Loren Lynch is a white woman with a serious expression, wavy brown hair that's parted to her right side. She's wearing a black jacket, black shirt, and a gold necklace with angular brass pendants on it.
Loren Lynch Interim Executive Director

Loren Lynch is the interim executive director. She comes to the Observer from The Trace, where she was the first director of development, and established their membership and major gifts programs, and oversaw all organizational fundraising efforts. This is a return to the Observer for Loren, as prior to The Trace, she was with the TXO for over four years, directing their fundraising programs and assisting with overall publication strategy. Loren began her career as part of the development team at The Nation magazine, where her responsibilities included digital fundraising and creative strategy, and managing special revenue programs and events. She holds bachelor’s degrees in English and philosophy, and a MA in international affairs with a focus on media and culture from The New School in New York City.

Gus Bova Interim Editor-in-Chief

Gus Bova is the interim editor-in-chief of the Texas Observer. In 2016, he joined the Observer as an intern, later becoming a staff writer and an assistant editor. He’s covered immigration, homelessness, labor, politics, and other major Texas stories. Before coming to the Observer, he worked at a shelter for recently arrived immigrants and asylum-seekers. He studied Latin American Studies at the University of Kansas.

Ivan Armando Flores Creative Director

Ivan Armando Flores is the creative director at the Texas Observer. Originally from Miami, before joining the Observer Ivan was a freelance photographer covering the conflict in Afghanistan and its impacts on Afghan civilians. He has a masters degree in journalism from the City University of New York. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR and Foreign Policy.

Lise Olsen Investigations Editor

Lise Olsen is a Houston-based investigations editor at the Texas Observer. Lise has investigated many twisted Texas tales, including crooked judges, an unjust execution, massive environmental disasters, myriad cases of corporate and public corruption, and unsolved serial killings. Her reports in three states over 20 years contributed to the prosecutions of a former congressman and a federal judge, inspired laws and reforms, helped solve cold cases, restored names to unidentified murder victims, and freed dozens of wrongfully-held prisoners. Her work is featured in CNN’s “The Wrong Man” (2015) about the innocence claims of executed offender Ruben Cantu and the six-part A&E series on the victims of a 1970s serial killer, The Eleven, (2017). She is the author of Code of Silence: Sexual Misconduct by Federal Judges, the Secret System that Protects Them and the Women who Blew the Whistle.

Justin Miller has brown hair, a light beard and mustache and is wearing a corduroy button down over a dark t-shirt.
Justin Miller Senior Writer and Assistant Editor

Justin Miller covers politics and state government for the Texas Observer. He previously worked for The American Prospect magazine in Washington, D.C., and has also written for The Intercept, The New Republic and In These Times. Originally from the Twin Cities, he received a journalism degree from the University of Minnesota.

Michelle Pitcher is a white woman with a slight smile, her wavy brown hair falling over her shoulders. She's wearing a dark v-neck shirt.
Michelle Pitcher Staff Writer

Michelle Pitcher is a staff writer at the Texas Observer, covering criminal justice, housing, and education. She received her master’s in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley and was part of the team at The Marshall Project that won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Her reporting has been featured on NPR, FiveThirtyEight, The Dallas Morning News, and more. Michelle was born and raised in Dallas and is now based in Austin.

Josephine Lee is a Chinese woman with black hair past her sweater, wearing a red sweater. She has a slight smile on her face.
Josephine Lee McHam Investigative Reporting Fellow

Josephine Lee is the Texas Observer‘s 2023-2024 David McHam Investigative Reporting Fellow. She has previously worked as an educator and community organizer. Her reporting on labor, environment, politics, and education has been featured on Salon, Daily Beast, Truthout, and other outlets. She was raised in and lives in Houston.

A portrait of Francesca D'Annunzio, a white woman with green eyes, long brown hair, wearing a white shirt and big blue and yellow earrings.
Francesca D’Annunzio Howard Investigative Reporting Fellow

Francesca D’Annunzio is a Roy W. Howard investigative reporting fellow at the Texas Observer. D’Annunzio has reported on topics ranging from deportations in the Dominican Republic, Christian nationalism, US-Mexico border colonias, right-wing sheriffs, to zoning and housing policy in Texas. Her work has been published or syndicated in The Guardian US, The Dallas Morning News, Religion News Service, The Global Investigative Journalism Network, The Texas Standard, and The Arizona Republic, among others. She received her master’s in investigative journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, and is an alumna of the Arabic Flagship and Humanities programs at The University of Texas at Austin. She is proficient in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Arabic.

TXO Copy Editor Adam Muro
Adam Muro Copyeditor

Adam Muro is the Texas Observer‘s copyeditor. He is an editor, writer, journalist, and photographer whose work has appeared in the Independent, Columbia Journalism Review, and Al Jazeera. Originally from New York, he has worked in broadcast, print, and radio journalism, and holds a master’s degree in journalism from the City University of New York.

Steven Monacelli is a white man with short brown hair and a curved brown mustache. He's wearing a green v-neck.
Steven Monacelli Special Investigative Correspondent

Steven Monacelli is an investigative journalist in Dallas. His reporting has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, The Real News, Dallas Observer, Dallas Weekly, and more. He is also the publisher of Protean Magazine, a nonprofit literary publication.

Ben Sargent, a bald, older white man with a bushy white beard is dressed in a suit and red bowtie, with his artistic tools, including pens, in front of him.
Ben Sargent Staff Cartoonist

Ben Sargent is the Texas Observer‘s staff cartoonist. He launched his career drawing editorial cartoons for the Austin American-Statesman in 1974. He was born in Amarillo into a newspaper family and learned the printing trade from age 12 and started working for the local daily as a proof runner at 14. He attended Amarillo College and received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 1970. Sargent won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1982. He has also received awards from Women in Communications, Inc., Common Cause of Texas, and Cox Newspapers. He is the author of Texas Statehouse Blues (1980) and Big Brother Blues (1984).