MacKenzie Elmer is an environment and energy reporter at Voice of San Diego, a non-profit investigative journalism newsroom.

She obtained a master’s in climate science and policy at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where she explored the impact of lithium extraction on indigenous Chilean communities driven by market and political demand for renewable energy in California.

She began her journalism career in Iowa after completing a journalism and Spanish bachelors at University of Iowa and covered everything from politics to crime at newsrooms like The Des Moines Register and the Associated Press