STAFF & LEADERSHIP

Laura Colarusso is the editor of CommonWealth Beacon, where she directs editorial and audience strategy. She is an award-winning editor and reporter who combines digital media expertise with a commitment to old-school, shoe leather reporting and adherence to the highest ethical standards.

Prior to joining CommonWealth Beacon, Laura served as editor of Nieman Reports, an online and quarterly print publication with a mission of promoting and elevating journalistic standards. She has reported on a wide variety of topics including climate change, education and health care, and covered the Pentagon in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

She has held leadership positions at GBH News in Boston, where she was the digital managing editor and won a regional 2020 Edward R. Murrow Award for the story “The Original Old Boys Club.” Laura was also the digital opinion editor at The Boston Globe. She is also a frequent contributor to the Washington Monthly.

Michael Jonas works with Laura in overseeing CommonWealth Beacon coverage and editing the work of reporters. His own reporting has a particular focus on politics, education, and criminal justice reform.

Michael has worked in journalism in Massachusetts since the early 1980s. Before joining the CommonWealth staff in 2001, he was a contributing writer for the magazine for two years. His story on Boston youth outreach workers was selected for a PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. His CommonWealth work has also won awards from Capitol Beat for state government coverage and from the New England Newspaper & Press Association for work in several areas.

Prior to coming to CommonWealth, for 15 years Michael wrote a weekly column on local politics for the Boston Globe. Michael has also worked in broadcast journalism. In the late 1980s he was a co-producer for “The AIDS Quarterly,” a national PBS series produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, and in the early 1990s, he worked as a producer for a weekly news magazine program on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) in Boston.

View articles by Michael Jonas.

Jennifer Smith writes for CommonWealth Beacon and co-hosts its weekly podcast, The Codcast. Her areas of focus include housing, social issues, courts and the law, and politics and elections.

A California native who also lived in Utah, Jennifer has covered Massachusetts since 2011 for a variety of publications. She worked breaking news in the Boston Globe’s metro section and provided courtroom coverage of the Boston Marathon bomber trial for the international wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) while completing her undergraduate journalism degree at Northeastern University in Boston. For four years, Jennifer was a staff writer and later news editor for the Dorchester Reporter, covering her home neighborhood and the city of Boston with a particular focus on politics and development.

Her work and commentary have appeared in WBUR, GBH News, Harvard Public Health Magazine, and Politico’s Massachusetts Playbook. She has co-hosted MassINC’s Massachusetts politics and policy podcast The Horse Race since 2018, interviewing newsmakers, journalists, and elected officials across the state.

View articles by Jennifer Smith.

Chris Lisinski covers Beacon Hill, transportation and more for CommonWealth Beacon. 

After growing up in New York and then graduating from Boston University, Chris settled in Massachusetts and spent three years covering the Merrimack Valley for the Lowell Sun. He then worked at State House News Service for more than six years, reporting on everything from legislative action to MBTA slow zones to the 2022 gubernatorial election. His stories, photographs and data visualizations have appeared in outlets across the state, including the Boston Globe, WBUR and the Worcester Telegram.

Chris has also been a regular guest on radio, television and podcast programs to discuss politics and policy in the Bay State, including Keller @ Large, NEPM’s Beacon Hill in 5 and The Horse Race.

Jordan Wolman is a senior reporter at CommonWealth Beacon covering climate and energy issues in Massachusetts. 

Before joining CommonWealth Beacon, Jordan spent four years at POLITICO in Washington, D.C., where he covered the intersection of climate policy and business. His reporting took him from international U.N. plastic pollution negotiations in Ottawa, Canada, to beneath the spinning turbines of an offshore wind farm 27 miles off the coast of Virginia. Jordan focused on taking POLITICO subscribers inside the biggest climate policy debates, including breaking the news that President Joe Biden was planning to take executive action to significantly boost data center construction and that California air regulators were not planning to enforce a landmark state climate law in its first year in effect. 

A New Jersey native, Jordan graduated from Lehigh University and launched the first investigative team at the school’s paper, The Brown and White. 

Hallie Claflin is a Report for America corps member covering Gateway Cities for CommonWealth Beacon.

She is a Wisconsin native and newcomer to Massachusetts. She has written for several nonprofit publications in Madison, Wisconsin, and her work has been recognized by the Milwaukee Press Club. In 2023 she spent a summer at Voice of America where she covered national and international affairs for the visual content team in Washington, DC. She previously covered rural homelessness, poverty, politics, state government, and statewide elections at Wisconsin Watch.

She completed her degrees in both journalism and political science at the University of Wisconsin, where she became passionate about strengthening local news, pursuing solutions journalism, and holding state and local officials accountable. Hallie’s coverage focuses on major policy issues like housing, transportation, and education in Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities. 

View articles by Hallie Claflin.

In her role as director of audience engagement, Yael Mazor-Garfinkle helps CommonWealth Beacon better serve our readership and build loyal audiences.

Over the past 15 years, Yael has worked for a wide array of nonprofit, political, and corporate organizations. Most recently, she worked as a freelance marketing and communications consultant and as a digital strategist for Democracy Forward, Decode Democracy, and the 2020 ballot initiative to enact ranked-choice voting in Massachusetts.

A Massachusetts native, Yael earned her undergraduate degree from Brandeis University and an M.A. in integrated marketing communication from Emerson College.

Joe Kriesberg is the CEO of MassINC, which publishes CommonWealth Beacon. In this role, he is responsible for business and strategic planning, fundraising, financial management, governance, and overall stewardship of the organization. Prior to coming to MassINC in 2023, Joe served as president and CEO of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC). He first joined MACDC in 1993 as vice president and served in that capacity until he became president in July 2002. During his time there, he launched several innovative new programs, including the Community Investment Tax Credit, the Mel King Institute for Community Building, the GOALs Initiative, the MACDC convention and the Community Development Innovation Forum. 

Joe brings decades of non-profit management experience and extensive experience working with the media and news organizations to his new role. He has raised millions of dollars for mission-driven organizations and programs and has been published in numerous publications, including the Boston Globe, the Boston Business Journal, Banker & Tradesman, and ,of course, CommonWealth magazine. 

Prior to working for MACDC, Joe worked on energy and environmental issues for nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC, and Boston. Joe has a B.A. from Binghamton University and a J.D. degree from Northeastern University. 

In his role as MassINC’s Director of Development, Ryan Garcia leads the fundraising and advancement efforts across the organization. He looks forward to furthering MassINC’s sustainability efforts to support best-in-class nonpartisan research, reporting, analysis, and civic engagement.

Prior to joining MassINC, Ryan served as the director of philanthropy at Noble Schools, a charter management organization in Chicago that serves 12,000+ students across 17 different high schools. Throughout his time with Noble, he led efforts to advance programs across the network and helped increase revenue from foundations, corporate partners, and individuals in support of educational equity, advocacy, and social justice issues.

Ryan is from Chicago, and recently earned his master’s degree in social sector leadership and nonprofit management from the University of Chicago. He’s an avid Chicago sports fan and enjoys spending his time outdoors whenever possible.