Meet the Staff at East Lansing Info

Tedda Hughes, Executive Director & Publisher

Tedda Hughes became ELi’s Executive Director and Publisher in September 2025 following an open search and approval from ELi’s Board of Directors. Hughes graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from top-rated Carleton College and, in 2019, earned a Juris Doctor from Michigan State University’s College of Law, where she focused on housing and public service. Her career has included work in the arts and nonprofit management. She served on the East Lansing Arts Commission and served in other fulfilling public service positions in the Capital Region. Hughes and her husband are raising three children, who attend East Lansing Public Schools and Michigan State University. They live in East Lansing’s Glencairn Neighborhood.

Luke Day, Managing Editor

Before becoming Managing Editor in January 2024, Luke worked for two years as ELi’s City Desk Editor. A native of northern Michigan, he holds an associate of arts degree from Northern Central Michigan College, a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in social work, both from Michigan State University. Having been a beat reporter for The State News, Luke has a strong understanding of local government and town-gown relations. Prior to joining ELi, he also worked for The Graphic/Petoskey News-Review, Great Lakes Echo and The St. Ignace News. He also interned with the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness and Safe & Just Michigan.

Anna Liz Nichols, Deputy Editor

Anna is an award-winning journalist and proud native Michigander whose reporting has brought critical stories to light across the state and to national audiences. Anna has covered many defining and challenging moments in Michigan including high-profile elections, historic labor strikes and the impacts of different forms of violence on local communities. Anna is a graduate of Michigan State University where she studied journalism and environmental studies & sustainability. She has been recognized for her reporting driving conversations around gender-based violence and women in politics by the National Press Foundation and has earned several Michigan Press Association honors including a runner-up finish for the Richard Milliman Journalist of the Year award in 2024. In her free time Anna is knocking National Parks off her bucket list and running and exploring Michigan’s many trails.

Dustin DuFort Petty, Reporter

Dustin moved to East Lansing in 2003 to study at Michigan State University. He has earned two degrees there, a bachelor’s degree in Agriculture & Natural Resources Communications and a master’s in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education. An academic advisor for the Bailey Scholars Program at MSU, he has also co-authored two books, Michigan FFA: A Legacy of Great Lakes Leadership and The New Bullying, the latter being named a National Finalist in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Mark of Excellence competition. He is researching for a new book about the queer post-war history of MSU and the greater Lansing area. He is an avid baker, genealogist, vintage Pyrex collector, and volunteer in his spare time. At ELi, he is reporting on many areas of interest to our readers, including schools, local government, and faith communities.

Ayah Imran, City Government Reporter

Ayah started as an MSU student intern for ELi in 2024, covering the Library Board of Trustees and important community events. After graduating and completing an internship with the Detroit Free Press, Ayah has returned to be ELi’s primary city government reporter. She loves to travel and has been to six countries, including the UAE and Palestine, where her family is from. In her free time, she loves discovering new music, thrifting, reading non-fiction, trying new recipes, and spending quality time with friends and her cats, Roscoe and Toph.

Morgan Lees, Tech Manager

Morgan created the ELi website and now manages its ongoing design and maintenance. If everything is going right with the site, they should be invisible, and that’s how they like it.  Morgan is a comic creator, science fiction and fantasy writer, and artist – when not wrangling websites – who grew up in and still resides in East Lansing (along with family and cats). In their spare time, Morgan reads, plays computer and roleplaying games, dabbles in photography, races karts and in iRacing, and enjoys getting outdoors in nature.

Belle Potter, Reporting Intern

Belle is a senior at East Lansing High School, where she is one of the Co-Editors in Chief of their school newspaper, Portrait, after being the Print Editor for the 2024-2025 school year. Belle hopes to major in Journalism with a minor in Political Science or Rhetoric after graduating from ELHS. She’s passionate about learning and telling the stories of all the unique people and places around the East Lansing area. When she’s not writing, you can find Belle on the pool deck swimming or playing water polo. She also enjoys all sorts of crafting, 80s music and long hikes in the mountains.

Allison Treanor, Reporting Intern

Allison is a Lansing native and East Lansing graduate, currently majoring in Multimedia Journalism at Loyola University Chicago. Allison’s favorite thing to write about is music, but more importantly sees journalism as a way to serve her community while also expressing herself creatively. When she’s not writing, Allison loves listening to music and expanding her vinyl collection, photography of all sorts and cooking.

Adán Tomás Quan, Reporting Intern

Adán is currently a student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, majoring in journalism with a minor in legal studies. A graduate of East Lansing High School, he previously served as one of Portrait’s Editors-in-Chief. He got started with ELi when he participated in ELi’s Summer Youth Journalist Program in 2020, and wrote for ELi from 2020-2023. Adán also served on the Board of Directors from 2021-2023. Since then, he has worked with Michigan Public’s Stateside show, where he helped report and produce an award-winning podcast, What the Vote? for the 2024 election. His reporting was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Adán has reported for ELi on a variety of topics, including happenings at ELHS and community outreach and support events in East Lansing.

Sarah Spohn, Arts & Cultures Reporter

Sarah is a little bit of a rock ‘n’ roll rebel, almost always at a concert (when there isn’t a pandemic going on). With degrees in Journalism and Professional Communications, at ELi Sarah reports on a variety of arts and cultures topics, from video game tournaments to small business features to poetry slams. She loves to soak up the local scene at boutiques, libraries, diners, and record stores. She still buys CDs and borrows music documentaries from the library. Just don’t call her a hipster. (She says she’s never been that stylish.) The editorial team loves assigning Sarah a story because we know she’s going to make us feel like we are personally talking with the people she has interviewed. And we love that she’s always up for an adventure!

Brian Wells, Photojournalist

A transplant who had no ties to Lansing before 2011, Brian has lived and worked in Lansing and other parts of the state since. With a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ashland University, he has almost 20 years of experience working in different forms of photography, with 15 of those years being spent working in news. In those 15 years, he’s had photos appear in local and national news outlets, including USA Today, the Associated Press and the New York Times. When not staring through a viewfinder, Brian is usually hanging out with his cat, fixing old cameras or racing cars.

Chris Christoff, Adviser

Chris Christoff was a Detroit Free Press reporter for 28 years, 25 as Lansing bureau chief. He was Bloomberg News’ Michigan correspondent for state and local government and also worked at the Flint Journal. He is a graduate of Michigan State University and studied journalism at Wayne State University.