Elijah de Castro is an award-winning investigative, enterprise and solutions journalist and photographer whose work focuses on human and environmental health, particularly in rural communities.

De Castro began his career as a journalist at Ithaca College’s student newspaper The Ithacan, where he broke that the college’s president had taken a $172,796 payment while announcing mass layoffs. He also reported that the college constructed an artificial grass turf field its leaders knew contained cancer-causing chemicals, resulting in protests on campus. While in college, de Castro also served as an editorial intern at The Progressive, where he reported on a US-backed ethnic cleansing of indigenous Armenians by Azerbaijan, and how utility companies are fighting the renewable energy transition.

After graduating in 2023 with a degree in journalism, de Castro was reporter at The People-Sentinel, an independent newspaper in rural South Carolina. His position was made possible by Report for America, a national service program that places emerging journalists in news deserts across the country. He is now the lead reporter at the Monadnock Region Health Reporting Lab, where he reports on issues like health care, pollution, climate change and the opioid crisis.

He has had fellowships at the Solutions Journalism Network and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), and holds memberships at the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Indigenous Journalists Association and IRE. In his free time he listens to The Flaming Lips and hangs out with his dog Marley.