Leslie Albrecht is a reporter/producer covering Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and Gowanus.

She’s glad to be back in New York after a four-year stint working as a newspaper reporter at the Merced Sun-Star and the Modesto Bee in California’s Central Valley, where she covered City Hall, crime, breaking news and real estate.

Leslie has written about the trial of a gang member who murdered a police officer, the foreclosure crisis and people looking for love at the rodeo.

She received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, where she wrote about drug-addicted moms hoping to get their kids out of foster care. She also worked on a documentary about a union trying to organize workers at a gourmet grocery store.

Before Columbia, she lived in San Francisco, where she worked at nonprofits and ate a lot of burritos. She graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.

Fun Fact: Leslie worked as a waitress at EuroDisney where she learned how to say “apple juice” in several languages.