Speakers

Karla Mendes

Investigative Reporter, Mongabay; Fellow, Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network; Vice-President and DEI Chair, Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ)

Karla Mendes is an multi-award-winning Brazilian journalist working as a Rio de Janeiro-based investigative and feature reporter for Mongabay and a fellow of the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Investigations Network. Mendes is the first Brazilian and Latin American elected to the board of directors of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ). She was also nominated SEJ's Second Vice President and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Chair. Throughout her career, Mendes has won several national and international awards.

In 2023, she was a winner of the SEAL Environmental Journalism Award, the Judge J. Elliott Hudson Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of King's College in Halifax, Canada, and 2nd place in the Lincoln Award. In 2022, Mendes won 2nd place in the SEJ Awards for outstanding investigative reporting and third place in the Fetisov Journalism Awards in the Excellence in Environmental Journalism category. In 2020, Mendes won first place in the Outstanding Explanatory Reporting category in the SEJ Awards for a project with documentary filmmaker Max Baring.