ISOJ is back and better than before! For the first time in our 21-year history, the International Symposium on Online Journalism will be completely virtual. ISOJ Online will be held on July 20-24, 2020. Join editors, producers, executives, and academics from around the world in a series of workshops, panels, and social networking events centered on the evolution of online journalism and the impact of the pandemic on journalism today.

 

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Catherine Kim

Global Head of Digital News, NBC News & MSNBC

@CatherineKimNY
Catherine Kim is Global Head of Digital News for NBC News & MSNBC. She manages content, social, editorial strategy and publishing for all news content including, general news, politics, tech, the verticals MACH, BETTER and THINK, the diversity sections NBC BLK, NBC Out, NBC Latino and NBC Asian America and more. She also oversees the digital video properties NBC Stay Tuned, and NBC News’ digital documentaries. Read more

Emily Ramshaw

Co-founder and CEO, The 19th

@eramshaw
Emily Ramshaw is the co-founder and CEO of The 19th. She was previously editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, an award-winning nonpartisan digital news startup that now boasts the largest statehouse reporting bureau in the country and the nation’s most successful business model for local news. A Washington, D.C., native, Emily started her career at The Dallas Morning News. She is the youngest member of the board of the Pulitzer Prize. A graduate of Northwestern University, Emily lives with her husband and daughter in Austin.

Amanda Zamora

Co-founder and publisher of The 19th.

@amzam 
Amanda is the co-founder and publisher of The 19th. Previously, Amanda spent nearly two decades as a digital editor, product manager and audience strategist at newsrooms including The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and The Washington Post. A Houston native, Amanda has a bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Austin.

Maria Ressa

Founder and CEO Rappler, Philippines

@mariaressa
The CEO and Executive Editor of Rappler.com, Maria is one of the founders of the 6-year-old company, that is one of the leading online news organizations in the Philippines. Maria has been honored around the world for her courageous and bold work in fighting disinformation, “fake news” and attempts to silence the free press. In 2018, she was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” and won the prestigious Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-INFRA), the Knight International Journalism Award of the International Center for Journalists, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Journalist of Courage and Impact Award of East-West Center, and the IX International Press Freedom Award of University of Málaga and UNESCO, among others. Read more

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Reporter, New York Times Magazine

@nhannahjones                                                                                            Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine and creator of the landmark 1619 Project. In 2017, she received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, known as the Genius Grant, for her work on educational inequality. She has also won a Peabody Award, a Polk, National Magazine Award, and the 2018 John Chancellor distinguished journalism award from Columbia University. In 2016, Nikole co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a training and mentorship organization geared towards increasing the numbers of investigative reporters of color.

Tom Rosenstiel

Executive Director, American Press Institute

@TomRosenstiel
One of the most recognized thinkers in the country on the future of news, Tom Rosenstiel is the author of 10 books, including three novels. Before joining the American Press Institute in January 2013, he was founder and for 16 years director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, one of the five original projects of the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. He was co-founder and vices chair of the Committee of Concerned Journalists. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Read more

PANEL SPEAKERS

Deb Adeogba

Senior Media Experience Manager, Microsoft News Labs

@DebAdeogba
Deb Adeogba drives innovations at Microsoft News Labs, which aims to co-build innovative solutions with journalists. A 20-year veteran in broadcast journalism, Deb has worked in local TV stations coast to coast. Her most recent position was director of technology for KIRO-TV in Seattle, where she led a team of 40 photographers, editors, remote engineers and directors. In 2018, Deb received the TVNewsCheck’s Technology Women to Watch award for showing significant promise for advancing the broadcast journalism industry technologically. Deb graduated with a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications from New Mexico State University.

Rosental Alves

ISOJ Founder and Chair, Professor at the School of Journalism, UT Austin
Founder and director, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas

@Rosental
Rosental Alves began his academic career in the United States in March 1996, after 27 years as a professional journalist, including seven years as a journalism professor in Brazil. He moved to Austin from Rio de Janeiro, where he was the managing editor and member of the board of directors of Jornal do Brasil, one of the most important Brazilian newspapers. Rosental worked for that paper for 23 years. He was chosen in 1995 from approximately 200 candidates to be the first holder of the Knight Chair in International Journalism, created by a $1.5 million endowment from the James L. and John S. Knight Foundation. Read more

Alberto Ibargüen

President and CEO, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Twitter: @ibarguen                                                                                      Alberto Ibargüen is president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. He is the former publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. During his tenure, The Miami Herald won three Pulitzer Prizes and El Nuevo Herald won Spain’s Ortega y Gasset Prize for excellence in journalism. Read more

Christina Anagnostopoulos

Senior Producer, Reuters

@Christina_UGC
Christina Anagnostopoulos is a senior producer at Reuters News Agency working on the new fact-checking initiative to identify misinformation in partnership with Facebook. She leads a team of producers in Washington D.C. and Mexico City as part of Facebook’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program. The fact-checking unit at Reuters will work to identify misinformation focusing on the 2020 U.S. election and beyond. Christina brings a passion for U.S. politics, four languages and three years working on verification of user generated content (UGC) at Reuters news agency to this new project. Read more

