#SEJSpotlight: Elaine Kurtenbach, The Associated Press and SEJ Volunteer

#SEJSpotlight graphic for Elaine Kurtenbach

Meet SEJ member and volunteer Elaine Kurtenbach! Elaine is an editor and reporter for The Associated Press and has worked in Asia for her entire career, mostly in China and Japan. A Coloradan and outdoors person who has spent her adult life in huge cities — Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Bangkok — Elaine has written about a wide range of topics, from Japan's efforts to save its crested ibis to desertification in north China to an experiment in raising bluefin tuna fry using mackerel near Tokyo Bay. She has collaborated on regional projects related to China's dam building and rising sea levels, among others. Elaine has degrees in political science and agriculture and resource economics and is fascinated by many topics, though rivers and water resources are a particular area of interest.

Elaine volunteers because "Volunteering for SEJ allows me to collaborate with the best in the field, to see their work and to expand my understanding of all sorts of environmental issues. It's humbling and inspiring to engage with hard toiling, brave journalists working to shed light on vital problems and solutions. It's also a modest way to try to give back. I’ve also gotten to know, though because of the pandemic mainly only remotely, new colleagues and friends who otherwise would have been strangers or unknown to me, living out here in Asia," she said. Become an SEJ volunteer today!

Check out some of Elaine's work for The Associated Press:

Fish Issues