The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships Advisers
ReportingonHealth.org Advisers
The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships Advisers
Sue A. Cross (Chair) is senior vice president of global new media and U.S. print/broadcast markets for the Associated Press. Previously, she was AP's vice president/online for U.S. newspaper markets. Ms. Cross led development of Money & Markets, AP's multimedia financial information product, was on the launch team for AP's Online Video Network, and initiated redevelopment of AP's hosted online news product. In 2004 and 2005, she served as regional vice president for the Western United States, during which she expanded AP's services for the U.S. ethnic media market. From 1998 through 2003, she was chief of bureau for Los Angeles, overseeing international, national and state coverage from California and Nevada. She created a multimedia newsroom and expanded AP's West Coast entertainment report with a focus on real-time coverage of entertainment events. Ms. Cross has served as AP's bureau chief in Phoenix, assistant bureau chief in Chicago, and news editor in Illinois and Texas. In Chicago she was responsible for broadening the scope of AP's medical and health reporting from medical journals. She previously worked as a reporter in Ohio and Alaska. Ms. Cross holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Ohio State University, where she specialized in health and science coverage and served as editor in chief of The Lantern student newspaper. She serves on the board of directors of the InterAmerican Press Association and is active in organizations including the Association for Health Care Journalists, the Online News Association, Society of Professional Journalists, and International Women's Media Foundation. Ms. Cross lives with her husband, author and blogger Michael Steere, in Montclair, New Jersey.
William F. Allman is vice president of e-media for www.Bonniercorp.com, which publishes more than 40 special-interest magazines and Web sites. Previously, he was chief content/creative officer for The HealthCentral Network, a network of Web sites. Mr. Allman has been involved in interactive content for more than two decades. He formerly was senior vice president and general manager of interactive new media for Discovery.com, where his duties involved the strategic planning and day-to-day management of Discovery Communications, Inc.'s Web sites, as well as overseeing strategy and development for all ITV and broadband applications. He was the founding general manager for the U.S. News & World Report Web sites, which launched in November 1992. Mr. Allman began his career as a print journalist, helping to create the award-winning magazine Science 80, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, before moving to U.S. News & World Report as a senior writer and editor specializing in science and health. He has bachelor's degrees in English andbiology from Brown University.
Samuel Belilty has been news director of KWEX TV, Univision 41, in San Antonio since August 2007. Before that, he spent almost nine years at KFTV Univisión 21 in Fresno, including five as news director. Under his leadership, KFTV received five Emmy nominations and the Edward Murrow Award for Best Regional Newscast in 2007. Before moving to Fresno in 1999, Mr. Belilty was a correspondent in Miami for one year for Radio Caracas Television (RCTV). A native of Venezuela, he held a variety of positions with RCTV in Caracas, beginning in 1990. His work for special reports show, "48 Horas," included reporting from Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Haiti, Cuba, the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East. In Fresno, he served as board governor of the Northern California chapter of the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences.
Jane Brody has written the "Personal Health" column for The New York Times since 1976.Her column appears every Tuesday in the Science Times section and more than 100 other newspapers. Ms. Brody joined the Times in 1965 as a full-time specialist in medicine and biology.She has received numerous awards for journalistic excellence, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Princeton University in 1987. Her books include the best sellers "Jane Brody's Nutrition Book" and "Jane Brody's Good Food Book." Her newest book, "Jane Brody's Guide to the Great Beyond," was published in January 2009.
E. Richard Brown, Ph.D., is the founder and director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and a professor at the UCLA School of Public Health. Professor Brown has studied and written extensively on disadvantaged populations' access to health care. His studies of health insurance coverage, the uninsured and eligibility for public programs have been used by California's governors, legislators and advocates in crafting health insurance legislation and programs. Professor Brown is the principal investigator for the California Health Interview Survey, one of the nation's largest ongoing health surveys. He also has served as a full-time senior consultant to the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform, as health policy adviser to two members of the United States Senate and on several National Academy of Science study committees. He is a past president of the American Public Health Association.