Laura Barrón-López

National Political Reporter, POLITICO

@lbarronlopez
Laura Barrón-López is a national political reporter for POLITICO, covering the 2020 presidential race. Laura covers demographic changes in battleground states, and centers much of her reporting on race and ethnicity. Laura previously led 2018 coverage of Democrats for the Washington Examiner. At the Examiner, Laura covered the DNC’s efforts to reform the power of superdelegates and traveled to competitive districts that propelled Democrats into the House majority. Read more

Jay Bernhardt

Dean, the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin

@jaybernhardt
Dr. Jay Bernhardt (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1999; M.P.H., Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, 1994) is the 6^th dean of the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin, one of the largest and highest ranked colleges of communication in the country. Jay also serves as the founding director of the Center for Health Communication and holds the Walter Cronkite Regents Chair and the DeWitt Carter Reddick Regents Chair in Communication. He is adjunct -professor at The University of Texas School of Public Health. Read more

Reg Chua

Global Managing Editor, Operations, at Reuters

@reginaldchua
Reg Chua is the Global Managing Editor, Operations, at Reuters, responsible for editorial operations, including budgets, safety and security, logistics, as well as liaising with corporate technology and research and development teams to develop newsroom tools.  He also helped develop the news organization’s award-winning graphics and data journalism teams.  Prior to joining Reuters in New York in 2011, he was the Editor-in-Chief of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, and spent 16 years at The Wall Street Journal in Manila, Hanoi, Hong Kong and New York, including eight as the editor of the paper’s Asia edition.  He started his career in radio and television, at the then-Singapore Broadcasting Corporation and had stints with Reuters and the Straits Times of Singapore before joining the Journal.  A native of Singapore, he graduated from the University of Chicago and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Sérgio Dávila

Editor-in-Chief, Folha de S. Paulo (Brazil)

@SERGIO_DAVILA
Sérgio Dávila is the editor-in-chief of Folha de S.Paulo, the leading newspaper in Brazil, with an average of 35 million unique visitors monthly and more than 300 million page views and is about to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2021. He succeeded Otavio Frias Filho (1957-2018), founder of modern Folha and shareholder of the company, who died prematurely two years ago. Before that, Sérgio served as executive-editor of the newspaper from 2010 to 2019. Read more

Emilia Díaz-Struck

Research Editor and Latin American Coordinator, ICIJ

Emilia Díaz-Struck is ICIJ’s research editor and Latin American coordinator. She oversees the data accuracy and integrity of all ICIJ projects. She has taken part in cross-border projects such as ICIJ’s Implant Files, Paradise Papers and the Pulitzer winner investigation Panama Papers. ICIJ’s data and research team is at the heart of finding the best approaches to understand and mine large numbers of records that are part of each project. Read more

Peter Erdelyi

Investigative Reporter, 444.hu (Hungary)

@erdelyipe
Peter Erdelyi is an investigative reporter, editor and media manager from Budapest, Hungary, working at one of Hungary’s last remaining independent media outlets, the online news portal 444.hu. He has 19 years of experience in journalism and as an investigative reporter covers national security, issues related to the judiciary, political corruption, hate crimes and extremist groups. As the environment for independent media became increasingly challenging in Hungary over the past few years, he became involved in devising ways to operate and sustain an independent outlet.

Laura Garcia

Training and Support Manager, First Draft

@Lauragrb
Laura Garcia heads First Draft’s training and education across newsrooms and journalism schools. Her work as a multimedia journalist started back in her home, Mexico, as a photographer for a newspaper. She also worked for newspapers and film production companies in the US before coming to the UK in September 2011. Laura has worked in different newsrooms across the UK: ITV Meridian, BBC South East, BBC Radio Kent, NBC News, R4’s The World Tonight and Channel 5 News. Previously she worked as a Lecturer in Television and Multimedia Journalism at the University of Kent, and produced a politics show for KMTV. She is passionate about access into journalism and diversifying the media and is the co-founder of PressPad and the UK chapter of AMMPE World. Laura also works as the London correspondent for Bloomberg Mexico and Estrella TV in Los Angeles.

Anna Gielewska

Vice President, Reporters Foundation (Poland)

@agielewska
Anna Gielewska is a JSK 2019/20 International Fellow at Stanford, where she is working on a project on countering organized disinformation. Gielewsska is a political and investigative reporter, and the vice president of the Reporters Foundation, the first organization supporting investigative journalism in Poland. She is also the co-founder of Vsquare Project, a cross-border investigative network in Visegrad countries, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. She has covered politics in leading Polish newspapers, including Rzeczpospolita, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna and most recently Wprost.

Katie Glueck

National Politics Reporter, The New York Times

@katieglueck
Katie Glueck is a national politics reporter at The New York Times, where she covers the 2020 presidential campaign with a focus on the Democratic primary. She covered the 2018 midterm elections for McClatchy’s Washington bureau, and reported on the 2012, 2014 and 2016 campaigns for POLITICO. Her work has also appeared in publications including The Wall Street Journal, Washingtonian magazine, Town & Country magazine and The Austin American-Statesman. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and is a native of Kansas City. She lives in New York City.

Alison Go

Head of Growth, Chalkbeat

@alisonmaego
Alison Go is Chalkbeat’s head of growth, in charge of product, marketing, strategic planning, and business development — and leading Chalkbeat’s efforts to almost triple its geographic reach in the next five years. Previously, she was a product manager at Amazon, Facebook, and Rent the Runway. Alison received her MBA from the Wharton School and her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan. In a former life, she was a reporter and copy editor at U.S. News & World Report, the Boston Globe, and the San Jose Mercury News.

Charlotte Godart

Open Source Investigator, Bellingcat

@hicharl0tte
Charlotte Godart is an open source investigator & trainer for Bellingcat. She researches conflict zones, breaking news events, and the spread of disinformation. She creates online training material that is available for anyone interested in pursuing digital verification through the Bellingcat website. She also travels globally to teach online verification techniques and methodology to journalists, researchers, activists, and lawyers. Before Bellingcat, she was at the UC Berkeley Human Rights Investigations Lab, where she investigated global human rights atrocities and taught undergraduate students how to use the internet for good. Read more

Don Heider

Executive Director, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

@donheider
Don Heider is the chief executive of the Ethics Center with full responsibility for vision, strategy, fundraising, and leadership. In addition to his role as executive director, Don serves as the John Courtney Murray, S.J. University Professor of Social Ethics and holds an appointment as professor of communication. Formerly, Don was the associate provost for strategy & innovation and dean of the School of Communication at Loyola University in Chicago.  He also was the founder of the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy at Loyola. Read more

Mandy Jenkins

General Manager, The Compass Experiment

@mjenkins
Mandy Jenkins is general manager of The Compass Experiment, a partnership between Google and McClatchy to explore sustainable business models for local news. In her role, she will be leading the launch of three digital-only news operations in U.S. communities that have limited sources of local, independent journalism. The first site launched was Mahoning Matters, in Youngstown, Ohio in October of 2019. Read more

John Keefe

Adjunct professor, Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY

@jkeefe
John Keefe teaches classes on product prototyping, design, and development at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and runs a product tinkering company called Really Good Smarts LLC. John worked for Quartz as the investigations editor and lead the Quartz AI Studio. Keefe has also worked as the senior editor for data news at public radio station WNYC, leading a team of journalists who specialize in data reporting, coding, and design for visualizations and investigations. Read more

Kathleen Kingsbury

Editorial Page Editor, The New York Times

@katiekings
Kathleen Kingsbury is editorial page editor at The New York Times. She joined The Times in 2017 from the Boston Globe, where she served as managing editor for digital. Ms. Kingsbury joined the Globe’s editorial board in 2013 and later edited the Ideas section, an influential, original Sunday section at the Globe with a tradition of tackling the new thinking, intellectual trends, and big ideas that shape our world. In this role, Ms. Kingsbury was also deputy managing editor for the paper and the deputy editorial page editor.  Read more

Vidya Krishnan

Health and Science Reporter, The Atlantic, LA Times, and the Caravan Magazine

@VidyaKrishnan
Vidya Krishnan is a writer and journalist. She writes about global health for The Atlantic, LA Times, and The Caravan Magazine. Her first book, Phantom Plague: The Untold Story of How Tuberculosis Shaped our History will be published by PublicAffairs in 2021.

 

Alexi McCammond

Political Reporter, Axios

@alexi
Alexi McCammond is a politics reporter at Axios covering the 2020 presidential election. She’s broken stories on President Trump’s private daily schedules and his Executive Time, White House leaks to Congress regarding sensitive information about Jared and Ivanka’s security clearances, among other things. She’s traveling around the country talking to candidates and voters, as well as conducting focus groups with swing voters in the Midwest for the 2020 election. Alexi previously covered the 2018 midterms for Axios.

Kathleen McElroy

Director, School of Journalism, University of Texas at Austin

@kathleeno
Kathleen McElroy is the director of the School of Journalism and a professor at The University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. from the School of Journalism in December 2014, after nearly 30 years as a professional journalist. At The New York Times, she held various management positions, including associate managing editor, dining editor, deputy sports editor and deputy editor of the website. She previously worked for The National, an all-sports daily and Newsday on Long Island as well as the Austin American-Statesman, The Huntsville Item and the Bryan-College Station Eagle in Texas. Read More

Fraser Nelson

Vice President of Business Innovation, The Salt Lake Tribune

@FraserSLC
Fraser Nelson leads The Salt Lake Tribune’s groundbreaking transition to a nonprofit organization. She has held leadership positions in the government, foundation and nonprofit sectors. Most recently, she facilitated social policy innovation projects throughout the US for the Sorenson Impact Center, and served as the first Director of Data and Innovation for the Salt Lake County Mayor. Her nonprofit experience is extensive, including founding the Community Foundation of Utah and an AIDS service organization and serving as CEO of a civil right law firm.

