Reporter and editor
Say hi: lizmhewitt@gmail.com
On Twitter (rarely): @emhew
Selected clips
January 25, 2024
Reasons To Be Cheerful | A Ranch, Rewilded: The Transformation of California’s Next State Park
For the Waterline series: Floodplain restoration is one key way to make the Central Valley more resilient as climate change intensifies both flooding and drought.
February 2024
Travel + Leisure | Ice Dreams
For the Water Issue: These Swedish Lakes Turn Into a Winter Wonderland Where You Can Skate Past Castles, Cabins, and Pine Trees
January 2024
Rotary Magazine & Reasons To Be Cheerful | An Overdose Antidote Goes Viral
Cover story of Rotary Magazine, jointly published with RTBC: Naloxone, the pocket-sized drug that can save the life of someone overdosing on opioids, is within arm’s reach in bars, libraries and vending machines.
November 6, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | How Tiny Wetlands in the Midwest Are Combating the Gulf of Mexico’s ‘Dead Zone’
For the Waterline series: Small, constructed wetlands on farms keep excess nutrients out of waterways — and the impacts can go a long way.
September 25, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | A ‘Tape Recorder for the Planet’: What Natural History Museums Bring to the Climate Fight
Behind the scenes, their vast collections can help us better understand the past, present and future of our planet.
July 27, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | How Farmers Used California’s Floods to Revive Underground Aquifers
A feature with RTBC's Waterline series: Farms designed to recharge groundwater are answering the state’s existential question: How do you make sure devastating rainfall doesn’t go to waste?
July 27, 2023
I traveled to the northern coast of the Netherlands to partake in this quintessential Dutch pastime, called wadlopen, or mudflat walking. Read about my-14 kilometer trek through knee-deep mud and thigh-high water from the mainland to the island of Ameland.
July 26, 2023
Next Avenue | For Rural Caregivers, Respite Can Be Hard to Come By
Rural caregivers may be more likely to experience an increase in caregiver burden than urban counterparts
May 26, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | To Restore Watersheds, Think Like a Beaver
People are building beaver-inspired obstructions along waterways to make the surrounding landscape messier and more complex. That’s a good thing.
May 5, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | Fortified with Coconuts, ‘Living’ Shorelines Are Stopping Coastal Erosion
From New Jersey to Texas, a nature-nurturing alternative to concrete sea walls is protecting America’s coastline.
April 3, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | The Flashlight-Wielding, Frog-Taxiing Guardians of Spring’s ‘Big Night’
Once a year, as amphibians scramble across America’s roads to spawn, a devoted army of volunteers emerges to shepherd them pond-ward unscathed.
April 6, 2023
It's an approach that aims to improve individuals' health by connecting them with community-based groups and activities
March 31, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | Is There Anything ‘Solar Meadows’ Can’t Do?
Nourishing pollinators. Recharging groundwater. Preventing erosion. Sequestering carbon. Solar farms, once devoid of life, have become ecological superheroes.
March 23, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | Museums Are Improving Life for People With Dementia
Custom-designed museum programs are alleviating depression, fostering connection and even lowering cortisol levels in people with dementia.
March 6, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | The Wollemi Pine’s Survival Proves We Can Save More Trees
Decades ago, there were only 48 mature Wollemi pines left in the world. Then home gardeners stepped in.
March/April 2023
Archeology Magazine | L is for Lice
The earliest known full sentence to use an alphabetic script is inscribed on a small 3,700-year-old elephant-ivory comb that was unearthed in Israel.
Feb. 21, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | By Adding Timber to Old Buildings, Stockholm Is Expanding Sustainably
Architects are using lightweight wood to add on to existing buildings, preserving what’s already there and preventing wasteful demolitions.
Jan. 20, 2023
Next Avenue | Finding Home Care Help Through An App
A new range of tech platforms offers more choice and flexibility as people seek companionship and caregiving support for older adults
Jan. 2, 2023
Reasons To Be Cheerful | How a Country Embraced the River It Feared
After years of fighting floods on the Waal River, the Netherlands decided to let the water in — and turn a looming threat into a natural asset.
Dec. 2, 2022
Being Patient | With Tech, a Nigerian Artist Brings ‘Spark’ to Care Homes
In Nigeria, artist Kunle Adewale is bringing art to older adults through a range of different technologies, including virtual reality — and challenging perceptions of dementia and cognitive impairment in the process.
