Bios: 2009 News21 fellows

Adeniyi Amadou, master’s candidate
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University
Amadou describes himself as “relentless in everything I do.” He admits to many sleepless nights, compulsively mulling every word and every verb, reverently marshaling every quote, interview, and fact, and rapidly learning the craft. He was born in Benin, raised in Paris and educated at a Virginian boarding school. His college studies started at the U.S. Academy at West Point and he earned his bachelor’s degree at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Amadou’s interest in journalism developed during his undergraduate studies.

Racquel Asa, master’s candidate
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University
Emphasizing broadcast journalism, Asa joins the News21 fellowship program with three years of professional experience, working as a backpack reporter and as a news anchor for a TV station in Binghamton, N.Y. Asa says her motivation to be a good journalist is fueled by her passion to tell people’s stories. Her main goal in every assignment is to put a face to an issue and illuminate a solution to people or groups facing adversities or obstacles.

Meghan Berry, master’s candidate
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York
Berry is a multimedia journalist and photographer from New Jersey. She has worked as a newspaper reporter and in communications at various educational institutions since earning a B.A. in English from Gettysburg College in 2003. Berry enjoys reporting on education, health and environmental issues. Her other interests include world travel and pug walking.

Josanah Birman, master’s candidate
Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University
Whether it's diving headfirst into broadcast producing or taking off to Chile, Birman is always up for a challenge. She was awarded the WTTW Minow Fellowship to work as an assistant producer on "Chicago Tonight." She was thrilled to produce segments about the city she grew up in for the nightly news and entertainment program. Birman’s written work has appeared on Not For Tourists Chicago and in other publications. Her goal is to combine her two passions: journalism and travel. Josannah has explored 15 countries, learned Spanish in Madrid, and taught ESL in Chile.

Andrea Brambila, master’s
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Brambila emphasized multimedia and her master's project covered empty storefronts on San Francisco's Mission Street. She interned at The Sacramento Bee last summer as a staff writer and wrote for the business, city, metro, regional, and crime beats. Her coursework included Advanced Multimedia, Advanced Flash, Web Development, Law and Ethics, and International Reporting: Burma and Thailand. After graduating from Reed College in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, she went on to two public radio internships, one at Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland, and the other at KQED in San Francisco. She is a San Francisco native and enjoys baking brownies, Aztec dancing, and trying new things.

Kelly Brooks, master’s candidate
Philip P. Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park
Brooks, focusing on online journalism, enjoys designing programs for Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, where she serves as a graduate assistant. Describing herself as “somewhat nomadic,” Brooks has lived in California, Michigan, New Jersey and Tennessee and earned her bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Georgia. Having worked for two newspapers in metro Atlanta, she expects to leverage her background in both print journalism and multimedia to foster her desire to disseminating news in compelling, creative ways. She also favors indie music, film, cycling and burritos.

Andrew Burton, bachelor’s candidate
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University
Burton, a junior, labels himself a photojournalist and multimedia producer with a passion for in-depth journalism. He has worked and lived internationally, covering topics ranging from immigration in the United States to the 2008 Olympics. Previously, Burton attended Oregon State University where he worked as the photo editor at the student paper, The Daily Barometer. He interned at Bloomberg News' photo desk and served as an assistant to Vincent Laforet. His work has been recognized by COPY (first place, in 2008, for sports portfolio and sports single photo), the Hearst Foundation (fourth place, 2008, multimedia) and the Oregon Newspaper Publishers’ Association.

Mary Buttolph, master’s candidate
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University
Buttolph grew up in Virginia and attended Virginia Tech, earning a degree in fisheries science. After working for the U.S. Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest and the Intermountain West, she decided to return to school to study photography. She earned a degree from the Rochester Institute for Technology before pursuing a master’s in photography from Syracuse while serving as a teaching fellow and a research assistant. Buttolph hopes to focus her journalism efforts on the environmental challenges and opportunities facing the world.

Kyla Calvert, master’s candidate
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York
A multimedia journalist from Chicago, Calvert worked with two other Columbia students on a master’s project investigating procurement practices at the New York City Department of Education. Calvert earned her B.A. in American Studies from Wesleyan University in 2002. For five years she worked in marketing for small companies and nonprofits in San Francisco and San Diego. While living in San Francisco she began reporting for her neighborhood paper, The Castro Courier. She had so much more fun learning and writing about her corner of the city than she did at work every day, Calvert decided a career switch was in order.

Christopher Cameron, master’s candidate
Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University
Cameron moved to Arizona from Boston in 1995, earning a BA in interdisciplinary studies from ASU in 2008. In Conkite’s master’s program, he concentrates on digital media. His strengths include designing content for the web in Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver.

Chris Carmichael, master’s candidate
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
A Roy H. Park Fellow, Carmichael developed a thesis project, "In Shadows: Stories of Hardship and Hope in Mental Health," that received an award of excellence from the College Photographer of the Year judges. It also earned first-place honors from the National Press Photographers Association during its multimedia competition in October 2008.

Kai Carter, master’s candidate
Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, JFK School of Government, Harvard University and News21 fellow at Columbia
For her graduate work in public policy, Carter focuses on political economy and development. A research assistant at the Shorenstein Center, she also is a senior editor for the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy. Previously, she worked at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. Originally from Los Angeles, Carter graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s in international relations. In 2007, she secured a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship for studies at the University of the South Pacific and interned at the United Nations Development Program in Fiji.