Juan E. Pardinas

General Editorial Director, Reforma (Mexico)

@JEPardinas
Juan E. Pardinas is the General Editorial Director of the newspaper Reforma in Mexico, a position he’s held since January 15, 2019. He previously held the position of general director of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (Competitividad A.C). Prior to this position, he served as a researcher at the Development Research Center (CIDAC), and he was also a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) and the London School of Economics (LSE). Read more

Aron Pilhofer

Director, News Catalyst

@pilhofer
Aron Pilhofer is director of News Catalyst, a two-year, $2 million project to help local news organizations build better products, drive revenue and become sustainable digital businesses. News Catalyst provides tools and training, fosters collaboration and promotes experimentation within the news industry. We have helped local newsrooms find better tools; helped small newsrooms become more product focused; and co-created SRCCON:Product, the first-ever conference for product and news. Read more

Jennifer Preston

Vice President of Journalism, Knight Foundation

@JenniferPreston
Jennifer Preston joined Knight Foundation in October 2014. Previously, Jennifer was an award-winning journalist for The New York Times for almost 19 years, with broad experience as a digital journalist, reporter and senior editor. In 2009 she became the company’s first social media editor. In 2011 she returned to a reporting role where she focused on the impact of social media in politics, government, business and real life. Her most recent work as an editor focused on extending digital media and social media storytelling and curation across the newsroom. Read more

Sara Lomax-Reese

President and CEO, WURD Radio

@Slomaxreese
Sara Lomax-Reese is the President and CEO of WURD Radio, LLC, Pennsylvania’s only African-American owned talk radio station. She is credited with transforming WURD Radio from a legacy talk radio station to a multimedia communications company providing cutting edge, original programming on air, online and through community events. In 2017, Sara led the expansion of 900AM-WURD to the FM dial, now simulcasting on both 900AM and 96.1FM. In 2018, Sara spearheaded the launch of an environmental justice journalism platform called ecoWURD.com. And this year she is launching a new initiative called Lively-HOOD focused on jobs, career readiness and entrepreneurship to address the persistent wealth gap in the Black community. Read more

María Teresa Ronderos

Co-founder and Director, Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP)

@mtronderos
María Teresa Ronderos Colombian journalist, co-founded and directs the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism, CLIP, which seeds and coordinates cross-border collaborative investigations that seek to hold power to account. She is a regular columnist for daily El Espectador and teaches workshops for journalists with the Fundación Gabo, where she also sits on the board. For almost five years, María Teresa headed the Independent Journalism Program of the Open Society Foundations. Read more

Tina Rosenberg

Co-Founder and VP for Innovation, Solutions Journalism Network (SJN)

@tirosenberg
Tina Rosenberg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. She co-authors the Fixes column in The New York Times “Opinionator” section. Her books include “Children of Cain: Violence and the Violent in Latin America,” and “The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism,” which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. She has written for dozens of magazines, including The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Foreign Policy and The Atlantic. She is the author, most recently, of “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World.”

Cindy Royal

Professor, Texas State University

@CindyRoyal
Cindy Royal is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Texas State University where she leads the Digital Media Innovation undergraduate degree program and is the director of the Media Innovation Lab. She is also the director of the PhDigital Bootcamp (PhDigitalBootcamp.com), which she conceived in 2017, a program preparing future faculty to lead innovative curriculum. She teaches Web design, coding  and digital media innovation courses. Read more

Anya Schiffrin

Senior Lecturer, Columbia University

@anyaSIPA
Anya Schiffrin is a senior lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and director of the Technology, Media and Communications Specialization. Her forthcoming edited volume is: “Media Capture: how money, digital platforms and governments control the news.”

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/media-capture/9780231188838

Brittany Schock

Engagement and Solutions Editor, Richland Source

@BrittanySchock
Brittany Schock is the engagement & solutions editor at Richland Source in Mansfield, Ohio, as well as an alum of the Facebook Accelerator program. Her work with solutions journalism has been award-winning and nationally recognized, and she’s been invited to represent the Source in conversations about journalism all over the country. She is a native of Dayton and a current resident of Shelby. She enjoys dogs, caramel in her coffee, and Ohio State football.

Evan Smith

CEO and Co-founder, The Texas Tribune

@evanasmith
Evan Smith is the CEO and co-founder of The Texas Tribune, a pioneering nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news organization whose deep coverage of Texas politics and public policy can be found at its website, texastribune.org, and in newspapers and on TV and radio stations across the state. Since its launch in 2009, the Tribune has won international acclaim and numerous honors, including a Peabody Award, 21 national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association and three general excellence awards from the Online News Association. Read more

Chris Sopher

Co-Founder and CEO, WhereBy.Us

@cksopher
Christopher Sopher is co-founder and CEO of WhereBy.Us, a media technology company whose platform enables creators to build their own media business and help inform and engage their community. Today, WhereBy.Us powers five journalism brands around the country—Miami’s The New Tropic, Seattle’s The Evergrey, Portland’s Bridgeliner, Orlando’s Pulptown, and Pittsburgh’s The Incline—that reach more than 2 million locals every month. Chris previously managed a portfolio of journalism and media innovation grants and investments at Knight Foundation, and has consulted, trained, and spoken for organizations around the world on human-centered design and creating media products for young people. Read more

Talia Stroud

Professor/Director, Center for Media Engagement, UT Austin

@TaliaStroud
Natalie (Talia) Jomini Stroud (Ph.D., Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania) is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies and the School of Journalism, as well as the founding and current director of the Center for Media Engagement in the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin. The Center for Media Engagement examines commercially viable and democratically beneficial ways of improving media. Read more

