctic, roasted lamb with pastoralists in the mountains of Xinjiang, hitchhiked through Tunisia, harvested honey with the Yaaku in Kenya's Laikipia North, walked the Camino de Santiago, and free-dived on the south Sinai peninsula. Her bylines include The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, Climbing Magazine, and Al Jazeera.
SAUGAT BOLAKHE सौगात बोलखे
Ferriss - UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellow
Saugat is a Nepalese freelance science journalist based in New York City. He is passionate writing about living things, biotech, and the environment. His words have headlined The Atlantic, Wired, Scientific American, Nature, Science News, Quanta Magazine, New Scientist, EOS, Knowable Magazine, and other publications. He is also a program assistant at The Open Notebook (TON), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping global science journalists improve their craft.
In 2024, Saugat was recognized as the Science Journalist of the year by the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology. He has a BS in Zoology from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, and an MA in science journalism from Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. When not writing, he’s either running, hiking, humming songs, trying gymnastics, or geeking over another sci-fi show.
Betsy Ladyzhets is the founder of The Sick Times, a journalist-founded website chronicling the Long Covid crisis, and the community manager for the CASW Connector, a curated collection of resources to promote excellence in interpreting science for the public. Before that, she ran the COVID-19 Data Dispatch, a publication that provides news and resources on pandemic data. Her bylines include Science News, STAT, FiveThirtyEight, the COVID Tracking Project, and other outlets.
Betsy Ladyzhets
Paola Rosa-Aquino is a freelance science writer. She has a background in astronomy and was an Environmental Justice Fellow at Grist. A native Puerto Rican fluent in Spanish, she is also the Executive Committee Vice Chair at The Uproot Project, a network of and for environmental journalists of color. Her previous bylines include Insider, Popular Science, The New Republic, Gizmodo and Salon.
Paola Rosa-Aquino
Tyler Jones is an Editorial Fact-Checker for NPR, and Program Coordinator at the Boston University SciCommers program. She bridges her background in Entomology with extensive experience working with early-career science communicators and writers. She is an organizer for Black Birders Week, and her bylines appear on The Daily Beast, Tucson Audubon's Vermillon Flycatcher, and Penn State News.
Tyler Jones
ADVISORY BOARD
Priyanka Runwal is a multilingual science journalist based in New York City. For C&EN, she covers communities impacted by toxic pollutants and those left behind in the wake of scientific advances. Previously, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic and other health stories as National Geographic's resident reporter. Priyanka's work has also appeared in The New York Times, Scientific American, STAT, and BBC Earth, among other publications; she was the 2025 AAJA Journalism Excellence in Science/Environment/Health Reporting Award winner.
Priyanka Runwal
Dr. Yangyang Cheng is a Research Scholar in Law and Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, where her work focuses on the development of science and technology in China and US‒China relations. Her essays have appeared in outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, MIT Technology Review, and WIRED. As a co-host, writer, and producer of Crooked Media’s acclaimed narrative podcast series Dissident at the Doorstep, she was a 2025 AAJA Journalism Excellence Award recipient.
Yangyang Cheng
Rhysea Agrawal is The Xylom's former Managing Editor. She is currently the Engagement Editor of the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communication, and the Founder and Creative Director of What the Earth. Rhysea graduated from USC with degrees in Journalism, Geological Science, and English. She served as the Founding Editor of USC Annenberg Media's Earth Desk. Her other bylines include CalMatters, Sojourners, and one5c.
Rhysea Agrawal
WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD TOGETHER.
Our stories amplify marginalized voices, drive accountability, and spur local action.
MASTHEAD
Alex Ip
Publisher and Editor
Laasya Shekhar
Managing Editor
Aorui Pi
Engagement Editor and Public Health Writer
Kang-Chun Cheng
Editor-at-Large
Saugat Bolakhe
Ferriss - UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellow