The Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute is pleased to announce the winners of the inaugural I.F. Stone Award, created to support original investigative reporting by emerging journalists, such as journalism graduate students, recent journalism school graduates and journalism interns.

We received dozens of impressive story proposals from a wide variety of applicants, including former or current interns at outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times,Newsweek, Democracy Now!, WNYC Radio, In These Times, and the Wisconsin State Journaland recent graduates of journalism programs across the country, including those at the University of California at Berkeley, Boston University, and Columbia University.

The inaugural I.F. Stone Awards will go to two talented young reporters, Nadja Drost and Jonah Engle. Drost and Engle will each receive funds to support their reporting costs and editorial guidance as they report out their investigations.

Drost, who has training in human rights and environmental policy, is a filmmaker, journalist, and multimedia reporter. Her independently produced documentary, Between Midnight and the Rooster’s Crow, probed a Canadian oil company’s controversial operations in the Amazon. Drost has contributed pieces to such outlets as Time, The Globe and Mail, and Global Post. For her I.F. Stone project, she will report on the exploding gold mining industry in Colombia.

Engle, a 2009 graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, produces a podcast, “Drug War Dispatches.” He has contributed print and radio features to outlets such as the BBC, the Denver Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Columbia Journalism Review. For his I.F. Stone project, Engle will be delving into the driving forces behind the crystal meth epidemic.

The next I.F. Stone Award deadline is April 30, 2012. Applications will be available in early February.