Jose Castillo, master’s candidate
School of Journalism, University of Texas, Austin, and News21 fellow at Maryland
A freelance photographer and journalist, Castillo has a bachelor’s degree in Radio/Television/Film from Texas. He worked for The Daily Texan for three years as a photographer and occasional writer, and rose to director of photography. He is an assistant to Austin-based photojournalist Donna DeCesare and works as a Web designer and technology consultant for InCite magazine.

Ford Clark, master’s candidate
College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and News21 fellow at Northwestern
Clark grew up on a farm near Melbeta, Neb., a town so small its high school closed because it had too few students. His family relocated to Scottsbluff, where he secured a job in radio, setting his eyes on a journalism career. He married his wife, Jennifer, Aug. 11, 1990, just before junior year in college at Nebraska. He spent 10 years moving around to different radio stations, trying to “climb the ladder,” settled in Muncie, Ind., and taught radio and television at Delta High School. Wanting to teach at the collegiate level, he enrolled at Nebraska and serves as a graduate assistant. He has three children: Madeline was born in 1994 in Lincoln; son Michael, 1996, in Scottsbluff; and daughter Grace, 2000, in Warsaw, Ind.

Rhyen Coombs, master’s
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley Coombs is a multimedia reporter and producer who received the 2009 Dorothea Lange Fellowship for her thesis "Foreclosed.", which documents items left behind in California foreclosures. Rhyen has produced multimedia content for the Center for Investigative Reporting and The Chauncey Bailey Project, and regularly teaches social media workshops for the Knight Digital Media Center. Prior to attending graduate school, Rhyen was an editor and online developer for World Pulse Media in Portland, OR. Her work has appeared in such outlets as the San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Contra Costa Times, China Digital Times, AlterNet.org and NBC.

Jose Ignacio Corbella, master’s candidate
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Nacho Corbella holds a bachelor’s in journalism and social communication from the Universidad de los Andes, Santiago, Chile. He was a political reporter for La Segunda in Santiago and a staff professor at his alma mater, teaching introductory photojournalism and multimedia narratives. He also co-produces multimedia projects around the country. Passionate about storytelling, graphic design, photography, audio and video production, he is pursuing a master’s in visual journalism.

Emma Cott, master’s candidate
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Cott is a documentary producer and cinematographer who has lived in the Bay Area since 2002. She has worked with local filmmakers on projects for PBS, and interned last summer with NBC News, helping to produce documentaries. Her master’s project was a half-hour film about immigrants serving in the U.S. Army. In her spare time she enjoys soaking up Vitamin D and sampling exotic foods.

Victoria Criado, master’s candidate
Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, JFK School of Government, Harvard University and News21 fellow at Southern California
Criado’s family is from Argentina but she grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 2003, she graduated from Boston College with a bachelor’s in political science and went to work at Deutsche Bank in New York as an emerging markets risk analyst. In addition to her time in the world of finance, Criado, with two colleagues, spearheaded the Border Film Project, which is a non-partisan, multimedia look into the U.S. immigration debate. A book on their work was published in the spring of 2007 by Harry Abrams.

Marie Cunningham, master’s candidate
Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California
Focusing on print journalism at USC, Cunnngham also has taken classes in video, radio and Web journalism. She interned at the Los Feliz Ledger, Metromix Los Angeles and Los Angeles magazine, and The Brooklyn Paper in New York. She is most interested in culture, religion and politics, both domestic and international. In her spare time, she likes to take walks with her beagle mix, Sierra.

Phil Daquila, master’s candidate
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Daquila is a mobile journalist/documentary photographer/videographer/producer/writer and visual ethnographer engaged in multi-platform feature reporting. He especially enjoys pre-producing stories—conceiving ideas, locating communities to study or people to interview and developing rapport to help create a compelling narrative. His experience in content and production includes video, photo, audio, Flash/ActionScript, print design and copy editing. He received a two-year Roy H. Park Master's Fellowship at Carolina. Among his activities: Students for Meaningful Media, UNC-CH Chapter President; Pulitzer Center On Crisis Reporting, University Liaison; Society for News Design. His passions: biking, baseball, jazz, improv, Beat culture, color theory and international travel..

Kimberly Davis, doctoral candidate

Philip P. Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park

Davis, who is Maryland’s 2008 Scripps Howard fellow, was a writer and editor at newspapers and magazines for 12 years, including six years as an associate editor at Ebony magazine in Chicago. Prior to that, the Georgia native held positions at newspapers in Anderson, S.C., and Greenville, S.C., and was a freelance writer and editorial consultant for regional and national publications. Davis received her master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from the University of Georgia in 2008 and her bachelor’s in journalism from Northwestern University in 1996.

Brian Dawson, bachelor’s candidate
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University
Dawson, a junior and a self-taught programmer/web developer, studies illustration photography and graphic design. Dawson has been operating as a freelance web developer for over three years. He is a native of Central New York.

Deanna Dent, Bachelor of Arts
Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University
Dent is an award-winning photojournalism major from Tempe, Ariz., whose secured a Scripps-Howard Top 10 scholarship. With this support, she is traveling widely in Latin and South America, documenting the mystery and phenomenon of the Virgin of Guadalupe. As part of her undergraduate studies, she participated in the Cronkite News Service.