Oct. 10, 2022
Adaptive interaction — a way of communicating that involves mirroring a person’s actions — is helping carers connect with nonverbal people living with dementia.
Sept. 28, 2022
Forced online during the pandemic, virtual memory cafes are proving to be a fruitful way to support people with dementia
Sept. 22, 2022
Atlas Obscura | The Race to Document Prehistoric Art in a Coastal Cave in France
Scores of ancient paintings and other works will soon succumb to the sea—but a passionate team is determined to preserve this ‘bubble of memory.’
September/October 2022 -- Print Edition
Archeology Magazine | Romans Go Dutch
A Roman sanctuary unearthed at a clay extraction site in the Netherlands is giving researchers insights into life on the empire’s northern boundary.
August 9, 2022
Sierra Magazine | Why Scotland Is Opening a Dementia Center in a National Park
Uncovering the power of nature for people with dementia
July 25, 2022
Reasons To Be Cheerful | The Nature Lover’s App That Became a Catalog of Earth’s Biodiversity
In the millions of posts on iNaturalist, users are unearthing new species, tracking invasive insects and making incredible discoveries. Scientists are taking note.
June 23, 2022
Global Investigative Journalism Network | From Source to Table: How Journalists Are Investigating Food Stories Worldwide
Journalistic scrutiny is bringing to light the environmental impacts, labor conditions, health repercussions, and political influence linked to food.
March 7, 2022
Reasons To Be Cheerful | In Holland People With Dementia Can Work on a Farm
On Dutch ‘care farms’ aging folks tend to livestock, harvest vegetables and make their own decisions.
June 22, 2021
National Geographic | Why 'tiny forests' are popping up in big cities
Community forests the size of a basketball court can make an outsized difference, providing shade, attracting plants and animals, and even storing a bit of carbon.
2022
Reporting for Being Patient, an online news outlet focused on dementia:
February 4, 2021
Migrant farmworkers are crucial to the state’s dairy industry, and a new initiative offers relief funds to make up for a lack of federal support.
August 10, 2020
Could an obscure county position that harkens back to the 18th century provide a path to police oversight and reform in modern times?
August 19, 2019
PRI's The World | As asylum-seekers trek north, Canada examines border loophole
If people seeking to claim asylum in Canada were to turn up at an official entry port along the border, they would, with few exceptions, be immediately sent back to the United States. But, in what is often referred to as a “loophole” in the agreement, asylum-seekers who make it to Canadian soil between official entry points — including at Roxham Road — can make a claim.
April 9, 2019
Columbia Journalism Review | Covering climate change through an olive grower’s eyes
Agricultural industry-focused publications bring tailored perspectives to climate change coverage.
April 21, 2019
Hechinger Report | Vermont’s ‘all over the map’ effort to switch schools to proficiency-based learning
Schools across the state are ditching A through F report cards and letting students retake tests to emphasize learning over seat time, but each district’s interpretation of proficiency-based learning looks different, and a high profile fiasco in Maine looms large
January 29, 2019
The Safe Third Country Agreement is under renewed scrutiny in Canada in light of the harsher immigration enforcement policies of the Trump administration, as well as an exponential increase in the number of asylum claims in the last three years.
November 8, 2018
Slate | The Thin Green Line
What will legal Canadian marijuana mean for the increasingly fortified U.S. border?
July 1, 2018
The Department of Homeland Security Immigrations and Customs Enforcement tip line is headquartered in unremarkable brick office building a few hundred yards from a Bed, Bath & Beyond in Williston, Vermont.
July 2016
Washington Monthly | Rural America — part of a special on the opioid crisis
You could be forgiven for looking at Vermont’s heroin crisis—the surging addiction rates, the climbing death tolls, the related crime—and feeling like you’ve read this book before. Vermont is writing a new chapter with a series of policy responses that have helped lower incarceration rates by keeping addicts in treatment and out of prison.
More work at VTDigger.org
In nearly six years working at VTDigger, I covered Vermont state politics, reported on Congress and the White House as Washington, D.C. correspondent, and served as weekend editor. Here's a taste of some of my coverage:
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How Vermont DMV officials collaborated with ICE agents to report undocumented immigrants
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The failures in the Vermont prison system's mental health care that led to the death of one prisoner
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Contributed to award-winning coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Vermont, including building and managing a reader FAQ system