The Asian American Journalists Assn.’s Los Angeles chapter, in partnership with the Los Angeles Times and the family of Gregory Yuen Yee, is excited to announce Iris Kwok as the recipient of a 2026 Yee training grant.
Congratulations, Iris! Iris received a $1,500 grant to help cover travel expenses to attend the AAJA national convention in Minneapolis.
The Gregory Yuen Yee Training Grants were established in honor of an outstanding young journalist who helped shape news coverage through his energy, dedication and precision, especially while chasing breaking news as a member of the L.A. Times’ Fast Break desk.
Yee, a sensitive and disciplined writer with exceptional curiosity and empathy, was passionate about local news. In that vein, AAJA-LA seeks to award grants to early-career journalists who are working to strengthen their journalistic skills and make deeper connections with their local communities.
Iris is a reporting fellow at the Los Angeles Times and has worked with the paper’s business, education, entertainment and California politics teams. She has contributed to midterm elections coverage and has collaborated on breaking news stories. She was the first reporter to get California Gov. Gavin Newsom to directly comment on the Garden Grove chemical leak and explosion threat that forced tens of thousands of to evacuate in late May.
Iris has written multiple front-page stories for the L.A. Times, including a subscriber exclusive on the wine industry’s struggles that garnered thousands of site views, and another on elite L.A. high school Harvard-Westlake’s crackdown on phone use by making students download an app that blocks social media and games.
Before joining the L.A. Times, Iris worked as an environment reporter for Berkeley’s nonprofit news site Berkeleyside through the Report for America program and served as a reporter and deputy news editor at UC Berkeley’s Daily Californian. She also was an AAJA Voices audio fellow in summer 2021 and a volunteer mentor for JCal, a training program run by AAJA and CalMatters, in 2024.
“It was an honor to attend the 2026 AAJA National Convention in Minneapolis, thanks to the Gregory Yuen Yee Training Grant,” Iris said. “As an early-career reporter at the L.A. Times heading into the final months of the newspaper’s fellowship program, I am grateful to have had the chance to reconnect with mentors from across the country and get to know journalists whose work I’ve long admired.
“Among the many memorable sessions,” Iris continued, “I appreciated attending a discussion on combating both-sidesism featuring prominent news leaders, and an enlightening panel on investigating nonprofits. The inspiring — and timely — chat with Ann Curry during the gala was yet another highlight.
“Thank you for your generous support in making this experience possible.”
Learn more about the Gregory Yuen Yee Training Grants here.
— Rubaina Azhar, AAJA-LA general board member