Jeanette Der Bedrosian, bachelor’s candidate

Philip P. Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park

Der Bedrosian, studying print journalism and American studies, is an intern for the Life section of USA TODAY, covering issues such as religion, education, relationships and medicine. She has also written for other newspapers, including the Washington Examiner and New Jersey’s Home News Tribune. Der Bedrosian has traveled to Egypt and Qatar to attend a Carnegie-funded journalism boot camp and spent a winter term in Morocco. She has written for The Diamondback, the university’s independent student newspaper, and is heavily involved in Phi Sigma Pi coed honor fraternity.

Karn Dhingra, master’s candidate
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York
Originally from Houston, Dhingra is interested in reporting on ordinary people and how their lives are affected by public policy decisions. His interest in reporting on education for News21 comes in part from his experiences at public and private schools, including a residential military school and a parochial high school. As a reporter, he finds education fascinating because of the role it plays in determining who the winners and losers are in American society. After graduating from Southern Methodist University in 2003, where he earned a B.A. in International Studies with a concentration in Asia, Dhingra served as an AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer in Houston. In 2004 he moved to Washington, D.C. and worked as an online political consultant and in public relations before deciding to return to school. Dhingra graduated from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism with a concentration in Digital Media in May 2009.

Emily Elzer, master’s candidate

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California

Focused on broadcast journalism in graduate school, Elzer earned a bachelor’s in telecommunication from Indiana University in 2003. She worked in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, including as an associate producer for an NBC television show. While at USC, Elzer interned at CNN International in London and KNBC in Los Angeles. She expects to pursue a career in network news as a field or segment producer.

Marnette Federis, master’s candidate
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Federis previously lived in Washington and interned at Roll Call, covering Capitol Hill. She also worked for the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va. While earning her B.A. in literature at UC-San Diego, she worked as an intern at Voiceofsandiego.org and @UCSD, the university’s alumni magazine. She also freelanced for East County San Diego. At Berkeley she is learning multimedia-reporting skills including audio, video and web development.

Alexandra (Ali) Fenwick, Master’s candidate

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York

Fenwick has worked as a reporter in daily newspapers in New Jersey and Connecticut for four years, including one year as an education reporter. She grew up on the Jersey shore, split her high school career between public school and private boarding school and later studied writing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She had a happy childhood, rode her bike everywhere and rarely got detention. She is trying to replicate that experience as an adult.

Zach Ferriola-Bruckenstein
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Focusing on information graphics and interactive media, Ferriola-Bruckenstein has taken most of the graphics and multimedia courses offered in the school. Last summer, he interned at National Geographic Magazine. This year he was a member of UNC's ABC News on Campus bureau and vice president of the UNC Society for News Design. He was also a teaching assistant for the 3D Design and Advanced Programming courses in the school. After News21, Ferriola-Bruckenstein will work for Swarm Interactive as a web and multimedia programmer.

Sierra Filucci, master’s candidate (funded as Bloomberg fellow)
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley

Brian Frank, master’s candidate

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California

Frank comes to journalism after a “rambling career in education.” He spent the bulk of his working years at Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes, where he helped students young and old learn to read and comprehend more effectively, and where he trained public school teachers to do the same. For one year, Brian co-taught English in the elementary and middle schools in a tiny town in southern Japan, after which he did some globetrotting. He hopes to become a backpack journalist—to soak up stories and parse them out across various formats.

Michael Frost, master’s candidate

Philip P. Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park

Prior to pursuing his MA in public affairs reporting, Frost taught history and English in Japan, Mississippi, Vermont and Pennsylvania. He has traveled extensively in Asia and Latin America and recently participated in a press visit to the European Union in Brussels. He has a 9-year-old Delta ditch dog named Tutwiler, whose mere presence keeps him from ever having to acknowledge that he is actually talking to himself.

Kaitlin Funaro, master’s candidate

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California

Funaro, in broadcast journalism and radio documentary during her graduate studies, serves as executive producer of Annenberg Radio News at USC and works as a reporter for both Annenberg Radio and American Public Media's national program Marketplace. She has worked in London for the BBC World Service and as a news producer for independent radio station Hayes FM. She has been back and forth to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the past year working on a radio documentary on inter-faith education. She hopes to produce for radio and eventually work with USAID, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or the BBC Trust.

Brooke-Sidney Gavins, master’s candidate

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California

A dean's scholar in USC’s broadcast journalism program, Gavins is a staff writer for Pop + Politics, where she covered the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Last summer, Gavins worked as an apprentice for CNBC's "Kudlow & Company.” Before graduate school, she was an interactive media director and worked in the fields of marketing, media and public relations. She graduated with honors from Duke University with bachelor degrees in political science and women’s studies. Gavins was a Duke in Oxford Scholar and studied tort law at Oxford University. She is also the creator of the blog, CaramelBella.com.

Kim Geiger, master’s candidate
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Geiger is a political reporter and freelance journalist from Sonoma, California. Since she earned her B.A. in Politics from UC Santa Cruz in 2006, she has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle and at msnbc.com. As a graduate student at UC Berkeley, she covered congressional and presidential campaigns as well as health care policy. Kim is an avid football fan and enjoys skiing, traveling, and photography.

Kiran Goldman, master’s candidate
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Goldman is a documentary filmmaker with a strong background in environmental science and engineering. She has helped produce international, environmental, and health stories for Frontline/World and NBC-11, the Bay Area's local NBC News station. While studying journalism and documentary filmmaking, Goldman completed her thesis film, "Fast As She Can," about track and field runners in Jamaica. The film was awarded the 2009 Margaret and William Hearst Award for Excellence in Documentary Film.