Cristina Tardáguila

Associate Director, International Fact-Checking Network

@ctardaguila
Cristina Tardáguila is the International Fact-Checking Network’s Associate Director. She has lived in Rio de Janeiro for most of her life. Since 2014, Cristina has dedicated her professional life to verification. She is the founder of Agência Lupa, the first fact-checking initiative in her country, and also responsible for LupaEducação, its educational branch. Read more

Rhona Tarrant

U.S. Editor, Storyful

@RhonaTarrant
Rhona Tarrant is an editor with Storyful, a social media news intelligence agency that verifies footage emerging from breaking news stories for newsrooms. Storyful also specializes in online investigations, including covering misinformation and disinformation, particularly around elections, and online extremism. Before joining Storyful in 2017, Rhona worked as a reporter with RTE Radio 1 and WNYC.

Mallary Tenore

Associate Director, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, University of Texas at Austin

@MallaryTenore
Mallary Tenore is the associate director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin’s Moody College of Communication. In this role she oversees the Center’s staff, programmatic work, events, fundraising, and more. She’s also a lecturer in UT’s School of Journalism. She was previously executive director of Images & Voices of Hope (ivoh), a media nonprofit, where she created a reporting fellowship and oversaw event management, community engagement, partnerships, fundraising, and the organization’s website and social media presence. Read more

Matt Thompson

Editor-in-chief, Center for Investigative Reporting (and a contributing editor at The Atlantic)

@mthomps
Matt Thompson is the editor-in-chief of the Center for Investigative Reporting and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Previously, he was executive editor of The Atlantic, overseeing new editorial initiatives and planning, developing the magazine’s recruitment and talent development operations, and guiding strategy for podcasting and digital membership. He was one of the founding hosts of Radio Atlantic, the organization’s pioneer podcast. Previously, as the deputy editor of TheAtlantic.com, Matt oversaw digital coverage teams and developed editorial projects in conjunction with site editors. Read more

Claire Wardle

U.S. Director, First Draft

@cward1e
Claire Wardle currently leads the strategic direction and research for First Draft. In 2017 she co-authored the report, Information Disorder: An interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policy for the Council of Europe. Previous to that she was a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, the Research Director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and head of social media for the United Nations Refugee Agency. Read more

David Weigel

National Political Correspondent, The Washington Post

@DaveWeigel
Dave Weigel is a national political correspondent for The Washington Post covering Congress and grass-roots political movements. He is the author of “The Show That Never Ends,” a history of progressive rock music.

Matthew Wright

Director of the Center for Cybersecurity Research, Rochester Institute of Technology

@wrightmk
Matthew Wright is the director of research for the Global Cybersecurity Institute and a professor of computing security at Rochester Institute of Technology. He graduated with his PhD from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts in May, 2005, where he earned his MS in 2002. His dissertation work examined attacks and defenses of systems that provide anonymity online. Read more

Álvaro Pereira Jr

 Reporter, TV Globo, Brazil

@alvaropereirajr
Álvaro Pereira Jr is a São Paulo-based senior correspondent with Globo TV, South America’s largest broadcaster. Focusing on science and technology -but not only-, he has reported from a number of less-visited foreign locations such as North Korea, Indonesia, Ukraine, Belarus, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago and the Colombia-Venezuela border, among others. He is a four-time Emmy International nominee for news. Read more

Craig Silverman

 Media Editor, Buzzfeed

@CraigSilverman
Craig Silverman is an award-winning journalist and author and one of the world’s leading experts on online disinformation, fake news, and digital investigations. He is the media editor of BuzzFeed News where he covers platforms, online disinformation, and media manipulation. Read more

Deborah Blum

Knight Science Journalism Program Director, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

@deborahblum
Deborah Blum is a Pulitzer-prizewinning American science journalist, columnist, and author of six books, including the 2018 New York Times Notable Book, The Poison Squad, and the New York Times best-seller, The Poisoner’s Handbook (2010). Her other books include Ghost Hunters (2010), Love at Goon Park (2006), Sex on the Brain (1997) and The Monkey Wars (1994). She has written for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Scientific American, Discover, and Wired. Read more

Haley Willis

Visual Investigations Reporter, The New York Times

@heytherehaIey                                                                                                Haley Willis is a Visual Investigations reporter with the New York Times video team. Visual Investigations is a new form of explanatory and accountability journalism that combines traditional reporting with more advanced digital forensics including analysis of cell phone videos, satellite imagery, social media posts, police scanner audio, and 3-D reconstructions of crime scenes. Haley’s reporting spans protest movements from Hong Kong to the United States, an airstrike on a migrant detention center in Libya, and a siege by the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. Prior to joining The Times, she worked as an open source researcher with the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law.

Helen Branswell

Senior Writer, Infectious Diseases, Stat News

@HelenBranswell
Helen Branswell is a senior writer at STAT, covering infectious diseases and global health. She has been with STAT, a Boston-based health news website, since its launch in autumn 2015. Prior to joining STAT, Branswell worked for The Canadian Press, where she was the news agency’s medical reporter for 15 years. Branswell was a 2004 CDC Knight Fellow and a 2011 Nieman Global Health Fellow at Harvard, where her work focused on polio eradication.

