It is a terrible irony that journalist Kevan Carter died so young — of a massive stroke at age 55 — after writing so sweetly about good food, soul food and the disproportionate toll that heart disease and stroke exact on African Americans.

We are two weeks out from the dynamic week of seminars and conversations where this year's USC/California Endowment National Health Journalism Fellows and Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism grant recipients met each other and dived deeply into their reporting projects. If you're curious about what they're working on, here's a rundown. (Read more by clicking on fellows' names, and comment to give them ideas for their work.)

Last week, the USC/California Endowment National Health Journalism Fellows were knee-deep in seminars and conversations about international trade, urban violence and community campaigns. As it turns out, these are all topics for a health beat. The National Health Journalism Fellows and Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism grant recipients convened in Los Angeles to expand their reporting horizons.

Deborah Estrin is a computer science professor interested in the low-tech. To her, everyday technology -- as opposed to supercomputers and expensive gadgets -- are brilliant tools for data collection. The world's 5 billion cell phones -- and the cameras and GPS that are increasingly common components -- represent tremendous opportunities. Using "smart" mobile phones, researchers, community groups and journalists can design ways to capture information about people whose stories and health status are otherwise hard to capture.

The gantry cranes at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach tower high above acres of stacked shipping containers – Hanjin, Matson, China Shipping – lined up along the harbor. These ports process 40 percent of container goods that arrive by ship in the United States; they directly or indirectly employ more than 120,000 people and generate billions of dollars in tax revenue each year.

Investigative journalist-turned-GIS expert Ann Moss Joyner has made some pretty persuasive maps in her time. There was the map showing how an Ohio community’s water plant just couldn’t seem to serve a historically black neighborhood just hundreds of feet away, even as the plant’s water lines snaked miles to other, white neighborhoods.