Travis Grabow, master’s candidate
Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University
After graduating with a bachelor's in journalism in 2008, Travis Grabow left his skis and ice skates in the frozen tundra of Minnesota to enroll at ASU. He has covered sports for several community papers and worked for both his college paper and an Asian-American advocacy paper based in Minneapolis. A graduate assistant at the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at ASU, his focus is on digital media and online journalism.

Emily Graham, Bachelor of Arts
Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University
Graham, 20, emphasized broadcast journalism in her undergraduate studies. While a student at the Cronkite School, she filled roles as a reporter for Cronkite News Service and Arizona bureau chief for the ABC News on Campus bureau. Originally from Pittsburgh, Graham also has experience with KPHO-TV’s investigative team, Fox Sports Network and PBS. In 2008, she traveled to South Africa to cover immigration and border issues as part of a Howard Buffett reporting project.

Tara Haelle, master’s candidate

School of Journalism, University of Texas, Austin, and News21 fellow at Northwestern

A photojournalism graduate student, Haelle completed her English/liberal arts honors bachelor's in 2000. After graduation, she backpacked overseas and worked in London as a teacher and in Queensland, Australia, as a boarding school public relations coordinator. She then taught high school English and journalism for five years in Arlington, Texas, speaking at statewide journalism and photography conferences and winning Most Outstanding First-Year Teacher in the district and two grants for literacy programs. She has interned more than 10 publications. She is especially proud of backpacking in more than 40 countries, nearly summiting Kilimanjaro and swimming with more than 10 species of sharks.

Anne Hauser, bachelor’s candidate

College of Journalism, University of Missouri, and News21 fellow at Columbia

In her undergraduate studies, Hauser focused on earning a bachelor’s of journalism, emphasizing magazines, and a bachelor of arts in English. Hauser worked on the daily Columbia Missourian, reporting full time on the elections and public life beat. She interned for GasPedal Marketing, a word-of-mouth/social-media marketing firm in Chicago, the ABC-TV affiliate in Des Moines, Iowa, and Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Hauser is interested in reporting on government, politics, education and how policies impact everyday life.

Bill Healy
Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University
Bill Healy grew up in Orland Park, a southwest suburb of Chicago, and has also lived in Washington, D.C. and Sydney, Australia. Before coming to Medill, he taught fifth grade and completed a master’s in education from Northwestern. Bill is interested in photography and the history of Chicago.

Emily Henry, master’s candidate

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California

Henry is a fiction writer and multi-media journalist who specializes in international relations, social issues and science fiction. Raised in the rural "green belt" on the outskirts of London, she completed a degree in English and American Literature at the University of Kent before moving to Los Angeles in 2007 to pursue a career in creative writing. Her stories and commentaries have appeared in the L.A. Weekly, the Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Daily News, the Daily Breeze and Pop+Politics.com. She also writes a weekly column on international affairs, titled "Small World," for Neon Tommy.com. Her goal is to become a transatlantic correspondent, fluent in both literary and radio journalism.

Brad Horn, master’s candidate

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University

During his graduate studies, Horn focuses on multiplatform journalism, NPR-style radio and online storytelling. He has a self-designed degree in documentary studies from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was on the team that produced the Online News Association's 2005 Student Journalism Project of the Year. He also studied at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

Jenn Hueting, master’s candidate

College of Journalism, University of Missouri, and News21 fellow at North Carolina

At Missouri, Heuting focused on online magazine development. Having studied magazine writing and design as an undergraduate, she believes the online setting is an exciting place to combine these interests to develop a bundled story. She served as a Web and print designer at The Design Center on Missouri’s campus and as the online editor of Vox, a student weekly magazine. She interned at publications such as Inside Columbia magazine and Conde Nast’s Cookie magazine as well as at the publications firm at Washington University in St. Louis.

Lizz Kannenberg, master’s candidate

Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University

As a freelance writer and photographer covering the arts for Chicago-based and national publications, Kannenberg is familiar with the ebbs and flows of the journalism profession. A graduate of Boston College by way of Wisconsin, she has enjoyed traveling to assignments in far-flung corners of the country and sampling local cuisines, arts scenes and attitudes. Graduate school allowed Kannenberg to hone skills at storytelling forms, but she looks forward to shutterbugging full time. Her 5-year-old lab mix, Teddy, is tired of posing.

Crystall Kanyuck, master’s candidate
Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University
Kanyuck is passionate about telling great stories in new ways, so at ASU, she focuses on reporting and online media. She also helps young journalists hone their grammar skills as a graduate assistant. Before entering the Cronkite School, she worked in the San Diego area as a community journalist and occasional culture blogger. Her undergraduate communication degree from Cal State-San Marcos focused on social justice. She also loves to talk about In-N-Out Burger, where she would probably still work if she hadn't landed that first reporting job.

David Kempa, master’s candidate
Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University
Kempa fell deep into an existential funk after graduating from Wisconsin–Madison with a degree in English and creative writing. In lieu of the tie clips and hierarchy of the business world, he instead sold his car and bought a one-way ticket to Argentina. Among the bad decisions and good wine, Kempa landed an internship at the Buenos Aires Herald, sparking his love affair with journalism. He often wished, years ago, to have lived through times as exciting and unstable as the baby boomer generation's – for better or worse, this seems to have come true.

Melina Kolb, master’s candidate

Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University

Kolb studies interactive storytelling in hopes of integrating new video styles and presentation techniques on the Web. She has been professionally producing videos for five years, her work airing on WTTW 11 in Chicago and Current TV's national cable channel. She currently co-produces an online video series called Fete Select TV, about new restaurants in Chicago, which are featured on NBC Chicago's Web site. Kolb graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in anthropology and took courses in documentary filmmaking. Originally from Charlotte, N.C., she now considers Chicago her home.

Elisabeth Kristof, master’s candidate

School of Journalism, University of Texas, Austin, and News21 fellow at California-Berkeley

Kristof earned her undergraduate degree in international affairs from the University of Colorado at Boulder. The focus of her graduate work is on health care reporting, including issues such as public health policy, minority health disparities and mental health. Beyond her work as a writer and reporter for the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, she has provided articles and blog posts to The Texas Observer, an investigative biweekly magazine on Texas politics, and for the UT graduate school’s online magazine, Straight Shooter. Kristof, a member of the National Association of Health Care Journalists, also is a nationally certified personal trainer and fitness instructor.

Sabina Kuriakose, bachelor’s candidate

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University

As a dual major in broadcast journalism and international relations, Kuriakose was a reporter for the Syracuse bureau of ABC News on Campus, covering local and campus-related news. In 2008, she interned with NBC10’s investigative unit in Philadelphia. She is very interested in reporting for a multimedia platform. Kuriakose grew up in Bensalem, Pa., just outside of Philadelphia.

Brittany Lee-Richardson, bachelor’s candidate

Philip P. Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park

Lee-Richardson, focusing on broadcast journalism, was a sprinter for the university’s track and field team and hopes her passion for sports will help her in her goal of becoming a sports reporter and attorney. She has interned with Comcast SportsNet and the sports department at WTTG Fox 5. Lee-Richardson also works with WMUC radio on campus as a reporter for the football and women’s basketball teams. She was a member of several academic honor societies, the student judicial board and has won numerous journalism scholarships. Originally from Huntsville, Ala., she has lived in Virginia and Maryland since childhood.

Courtnee Lowe, bachelor’s candidate

College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and News21 fellow at Syracuse

Lowe pursued three majors, in broadcast journalism, French and international studies. In 2007, she spent six months at the Université de Franche-Comté in Besançon, France, and received the Diplôme d’Etudes de Langue Française. In 2005 and 2008 she also was selected as an outstanding French student by her French instructors at Nebraska. The native of Tyler, Texas, moved to Nebraska with her family before high school. She enjoys being a student worker at HuskerVision, where she produces and edits videos for the Husker Swimming and Diving Team.

Christopher M. Matthews, master’s candidate

Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park

Matthews interned at Fox News Channel, the Mount Hope Monitor, washingtonpost.com and Salon.com. He has reported on ex-offenders' voting rights, Bronx politics and a hostage standoff. Matthews, aspiring to be a foreign correspondent, has traveled widely, including seven-month stints in Paris and Australia, where he was a semi-professional lacrosse player. He received his bachelor’s in political science from Kenyon College. Born in Houston but raised in Manhattan, he is a passionate fan of the Houston Astros, Houston Rockets and the New York Giants.

Nick McClellan, master’s candidate

College of Journalism, University of Missouri, and News21 fellow at Maryland

Prior to graduate school, McClellan worked for three years as a copy editor and multimedia producer for the Visalia Times-Delta, a Gannett newspaper in Visalia, Calif. After volunteering for video training, he transitioned into the paper’s first multimedia reporter position, where he shot and edited many videos for the newspaper’s Web site.

Sharon McCloskey, master’s candidate

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York

McCloskey has been a practicing attorney in New York and New Jersey for 25 years, specializing in commercial and consumer litigation. A former deputy attorney general for the state of New Jersey, she is a magna cum laude graduate of Duke University and the Seton Hall Law School. Now pursuing her second career, she lives in Red Bank, N.J., and spends her free time in gyms around the country, watching her three children pursue their hoop dreams.

Elaine Meyer, master’s candidate

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York

Before entering Columbia's program, Meyer worked in consumer protection law for the Federal Trade Commission on cases ranging from sub-prime loans to green marketing, and she earlier worked for a federal appeal’s court judge on racketeering, amnesty and First Amendment cases. She moved to a career in journalism and has written for the The Huffington Post, Brooklyn Courier-Life and also maintains her own multimedia website. At Columbia, she reported about funding problems at New York City community colleges. She graduated with a history degree from Northwestern University.

Eileen Mignoni, master’s candidate

School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Mignoni directs her graduate studies to photojournalism and multimedia storytelling. She was raised in rural Michigan and went to Brown for her undergraduate degree in classics. She worked as a photographer for hip-hop clubs and in international market research. She has traveled to Patagonia, Thailand, and the Carolina coast to work as a photographer and videographer on multimedia projects with UNC. Her website is eileenmignoni.com.

Shauna Miller, master’s candidate

Philip P. Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park

A native of the District of Columbia, Shauna started as a writer and editor at the Washington City Paper, where she covered arts, herded cats and fell hard for the lost art of copy editing. She writes for the Washington Post Express, DCist.com and the Washington Blade. She cannot recommend the Center for Digital Storytelling highly enough and uses multimedia skills gained there to produce a piece on D.C.'s drag history for NPR's Intern Edition. She studied English literature and women's studies as an undergraduate at the University of Maryland. She is a co-founder of Girls Rock! D.C., a nonprofit rock 'n' roll summer camp for girls ages 8 to18.

