Iryna Matviyishyn, Ukraine
Iryna is an independent journalist covering human rights and conflict. She has worked as a video reporter at the Kyiv Independent and as a local producer with National Public Radio in Ukraine. She has also contributed to various media outlets, including the BBC, Monocle24, CNN, Times Radio, La Stampa, and many others, covering Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine. Prior to that, Iryna worked as an analyst and project coordinator at Internews Ukraine and as a journalist at UkraineWorld in Kyiv. She created articles and videos about human rights issues and contributed to Ukrainian national and English-language media outlets such as the Atlantic Council, Balkan Insight, and New Eastern Europe. As a freelancer, she assisted French documentary projects in Kyiv and eastern Ukraine and translated them for French media. Iryna holds two master’s degrees: one in human rights and democratization from the European Inter-University Centre in Venice, and the other in journalism from Ivan Franko National University in Lviv. Iryna has also received mobile journalism training from the Thomson Foundation. Her mother tongue is Ukrainian, but Iryna is also fluent in English and Russian and has intermediate proficiency in Polish and French.
RFE/RL Fellowships
RFE/RL’s fellowships contribute to the professional development of aspiring journalists while supporting media freedom and independence. Each fellowship is guided by our mission to provide accurate, independent journalism that supports democracy and human rights.