Cassandra Profita
Cassandra Profita is a reporter, producer and editor for OPB's Science & Environment unit.
Cassandra worked for The Daily Astorian newspaper before joining OPB and launching the Ecotrope environmental news blog. She produced radio and television stories as part of the EarthFix public media collaboration that covered the environment in the Pacific Northwest.
Cassandra is a fellow with the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources and the Metcalf Institute for Marine & Environment Reporting. She’s gone out to sea to cover fisheries and marine heat waves and floated down the Klamath, Columbia and Willamette rivers to report on dam removal, sea lions and salmon. She’s ventured into active wildfires and flown over burned forests to investigate post-fire logging.
Her stories have won awards from the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Radio Television Digital News Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Cassandra grew up in Chicago and holds degrees in journalism from the University of Missouri and the University of Oregon.
Latest Stories
Klamath Tribes push to restore wetlands and wocus in Southern Oregon
For thousands of years, the Klamath Tribes have harvested a highly nutritious first food called wocus from the wetlands of Southern Oregon. As wetlands were drained for agriculture, the tribes lost a huge portion of the habitat supporting the wocus plant. Now, there’s hope that farmers can help bring that habitat back.
Watch: Klamath River reemerges after the removal of four dams
OPB video captures four Klamath River dam sites and Copco Lake reservoir before and after a $500 million removal operation.
Emerald ash borer beetle has invaded 3 more Oregon counties
The metallic-green beetle has made its way into Marion, Yamhill and Clackamas counties — miles away from the previously known infestations in Washington County.
State crews remove trees in Washington County to slow spread of emerald ash borer
This week, dozens of ash trees infested with the emerald ash borer beetle were removed from residential streets in Cornelius in an effort to slow the spread of the invasive insect that has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees across the country.
‘The Evergreen’: What Klamath dam removal means to tribes
We hear the perspective of tribes living along the Klamath River: what the country’s largest dam removal project means to them and their hopes for the future.
Massive dam removal project spurs hope in the Klamath Basin
By the end of next summer, four dams on the Klamath River in Southern Oregon and Northern California will be gone. Their removal is a source of hope and anxiety throughout the basin.
How ‘carbon farming’ could help Oregon reach its climate goals
Changing farming and ranching practices to store more carbon in the soil could be a promising strategy for reducing climate change in Oregon and beyond.
For Grand Ronde tribes, reclaiming land is a way of healing
The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde are buying back some of the land that was lost to broken treaties and U.S. termination policy.
For victims still recovering from Oregon’s 2020 Labor Day wildfires, millions in legal damages offer hope
Wildfire victims and their advocates say the PacifiCorp ruling is a lifeline after nearly three years without enough insurance money, emergency funding or government support for people who lost everything and are struggling to start over.
Jury finds PacifiCorp owes more than $73 million for causing 2020 Oregon wildfires
Oregon’s second-largest electrical utility, PacifiCorp, played a significant role in the Labor Day wildfires that ravaged parts of the state in 2020, according to a Multnomah County jury.