Region 2 Maria Burns Ortiz Sports Writer/Freelance Journalist ESPN.com E-mail: mariaburnsortiz@gmail.com

Maria Burns Ortiz is a freelance journalist and covers soccer for ESPN.com.

A graduate of New York University, Maria spent six months as a reporting intern at the Tico Times in San Jose, Costa Rica, before returning to the States where she began her career as an editorial assistant at Sports Illustrated. She then spent two years at The News Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Ind., covering sports (and the occasional story that required someone to speak Spanish – as she was the only Spanish-speaking reporter in town). Maria began covering soccer for ESPN.com in 2006.

Maria’s bilingual series of columns during the 2006 World Cup helped her earn NAHJ’s 2007 Emerging Journalist of the Year Award.

Maria has been involved in NAHJ since being a member of the convention’s Student Campus program in 2003. She has been the vice president of print/new media for NAHJ’s Boston Chapter since its founding in 2008.

Maria lives in Cambridge, Mass., with her husband, Eric Ortiz (they met at the 2006 NAHJ convention in Fort Lauderdale), and their daughter, Eva.

Maria has visited all eight Region 2 states and has worked in three of them.