I am a Puerto Rican reporter based between New York City and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Growing up in the town of Guaynabo, I was convinced I was going to be a music journalist after falling in love with Rolling Stone magazine — and rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Queen — in the 9th grade. But in the end, my passion for women’s health and sexual education pushed me to become a health reporter.
During undergrad, I worked for the now extinct Puerto Rican paper, Diálogo, covering student strikes and geek & nerd culture in the island. I’m also a frequent contributor to Latino Rebels, where I interned in the summer of 2019 covering the massive protests that led to the ousting of governor Ricardo Rosselló.
In 2016, I graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with a major in journalism. A year and a half later, I moved to New York in the fall of 2018 to get my MA in Spanish-Language Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. While there, I picked up a second concentration in Health and Science, focusing on women’s health, especially menstruation, contraception, and sexual education.
2019 Student Commencement Speaker
I graduated from Newmark J in December of 2019, and was chosen by my fellow classmates to be the student speaker at commencement.
You can watch my speech below:
Natalia Rodríguez Medina 