Maria Arce is an experienced editor and mentor who has managed teams of up to 40 people, with over 30 years of experience in the media industry, including 25 years in digital media and a decade covering extreme weather and natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy, Irma, María, and Dorian, among others. She’s an award-winning journalist committed to innovation and highly skilled in leveraging and launching new editorial products: newsletters, podcasts, verticals, apps, video, and social media content., including special products in the aftermath of a natural disaster such as lite website version to ensure access to news, emergency alerts and amateur radio communications. Being bilingual, her work is published in English and Spanish to support Hispanic and Latin communities.

María created PressGuides.org as the final project during her Knight Wallace Fellow 2022-2023 tenure. ARENA, a toolkit designed to integrate the resilience of amateur radio into the operations of newsrooms, was created during her tenure as RJI Innovation Fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri between 2023 and 2024. She also created these guides thanks to the mentorship received by the Ochberg Fellowship at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Columbia.