Julia Vargas Jones is an award-winning field producer based out of CNN’s Los Angeles Bureau, covering stories that touch western North America.

Since joining CNN in 2015, she’s covered natural disasters, elections, political unrest, terror attacks, and plane crashes.

Vargas Jones won a News & Documentary Emmy Award as part of the CNN team covering the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. She was also nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award for the coverage of Hurricanes Maria, Irma, and Harvey, and won the Edward R. Murrow Award for coverage of Hurricane Maria’s devastating impact in Puerto Rico in 2018.

Before joining CNN’s Western Bureau, Vargas Jones worked in CNN’s New York bureau, where she covered the investigation into President Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen.

Vargas Jones also worked at CNN’s International Desk in Atlanta, where she led editorial efforts on the LaMia plane crash and the ensuing Chapecoense tragedy, the food shortages and political crisis in Venezuela, the ousting of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, among other Latin American stories. She also traveled to cover President Barack Obama’s last trip in office, to Peru, and the countdown to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Vargas Jones played an integral role in CNN Money’s investigation into one of the world’s longest-running scams, the five-part Maria Duval series.

Before CNN, Vargas Jones was a radio producer in Montreal, Canada, where she covered everything from riots to provincial elections and snowstorms. Born and raised in Brazil, she speaks fluent Portuguese, Spanish and French. Follow her on Twitter @juliavargasj.