Sandy Close is the founder and executive director of New America Media, a San Francisco-based network of more than 400 ethnic news organizations that collaborate on a weekly TV show, an awards program and an inter-ethnic media exchange and Web site. Ms. Close received a bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley in 1964 before moving to Hong Kong, where she worked as the China editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review. In 1974, she became executive director of the Bay Area Institute/Pacific News Service, which she helped develop into one of the most diverse sources of literary voices in the U.S. news media. In 1991, she founded YO! (Youth Outlook), a collaboration of writers and young people, and in 1996 she co-founded "The Beat Within," a weekly newsletter of writing and art by incarcerated youths.Ms. Close received a MacArthur Foundation "genius award" in 1995 for her work in communications. In 1997, a film she co-produced - "Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brian" - won the Academy Award for best short documentary.
Robert J. Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H., has 20 years' experience as a health and medical journalist. Currently, he serves as president and editor-in-chief of Everwell, a company that creates and distributes consumer health video content. Previously, he was executive producer of the award-winning PBS series "HealthWeek," executive editor for Time Life Medical, and a producer for CNN medical news. He has also served as public editor for WebMD and as a contributing columnist for The Wall Street Journal, where his regular feature, called "Aches & Claims," dissected the science behind claims for various health-related products and services. Professor Davis teaches at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and is the author of a book, "The Healthy Skeptic: Cutting Through the Hype About Your Health," which was published by the University of California Press in Spring 2008. He earned a doctorate in health policy from Brandeis University, where he was a Pew Foundation Fellow. He also holds a master's degree in public health from Emory and an undergraduate degree in politics from Princeton University.
Anh Do is managing editor of LA.Spot.Us, a community-funded journalism project launched in Southern California in 2009 in collaboration with USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism. A second-generation journalist, Ms. Do is also vice president of Nguoi Viet Daily News, the largest Vietnamese-language newspaper in the United States, which was founded by her late father. While there, she launched Nguoi Viet 2, a weekly English section for younger readers. She started her career at the Dallas Morning News and the Seattle Times before writing for the Orange County Register for 12 years, including a column on Asian affairs. Her reporting has taken her to England, Guatemala, Peru, Vietnam, India, Cuba, and 18 states in Mexico. Her work has been honored by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, the Asian American Journalists Association, the University of Washington’s DART award for excellence in reporting on victims of violence, and Freedom Newspapers’ Sweepstakes Award. Ms. Do is a graduate of USC, with degrees in journalism and English literature. She also studied international relations at Regent’s College in London and Spanish at UNAM in Mexico City. She is an adjunct faculty member at USC Annenberg, where she has taught news reporting to undergraduates.
Felix Gutiérrez, Ph.D., is a professor of journalism and communication at the Annenberg School for Communication and affiliate professor at the Program in American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. An advocate for diversity and inclusiveness, he was the first executive director of the California Chicano News Media Association. Professor Gutiérrez is author or co-author of five books and numerous scholarly articles, most of them on racial diversity and the media. He is co-author of "Racism, Sexism, and the Media: The Rise of Class Communication in Multicultural America," which won the 2003 Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Medallion for Excellence in Research about Journalism. Professor Gutiérrez has a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a doctorate in communication from Stanford University.
Joe R. Howry is editor and vice president of the Ventura County Star. Before becoming editor in 2004, he was managing editor for 11 years. Under Mr. Howry's leadership, the Star won the general excellence award in its circulation category in 2006 and 2007 in the annual California Newspaper Publishers Association competition. The Star also won the general excellence award for its Web site in the Online Newspaper Association's annual competitions in 2004 and 2007, the only organization to win twice. Mr. Howry previously served as the managing editor of the Statesman-Journal in Salem, Oregon. He worked at the Reno Gazette for 10 years after getting his start in journalism at the Daily News in Havre, Montana. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Montana.
Richard J. Jackson, M.D., M.P.H., is professor and chair of the Environmental Health Sciences Department of the UCLA School of Public Health.He is an internationally recognized environmental health expert who in recent years has focused his research and advocacy on the links between urban sprawl and human health. Dr. Jackson has served asdirector of the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan and as professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. From 2004 to 2005, he was state public health officer at the California Department of Health Services.As director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for nine years, beginning in 1994, Dr. Jackson addressed issues such as cancer, asthma, radiation, pesticide exposure and toxicology, especially lead poisoning in children. From August 2003 to March 2004, Dr. Jackson was senior adviser to CDC's director. A pediatrician, Dr. Jackson is a graduate of UC San Francisco's School of Medicine and has a master's degree in public health from UC Berkeley. He began his public health career at the CDC as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service.
