Erika Beras, a behavioral health reporter and producer at 90.5 Essential Public Radio station in Pittsburgh, will compare the controversial practice of "fracking” natural gas in southwestern Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale region with the burgeoning industry in Poland. Her work has aired on NPR, the BBC and other networks. She previously worked as a journalist at The Miami Herald and other daily and weekly publications. She has won local, state and national awards for her reporting, writing and production including The Rolling Stone College Journalism Award and an Associated Press Sports Editors Award. She is also working on an oral history project of the Great Migration to southwest Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of Purchase College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and an alum of The Academy for Alternative Journalism at Northwestern University. You can follow Beras on Twitter @eprerika.