Kristen Minogue, master’s candidate
Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University
As an undergrad English major at Pomona College in Southern California, Minogue interned with a trade magazine in Los Angeles and took natural science classes, most involving geology and camping in the Mojave Desert. She hopes to become a science writer and blends a double concentration of health and science reporting with interactive storytelling at Medill. She joined the News 21 team to improve her multimedia skills, explore a different topic and postpone graduation in the hope that the economy will be slightly better in December 2009.

Melissa Moser, master’s candidate

School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

In her graduate studies, Moser focuses on visual communication as well as business reporting. She worked last summer at Bloomberg News in New York City, writing breaking news on small cap stocks. Moser loves working with video and will shoot at the Winter Special Olympics in February. More information about her can be found at www.melissamoser.com.

Claire Moses, master’s candidate

Columbia School of Journalism, New York

Moses is a print journalist from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She graduated cum laude in 2008 from Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., with a degree in history. In 2006 she came to the United States as a transfer student and has been hooked America ever since. At Brandeis she discovered and developed her love for journalism as the news editor for her school paper. She interned at the Dutch Financial Daily in the summer of 2007. At Columbia she did most her reporting from the Bronx.

Astrid Munn, bachelor’s candidate

College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and News21 fellow at California-Berkeley

Munn, of Scottsbluff, Neb., didn’t stay at her school paper, The Daily Nebraskan, for very long. She joined the Lincoln Journal Star copy desk her sophomore year, where she edited a Spanish-language newspaper in addition to her regular duties. Munn also edited at the Poughkeepsie Journal in upstate New York as a Chips Quinn scholar. Last fall, Munn participated in the Scripps Howard Semester in Washington, which marked her first reporting internship. A news-editorial major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Munn plans to attend law school.

Chris Nelson, master’s candidate

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California

Nelson has worked for Los Angeles magazine, The Huffington Post, ArtistDIRECT, Pop + Politics and the Annenberg Digital News. He has covered everything from the Los Angeles Pen Convention to Barack Obama's DNC acceptance speech at Invesco Field. Born in the United States and raised mostly in Cairo, Egypt, Nelson graduated from Duke University in 2001 with a degree in English. He says he “worked in the drab confines of corporate American for six years” before realizing his calling as a journalist.

Jamie Oppenheim, master’s candidate

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York

Oppenheim, a multimedia journalism specialist at Columbia, worked at the Novato Advance, an award-winning community newspaper in the Bay Area, for three years. Prior to that, she had a number of odd jobs, such as grading standardized tests. She graduated from the University of California, Davis, in 2004 with a degree in comparative literature.

Tasneem Paghdiwala, master’s candidate (funded as Bloomberg fellow)
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley

Jane Park, master’s candidate

Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University

Park, from Cerritos, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles, graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, in March 2008 with a degree in English and French. At Medill, she is studying broadcast journalism, though her first love is feature writing. As a second-generation Korean American, she hopes that News21 will be an opportunity to speak with other dual-heritage people and give them a voice.

Leslie Patton, master’s candidate

Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University

Patton’s graduate reporting focused on manufacturing and the economy in downtown Chicago. She graduated from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business in 2006 with a BBA. Patton worked at Target Corp. for two years as a girls' toys business analyst before coming to Medill in September 2008. At Target, she managed Barbie dolls and dress-up clothes. Patton has completed the Boston Marathon three times with her younger sister, Kristen; they both plan to run it again in April 2009.

Sara Peach, master’s candidate

School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

A Roy H. Park fellow at UNC, Peach earned her bachelor's at Chapel Hill in environmental studies and spent two years working in the environmental nonprofit industry. During the summer of 2008, she interned as a reporter and video producer at the News & Observer in Raleigh. In November, Sara was named a finalist in the Project:Report contest, an international documentary competition sponsored by YouTube and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. She hopes to become an environmental journalist.

Anna Belle Peevey, master’s candidate
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
A second-year grad student, Peevey has produced stories in radio, print, multimedia and TV. She worked as a stringer for the Oakland Tribune, reporting on topics as varied as Mexican soccer matches and the Black Panthers. Last summer, she interned at Al-Jazeera English in D.C. Her master's thesis is a 30-minute documentary on immigrants in the military. Post graduation, she'll brave the perils of a vanishing job market, looking for work in documentary production.

Jeremy Pennycook, master’s candidate
Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University
Pennycook earned his bachelor’s in history from the University of Tennessee in 2008 and is focusing on online media in the master’s program. At ASU he has participated in the New Media Innovation lab.

Lisa Pickoff-White, master’s
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Since coming to the Bay Area two years ago, Lisa has produced a game on water allocation for the San Francisco Chronicle, slice of life stories in Beijing for the Washington Post and as an investigator and producer for the Chauncey Bailey Project. With an emphasis in new media, Lisa has yet to meet a topic or city she doesn’t like and has lived in New York City, New Jersey, Rome and Washington, D.C. In her spare time she twitters, knits and plays Guitar Hero.

Hamsa Ramesha, master’s candidate

Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University

Entering the Medill program interested in magazine writing, Ramesha came to love everything about interactive storytelling. In 2007, she earned degrees in English and psychology at the University of California, Davis. She learned about the publishing industry while interning at W.W. Norton & Co. and the Carol Mann Agency. While studying at UC Davis, Ramesha contributed to several on-campus magazines and provided design and layout work. After graduation, she spent a few months working in Los Angeles and freelancing for India West and Indian Life & Style. She works for DesiYou.com, managing two e-newsletters.