Kai Kupferschmidt

Contributing Correspondent, Science, base in Germany

@kakape                                                                                                          Kai is a science journalist based in Berlin, Germany. He is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine and writes for several German newspapers. Kai received a diploma in molecular biomedicine from the University of Bonn, Germany and later visited the Berlin Journalism School. He has won several prizes for his work and has written two books, one about infectious diseases and one about the color blue.

Millie Tran

Chief Product Officer, The Texas Tribune

@millie
Millie Tran is the product officer of The Texas Tribune. She leads the technology, design, data, marketing, audience and loyalty teams. Most recently, she was deputy off-platform editor at The New York Times and previously its global growth editor. Her news experience spans editorial, product, data, marketing and strategy at organizations including BuzzFeed News, the American Press Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Journal.

Dahlia Bazzaz

Education Lab Reporter, The Seattle Times

@dahliabazzaz
Dahlia Bazzaz is a reporter on the award-winning Education Lab team at The Seattle Times, where she covers schools in the Seattle area. She was among the first journalists in the United States to report on the impact of COVID-19 on children and education. Her work is primarily focused on systemic racism in public schools. Using the solutions journalism approach, she has highlighted ways to make the teacher workforce more racially representative of its students, leading to policy change at a state level. Before becoming a reporter, she was an engagement editor for the Education Lab, where she facilitated conversations about public education policy solutions online and in-person.

Cathleen Crowley

Global Managing Editor, Operations, at Reuters

@CathleenCrowley
Cathleen is a data journalist and web producer at the Times Union in Albany, N.Y., where she is a data team of one. Cathleen has covered every beat from cops, courts and city hall to education and health. Her path to data journalism started with Excel spreadsheets and Census data and grew to ranking hospitals by medical errors, creating databases, and designing interactives

Marco Túlio Pires

News Lab Lead, Argentina, Google News Initiative (workshop in English)

@mtrpires
Marco Túlio Pires is the News Lab Lead for Brazil & Latin America at the Google News Lab. Before joining Google in 2017, Marco was the School of Data’s program manager, a global network of organizations and trainers that help journalists and NGOs how to use data with maximum impact.
Marco co-founded in 2015 the first data journalism agency in Brazil, journalismo++, part of the international j++ network of data-driven agencies.
He also worked as a production coordinator at TV Globo, as a science news reporter at VEJA, and as an innovation, transparency and technology officer at the Social Development Office in the government of São Paulo.
Marco holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, and he also studied Electrical Engineering at the Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais; Computer Science, Management for Social Impact and Information Visualization at the University of Michigan and Georgetown University.
Today he supports publishers, journalists and media entrepreneurs in Brazil and Latin America with the best Google can offer so that they can build the future of media and tell the best stories of our time.

Juan Manuel Lucero

News Lab Lead, Brazil Google News Initiative (workshop in Spanish)

@jmlucero
Juan Manuel Lucero is the News Lab Lead in Argentina at the Google News Lab. Since 2016, Juan has worked closely with media organizations to foster innovation and develop partnerships and training programs for the Spanish-speaking Latin American region. One of the programs, the “GNI Live” online training sessions, reached more than 20,000 Latin American journalists from 19 countries in one year. He has also promoted digital transformation initiatives as well as diversity and inclusion in the media.
Before joining Google, Juan traveled throughout Latin America, giving conferences related to innovation, artificial intelligence, and digital business. Juan is a professor in different master’s programs and a digital business entrepreneur. He has also worked as a technology columnist in television, radio, and online publications.

Nishant Lalwani

Managing Director, Luminate, United Kingdom

@nishantlalwani
Nishant leads Luminate’s global strategy for funding independent media. This includes work in investigative journalism, press freedom, combatting misinformation, and innovative financial models for editorial independence. Nishant also leads the organization’s work in narrative change across all its impact areas and oversees Luminate’s strategy, learning & impact, and partner support teams.
Prior to joining Luminate, Nishant co-founded the non-profit Global Innovation Fund (GIF). As COO, he led GIF’s investment process and venture support team, making investments and grants across the world, including Burkina Faso, Pakistan, and the Philippines, as well as funding the first Social Impact Bond in Mexico.
Nishant was also on the founding team of the Monitor Inclusive Markets (MIM) group in India, which sought to drive scale among market-based solutions to poverty. He previously worked at the UN Development Programme in Zambia, developing new financing products for supply chains that engaged small businesses.
In a non-executive capacity, Nishant sits on the advisory board of The Correspondent and the boards of Year Here and Shivia.

Sarabeth Berman

CEO, American Journalism Project

@SarabethBerman
Sarabeth is CEO of the American Journalism Project. Previously, she was the Global Head of Public Affairs at Teach For All, a network of social enterprises in 53 countries, where she led communications and marketing, public-sector partnerships, and research and evaluation. Before joining Teach For All, Sarabeth spent seven years in China, where she led fundraising and recruitment at Teach For China. Sarabeth first came to China in 2007 as a Henry Luce Scholar, working as a producer and manager in the performing arts. She serves on the board of directors at the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School. She is a graduate of Barnard College. She and her husband Evan Osnos, and two children, live in Washington D.C.

Dele Olojede

 Founder and Host, Africa In the World, South Africa

@DeleOlojede
Dele Olojede, a reporter, editor and publisher over nearly four decades, won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the lingering aftereffects of the Rwandan genocide. The Nigerian-born Dele spent part of his career at Newsday, where he served as bureau chief in Johannesburg, Beijing, and at the United Nations, as well as foreign editor. He is the chief host of the annual Africa In the World festival of ideas at Spier Wine Farm, in Stellenbosch, South Africa. He is a fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a moderator of its leadership seminars and splits his time between Stellenbosch and New York

Vera Chan

Senior Manager, Worldwide Journalists Relations, Microsoft News Lab

@FastTalkingD
Vera Chan. Vera is sr. manager for worldwide journalists with Microsoft News Labs. She has worked the prototypical features/A&E/culture beat at a small daily newspaper and led global editorial projects and initiatives at the world’s leading online destinations (Yahoo! and Microsoft). She works with journalists and newsrooms around the world on technology to help them scale.

 

Verah Okeyo

Global Health Reporter and Project Lead for the Diversity and Inclusion at Daily Nation

@VerahOkeyo
Verah Okeyo is global health editor at the Daily Nation, Kenya’s largest daily newspaper, and champion for the new Diversion, Inclusion and Belonging Desk (DIVERSE NATION) at the Nation Media Group. DIVERSE Nation seeks to ensure reporting underserved communities and subjects, focus on local journalism with international appeal and distribute its reporting in multiple platforms. Okeyo received the ICFJ-Microsoft grant on data journalism for a report on maternity health and child mortality rates.

Sally Lehrman

Chief Executive Officer, Trust Project

@journethics
An internationally recognized expert and speaker on building a more trustworthy press, Lehrman was named one of MediaShift’s Top 20 Digital Innovators (2018) for her work founding and leading the Trust Project. Previously an award-winning reporter on medicine and science, her honors include a Peabody Award, duPont-Columbia and the John S. Knight Fellowship, with bylines in Scientific American, Nature, Health, and The DNA Files, distributed by NPR, among others. Her co-edited volume, “Reporting Inequality: Tools and Methods for Covering Race and Ethnicity,” was published in 2018. She is Science and Justice Professor at the UC-Santa Cruz Center for Science and Justice.

Robert Hernandez

Professor of Professional Practice, University of Southern California

@webjournalist
Robert Hernandez, aka WebJournalist, has made a name for himself as a journalist of the Web, not just on the Web. His primary focus is exploring and developing the intersection of technology and journalism – to empower people, inform reporting and storytelling, engage community, improve distribution and, whenever possible, enhance revenue. He is a Professor of Professional Practice at USC Annenberg, but he’s not an academic… he’s more of a “hackademic” that specializes in “MacGyvering” digital journalism through emerging technologies. His most recent work includes Augmented Reality, Wearables/Google Glass and Virtual Reality — he and his students produce VR experiences under their brand: JOVRNALISM™.Read more

Elizabeth Green

CEO and co-founder of Chalkbeat

@elizwgreen
Elizabeth Green is the CEO and co-founder of Chalkbeat, the nonprofit news organization dedicated to improving educational equity through local, independent, high-impact journalism. Since launching in 2014, Chalkbeat’s reporting has spurred changes in education funding, legislation, policy, and practice and is regularly cited or republished in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Vox, and more. Elizabeth is also the co-founder and board chair of the American Journalism Project, the first venture philanthropy firm dedicated to local news. Her book Building a Better Teacher was a New York Times bestseller and notable book of 2014. She has also written about education issues for The New York Times Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and other publications. Elizabeth has been a Spencer Fellow in education journalism at Columbia University and an Abe Journalism Fellow studying education in Japan.

Jeff Jarvis

 Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism

@jeffjarvis
Jeff Jarvis is the Leonard Tow Professor of Journalism Innovation and director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. He blogs at Buzzmachine.com and is co-host of the podcast This Week in Google. In earlier lives, he was president of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications; founding editor of Entertainment Weekly; TV critic of TV Guide and People; Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News; and a reporter and editor on the San Francisco Examiner and Chicago Tribune.

Michael Grant

Teacher Fellow, Google News Initiative (workshop in English)

@mikegrantme
Google News Lab teaching fellow, Michael Grant, will highlight the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning and explain, in English, how to utilize these technologies to analyze large datasets, find patterns in pictures, audio and text, as well as enhance their overall workflow.
Michael Grant is a veteran editorial experience designer. In 2019 he joined the Google News Lab where he provides newsrooms with expert training on a range of tools for reporting and storytelling. Prior, he was user experience design editor at Reveal, from The Center for Investigative Reporting. Grant is also an alum of the 2018 John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University. As a fellow he explored technology preparedness among ethnic media publishers and methods for strengthening technology adoption.

RESEARCHERS

Amy Schmitz Weiss

ISOJ Research Chair, Associate Professor, School of Journalism & Media Studies, San Diego State University

@digitalamysw
Amy Schmitz Weiss is an associate professor in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University. She is the research chair for the International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ) and co-editor of the #ISOJ journal. She is the recipient of the 2017-2018 San Diego State University Grant Program. Her project entails examining the intersection of journalism, social media and location-based services in today’s digital/mobile environment. Read more

Alfred Hermida

Associate Professor and Director, School of Journalism, University of British Columbia (Canada)

@Hermida
Alfred Hermida PhD is an associate professor and director of the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media at the University of British Columbia, and co-founder of The Conversation Canada. With more than two decades of experience in digital journalism, his research explores the transformation of media, with a focus on emerging news practices, media innovation, social media and data journalism. Read more

Kirsi Cheas

Postdoc, University of Turku, Finland

Kirsi Cheas received her Ph.D. from the University of Helsinki, Finland in 2018. Her research has focused on cross-national comparisons of ways in and extent to which journalists incorporate diverse voices and views in the news. Methodologically and theoretically, her work is inspired by frame analysis as well as Pierre Bourdieu’s field analysis and the concept of symbolic violence. Read more

Dustin Harp

Associate Professor and Director, Women’s & Gender Studies Program, University of Texas at Arlington

@dustinharp
Dustin Harp (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin at Madison) is the current director of Women’s & Gender Studies Program and an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Texas at Arlington. A former journalist, Dustin teaches journalism and communication courses. Her research explores the intersections of women, journalism, and mass communication and media, with a specific interest in women and politics and the influence of social media on public discourse. Read more

Maiju Kannisto

Cultural historian and media scholar, Finland

@KannistoMaiju
Dr. Maiju Kannisto is a cultural historian and media scholar with experience in media industry and journalism studies. She received her PhD. in Cultural History from the University of Turku, Finland. During 2019-2020, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the John Morton Center for North American Studies in a project that examined news coverage of school shootings, the dynamic relationship between legacy media and social media, and the ethical journalism. Read more

Regina Lawrence

Professor/Director, Agora Journalism Center, University of Oregon

@LawrenceRegina
Regina Lawrence is a professor in the School of Journalism & Communication and Director of the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on the role of the media in public discourse, politics and policy; gender and the media; and journalistic norms, routines, and innovation. Regina’s books include When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina, winner of the 2016 Doris A. Graber Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association, and Hillary Clinton’s Race for the White House: Gender Politics and the Media on the Campaign Trail.

Olga Lazitski

PhD Candidate, University of California, San Diego

Olga Lazitski is a media scholar and a journalist. Her academic work encompasses issues of propaganda and populism within the contexts of the post-truth era, production of national subjects and nationalist sentiments, public resistance to the hegemonic discourses and oppressive regimes, practices of alternative professional journalism and its role in the public spheres. Read more

Carolyn Nielsen

Professor, Department of Journalism, Western Washington University

@profjournalista
Carolyn Nielsen, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Journalism at Western Washington University and is an affiliated faculty member with the Department of Women Gender and Sexuality Studies. She teaches a mix of skills and theory courses. Her research focuses at the confluence of newsroom sociology, digital technology, and coverage of race and immigration. Her book, Reporting on Race in a Digital Era, was published in February by Palgrave MacMillan. Read more

Mark Poepsel

Associate Professor, Mass Communication, SIU-Edwardsville

@markpoepsel
Mark Poepsel is an associate professor of Mass Communication at SIU-Edwardsville where he has been for seven years. Mark’s research areas of interest are participatory and entrepreneurial journalism. He teaches media entrepreneurship, science and sustainability media (BIOWIRE), publication design, advanced broadcast writing, introductory mass comm theory, introductory media writing, and feature writing, PR writing, and graduate research methods. Read more

Urszula Pruchniewska

Assistant Professor, Communication Studies, Kutztown University

@urszie
Urszula Pruchniewska is an assistant professor of Communication Studies in the Department of Communication Studies at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on the critical analysis of media (particularly social media), digital technologies, and gender. Some of her previous work has explored gendered reporting in global journalism and the negotiation of self-identity by feminist writers online. Most recently, Urszula has been studying everyday feminist activism in digital spaces, such as the use of secret Facebook groups for women’s professional success. Read more

Ryan Wallace

Assistant Instructor, School of Journalism, University of Texas at Austin

@utwallace
As an emerging scholar in science communications and media studies, Ryan Wallace is an interdisciplinary researcher whose background includes the life, physical and social sciences. In 2013, he began his career with a BS in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of California, Irvine. Working as a science journalist and grant writer, his unique ability to effectively communicate science sparked a career in media and a keen interest in how science is portrayed to mass audiences. Read more

Ingrid Bachmann

Professor, Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile

@Ingrid_Bachmann
Ingrid Bachmann is an associate professor and Director of the School of Journalism at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. A former reporter, her research interests include gender, political communication and language. She primarily focuses on the role of the news media in the definition of identities and meanings within the public sphere. Her research has been published in Communication Research, Feminist Media Studies, International Journal of Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism Studies, and Women’s Studies in Communication, among other journals. Currently she serves as chair of the Feminist Scholarship Division of the International Communication Association