When Marissa Heffernan took a job covering recycling, her friends told her it seemed like the perfect fit - technical, nerdy and environmentally focused. At Resource Recycling, she dove into recycling policy in particular, moderating panels, writing in-depth stories and starting a monthly newsletter that quickly reached over 2,000 readers per edition.
Heffernan graduated from the University of Arizona in May 2019 with a BA in Journalism with honors and environmental studies and French minors. She was then a general assignment reporter with the Daily News in Longview, WA on the education, port and environment beats from 2019 to 2022 and won numerous awards, helped unionize the newsroom and delved deep into vital local topics.
Born in Biddeford, Maine, she enjoyed her time in the Arizona desert, but moved to Washington and then Oregon to get back to a more familiar landscape. An avid hiker, a little PNW rain is no deterrent, and Heffernan spends most weekends exploring trails or rock climbing.
While Heffernan always loved writing, she did not become interested in journalism until high school, where she eventually became the managing and news editor of her school paper, The Roar, and editor/co-founder of her school's literary and graphic magazine The Abyss. She attended the 2014 Al Neuharth Free Spirit and Journalism Conference in Washington D.C. as the representative from Maine.
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During the summer of 2016, she interned at The Journal Tribune. She wrote for The Daily Wildcat on the news and science desks since 2015 and was Managing Editor from January 2018 to May 2019. Heffernan was also the 2018-2019 NASA Space Grant Intern at the Arizona Daily Star.
Marissa Heffernan sits in a recording booth during a tour of Radio France International, Paris, July 2017.