Christine Rogel, master’s candidate
Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University
Rogel graduated in 2006 with an English degree from the Colorado-Boulder where her interests were in the arts -- particularly writing fiction. After securing her ASU master’s, she plans to enjoy the transient life of a journalist, produce a documentary film and continue to write. She is interested in innovation within journalism and is currently employed by the Gannett New Media Innovation Lab and the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship. In her spare time, she is most likely lost in a bookstore or painting. One day, she would like to keep bees.

Melissa Romero, undergraduate

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University

A native of Wilmington, Del., Romero is pursuing a bachelor’s in print journalism with a minor in anthropology. She serves as the research editor for Equal Time, a student-run general interest magazine, and writes for the Cicero North Syracuse Star News, a local paper. She also volunteers as a Newhouse peer adviser and ambassador. When Romero is not running around interviewing people, she’s running around the track as a member of the Syracuse University track and field team as a high jumper.

Elizabeth Shell, master’s candidate
Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University
Shell moved to Arizona in January 2007 as the economy in her home state of Michigan drastically. Continuing on from a BA in political science, a Master's program in political science and international relations seemed to be a logical step except it was a horrible match. Amid academic exploration, she took a magazine writing class. Turned out that getting back to her journalism roots (she first discovered journalism in junior high) was the best thing she could have possibly done. Her MA concentration is on digital multimedia and a passion for all things design.

Kate Shellnutt, master’s candidate

Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University

A native of Virginia Beach, Va., Shellnutt began the master’s program after graduating from Washington and Lee University in 2008, where she majored in religion and print journalism. During her undergrad summers, Shellnutt covered health and science for Bloomberg News and wrote for the business and technology desk of The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. An amateur Web designer, she is fascinated by the Internet and its effects on contemporary culture. She keeps a blog on religion in Chicago for local news aggregate site The Windy Citizen.

Elizabeth Shemaria, master’s candidate
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Shemaria began her journalism career in 2005 after studying graphic design, art history and international law. In March 2008 she reported from Burma, interviewing artists and gallery owners about the struggle to sell art in a country with limited freedom of expression. Her travels have also taken her to Israel, the West Bank, Eastern and Western Europe. She has written for magazines and newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area and worked as an I.F. Stone Fellow at Human Rights Watch, producing multimedia content for their website, during summer 2008.

Will Skowronski, bachelor’s candidate

Philip P. Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park

Skowronski’s interest in journalism began as a freshman at Calvert Hall High School in Towson, Md., where he began writing for the school newspaper, The Hall. He stuck with it and became editor in chief his senior year. As a Maryland freshman, he began writing for the student-run newspaper, The Diamondback. He has since interned with The Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore Business Journal and the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire.

Andrew Smith, bachelor’s candidate

Philip P. Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park

Smith, from Frederick, Md., was a production assistant with WUSA-TV, a CBS affiliate in Washington, and a producer for UMTV, Maryland’s cable TV network. He has also worked as a freelance writer for Metromix.com and as a video intern with The Neustadt Group. He is interning with washingtonpost.com. In addition to these activities, he works as an outdoor trip leader and challenge course facilitator for the Univerity of Maryland’s Outdoor Recreation Center. Smith is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Kiran Sood, master’s candidate

Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University

Sood graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in May 2008 with a bachelor’s in news-editorial journalism and a minor in Spanish. She interned at the suburban Chicago Daily Herald newspaper in summer of 2007 and the Tri-Cities’ Kane County Chronicle in the summer of 2006. She freelanced for the India Tribune newspaper in Chicago. At Medill, Sood focuses on economics and business reporting. She loves traveling, and has visited India, the Middle East, Central America and numerous countries in Europe. Her ideal job would be to travel, meet and converse with diverse people around the world, and share her discoveries with an audience.

Leonard Sparks, master’s candidate
Phillip P. Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park
Sparks’ experience includes four years as a copy editor and then reporter for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper. His journeys have taken him to Iraq, where he learned the intricacies of boarding a Blackhawk helicopter while wearing body armor. He also witnessed a somewhat well-received speech by a junior senator from Illinois while covering the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Away from the computer, he enjoys road trips, doing second-rate home repairs for his girlfriend and being an all-around anachronism.

Paul Stephens, master’s candidate

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York

Stephens, a multimedia journalist, graduated from Wabash College in 2004 with a B.A. in English. He then served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Georgia, where he taught English and environmental education in a small village near the Black Sea. He also taught preschool and kindergarten at a bilingual school in Honduras.

Deborah Stokol, master’s candidate

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California

A Los Angeles native, Stokol attended Cal-Berkeley, graduating in 2006 with a double major in music and English. She interned for Los Angeles Magazine, L’Atelier BNP Paribas and New America Media, has worked for the Los Angeles Times and its Web site, has blogged for Pop + Politics and has contributed pieces to LAist and the Huffington Post. Though most fond of critical and long-form writing, she is excited by the challenge and potential of telling stories through different media.

Kelvin Sun, master’s candidate

Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, JFK School of Government, Harvard University and News21 fellow at Southern California

Kelvin focused his graduate studies on information and technology policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Before coming to Harvard, he worked as a journalist in Beijing covering political and general news. He is a graduate of Pomona College and also completed a Fulbright fellowship at Tsinghua University where he conducted research on public diplomacy, media transparency and technology policy.

