As the reporter for Chicago Public Radio’s bureau in Englewood, a neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Natalie covers news and issues in that community and surrounding areas.

Prior to joining the Chicago Public Radio staff in May 2007, Natalie was a city hall reporter for the Detroit News. She has also been an education reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and a reporter for the Associated Press in Jerusalem.

Natalie’s work has been published in Essence, Black Enterprise, the Chicago Reporter, Bitch, In These Times, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. She is co-author of the book Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation. (Cleis Press, 2006).

Natalie is a 2009 fellow at Columbia College’s Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media. She's also on the board of directors of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance.

Natalie has an M.S.J. in Newspaper Management from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a B.A. in Journalism from Howard University. She is an adjunct instructor at Columbia College Chicago and is the former program chair for the Association for Women Journalists.
 
A native of Chicago, Natalie lives in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago.