This week we welcome a new editorial team at upstart, all of whom bring very different experiences and enthusiasms to the magazine. They’re all La Trobe students, and they’ll all receive academic credit for their work on the site this semester after enrolling in our new subject, Online Editing and Publishing.

So if you have ideas about what you’d like to write about for upstart, check our our Notes for Contributors guidelines and get in touch with the team.

Don’t forget you can receive daily updates about what’s been posted on upstart by entering your email address in the box at the top left of the home page. And you can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well.

And now let’s meet them. We hope you like them. And we really want you to pitch your stories to them.

Ashley Fritsch (editor) – a 2009 Bachelor of Journalism graduate, is from rural Victoria. In 2010 she completed a cadet year as a journalist at the Buloke Times newspaper in her hometown of Donald, and is currently writing a history of that paper and the role of the country press for her Honours thesis.

Ben Waterworth (sport editor) is a final year Bachelor of Journalism student who contributed more than 80 articles to upstart in his first two years at university. In 2010 Ben covered the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and the Singapore Youth Olympics. His blog is called A Short Sport Thought.

Natalie Savino is a Journalism Honours student. She is particularly interested in travel and wants to pursue a career in travel writing. She also contributes to The Punch, where her most recent post raised questions about disaster coverage in the media in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake.

Penny Evangelou is a final-year Bachelor of Journalism student who is passionate about food, fashion and beauty writing. Her upstart pieces include a profile of the food blog Not Quite Nigella.

Radhika Chopra is a final-year Bachelor of Journalism student. She will be publishing a film review every Thursday, and developing audiovisual content for the site over the coming months. She also writes her own blog on Melbourne culture called The Loudspeaker.

Katharina Hackler recently received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Siegen in Germany, where she also worked at the campus radio station. After six months at La Trobe in 2008, she’s back as a Master of Global Communications student.

Khairun Hamid was born on Christmas Island and raised in Perth, Khairun graduated with a BA (Mass Communication) in 2006. She found her passion for radio presenting while working for youth community stations Groove 101.7FM and Hype FM. She has also developed online content for small businesses and blogs and completed a Diploma of International Business in 2010. She moved to Melbourne in 2011.

Suzannah Marshall Macbeth completed a BA and BSc at Murdoch University in WA before running away to sea as crew on the tall ships Leeuwin and Jeanie Johnston. In 2010 she completed Honours in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne, and she is now a Masters of Global Communications student at La Trobe. She blogs at equineocean.

Jessica Buccolieri is a Bachelor of Journalism Honours student at La Trobe.  She recently completed an internship with Star News Group where she wrote for a number of their titles including the Pakenham Gazette. Her contributions to upstart include an article about Red for Ruby – an event raising awareness for mental illness. She has also written for The Punch.

Sofia Monkiewicz is a Bachelor of Journalism Honours student. She loves theatre and music, and is interested in writing about the arts, particularly reviews. She recently completed an internship at Beat magazine, and hopes to one day be a theatre critic.

Renee Tibbs, who put in the hard yards flying solo as upstart editor over the 2010-2011 summer, is a Master of Global Communications student from the other side of the Tasman. She is a regular contributor to Beat street press and is also in February’s issue of Blunt magazine. Her blog is called duck down the alleyway.