Phil Tenser, bachelor’s candidate

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University

Tenser is earning bachelor’s degrees in broadcast journalism and philosophy. In addition to new media and multimedia technology, his interests include watching movies, traveling, and cooking. Tesner interned with NBC Sports as a logger for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. He also interned for KVOA News in his hometown of Tucson, Ariz., and was later hired there as a fill-in video editor. Learn more about him at geocities.com/pstenser.

Monica Ulmanu, master’s candidate

School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Ulmanu moved to Chapel Hill from Bucharest, Romania, in the summer of 2008 to pursue a master’s in visual communication. She has a BA and an MA in journalism from the University of Bucharest and has worked as a self-employed web designer and content provider. She is passionate about information visualization, user interfaces, use of color and type, principles of design and usability. Her goal is to combine fresh perspectives and journalistic knowledge to work efficiently. Ulmanu loves to work with people but sometimes becomes totally focused on her handsome iMac.

Robin Urevich, master’s
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Urevich is a recent graduate of the UC Berkeley Journalism program, and is looking forward to picking up much needed multi-media skills this summer. She has been a radio reporter, and is now focused on telling in-depth stories in print.

Maura Walz, master’s candidate

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York

Walz, focusing on multimedia reporting at Columbia University, grew up in Richmond, Va., and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago. Most recently she worked as an editor of academic research databases outside of Washington. She has also interned with Chicago public radio station WBEZ, Broadview Media and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Media programs, and she is a music staff writer for the website PopMatters.

Jennifer Ward, master’s candidate

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University

With an honors bachelor’s degree in literature from the University of Winnipeg, Ward, a native Canadian, brings creativity and innovation to her storytelling. Her 27 years of meeting new people and exploring new places brought her to journalism, where she finds comfort among dinosaurs: the printed word. A spring intern at the Syracuse Post, Ward’s work has appeared in numerous small publications, community newspapers and magazines. She writes a food blog at freshcrackedpepper.com. For a break from her computer screen Ward trains for triathlons, cooks tasty meals, and tries to spend as much time outside as possible.

Claire Webb, master’s candidate

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California

Webb works for the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, Calif., and has reported abroad for The Times and The Hounslow Chronicle in London. Before entering graduate school, she was a staff writer for the industry magazine, Animation. She was born and raised in Southern California and completed her bachelor’s in English literature at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Courtney Woo, master’s candidate

School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Since 2001, Woo has divided her time between China and the United States. In China she freelanced for Newsweek Select, Fodor's and French Vogue; she also produced City Weekend, an English language entertainment magazine published in Shanghai and Beijing. As a media volunteer at the Beijing Olympics, Woo blogged for the Huffington Post. She also won a grand prize in the Arthur W. Page Society’s Corporate Communications Case Study Competition for her paper, "Mattel Recalls 2007: Communication Implications for Quality Control, Outsourcing and Consumer Relations."

Evan Wyloge, master’s candidate
Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University
After high school, Wyloge packed up for the skibum-lifestyle of Flagstaff, Az. Between snowboarding and mountain biking, he attended Northern Arizona University, ostensibly studying political science and French. He also developed a love of journalism, working for the school paper and local publications. He has since worked for a national men’s magazine, the state's largest newspaper and other media outlets. He loves the challenge of Cronkite’s program and the impressive faculty, but hates sleep. He hopes to go on to help guide innovations in journalism.

Anna York, master’s candidate

Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, JFK School of Government, Harvard University, and News21 fellow at North Carolina

York is an experienced government adviser and community activist from Sydney, Australia. She served as the director of the Ministerial and Parliamentary Services Branch of the Department of Environment and Climate Change. From 2005 to 2007 she was a policy adviser to the former NSW minister for the environment. In 2003 she served as the president of the NSW Branch of the National Union of Students. She was also an organizer for the Sydney Peace and Justice Coalition. Her other volunteer activities include being a community organizer for International Women’s Day, Reclaim the Night, and the National Organization of Women Students Australia. At Harvard, she also writes for the Kennedy School Review.

Jean Yung, master’s candidate

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California

Yung, focusing on multimedia journalism, interns at NBC Nightly News. Prior to graduate school, she worked as a business consultant, advising companies on international transactions. Yung earned an A.B. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Ashley Zammitt, bachelor’s candidate

School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Emphasizing multimedia and graphic design, Zammitt has a background in art and extensive training and experience in Adobe's design programs. She works part-time as a multimedia developer and leads the student chapter of the Society for News Design at UNC. Outside of design, her passions lie in international travel and sustainable development abroad. Zammitt hopes to expand her design expertise via classes in 3D design and multimedia storytelling.

Max Zimbert, master’s candidate

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California

A Los Angeles native, Zimbert has written for the business and metro sections of the Daily Breeze, a daily paper south of Los Angeles. He worked in New York City for Smart + Strong Corp., a small magazine publishing company that produces the flagship publication of the American and international AIDS community, as well as African-American and Latino health magazines. Zimbert’s passion is politics. He covered the Democratic National Convention for Pop + Politics, a website devoted to the nexus of youth, culture and politics. He was on the floor when Hillary Clinton released her delegates and gathered reactions from leading governors, senators and representatives. He graduated with history and political science honors from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. in 2007.