Francine R. Kaufman, M.D., became vice president of global affairs for Medtronic Diabetes in January 2009, after 30 years at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, where she was head of the Center for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, and 11 years as a professor of pediatrics at Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.At Childrens Hospital, Dr. Kaufman also directed the Comprehensive Childhood Diabetes Center.She is the author of more than 150 medical articles, as well as a book, "Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America - And What We Must Do to Stop It."She collaborated with Discovery Health on a documentary, "Diabetes: A Global Epidemic," that premiered in November 2007. Dr. Kaufman is past president of the American Diabetes Association and a recipient of the 2003 Woman of Valor award from the American Diabetes Association for her lifetime achievement in pediatric endocrinology and research.She was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2005.
Cynthia (Cinny) Kennard is a senior fellow at the USC Annenberg School for Communication's Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. Ms. Kennard leads the center's development of a project on women in communication leadership that will become a center for scholarly research, policy analysis and professional executive training. Previously, Ms. Kennard served as managing director of NPR West, where she oversaw programming and operations at NPR's production studio in Culver City, California. Among Ms. Kennard's broad leadership responsibilities at NPR was oversight of the production of the two daily programs, "News & Notes" and "Day to Day." She also led the engineering and support staffs. Previously, Ms. Kennard served as an executive project director and an assistant professor of journalism at theAnnenberg School. Before that, she was a CBS News correspondent based in Los Angeles, London, and Moscow. She covered the 2002 California gubernatorial campaign for KCET-TV, the public television station in Los Angeles, and earlier in her career, worked as correspondent or host for television or radio stations in Dallas, Houston, Ft. Wayne, and Norwalk, Connecticut. Ms. Kennard has launched several start-up projects aimed at improving broadcast journalism. She served as the executive director of Reliable Resources, the $1.5 million Pew Charitable Trust/USC Annenberg project to improve radio and television political coverage, and is a co-founder and executive board member of the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Television Journalism. She is a member of the jury for the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for excellence in broadcast journalism. Ms. Kennard's journalism awards include a 1990-91 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for coverage of the Persian Gulf War. She is a 1977 graduate of Northeastern University.
Tim Lau is chief executive officer of Sing Tao Daily on the West Coast, which gives him oversight over the Northern and Southern California editions of the Hong Kong-based newspaper. Under his direction, Sing Tao Daily has become the best selling Chinese-language newspaper in the Bay Area. In April 1996, he spearheaded the company's expansion into radio. Today, its Cantonese and Mandarin programs are rated by Arbitron as the most popular Chinese radio shows in the United States. In October 2003, Mr. Lau was appointed director of Sing Tao Newspapers (Canada 1988) Ltd. Mr. Lau previously was a television producer. He has a master's degree from Ohio University.
Hugo Morales, J.D., is the founder and executive director of Radio Bilingüe, the Latino public radio network. Headquartered in Fresno, the network provides a national satellite service in English, Spanish, Mixteco and Hmong. It serves over half a million listeners with its pioneering daily Spanish-language national talk show, Linea Abierta, its independently produced news service, Noticiero Latino, and its offerings of Spanish-language folk music. In 1994, Mr. Morales received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and in 1999, he received an Edward R. Murrow Award, one of the broadcast industry's highest honors. He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School and has an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from California State University Fresno. He serves or has served on the boards of The California Endowment, Central California Legal Services, The National Alliance for Hispanic Health, the California Postsecondary Education Commission, Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, Rosenberg Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, California Tomorrow, The California Wellness Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative Advisory Committee, the Fresno Arts Council Folk Arts Program Advisory Committee and the Alliance for California Traditional Arts.
Pedro Rojas has been executive editor of La Opinión, the largest-circulation Spanish-language newspaper in the U.S., since 2005. He is also a member of the Los Angeles-based company's executive committee. He has more than 30 years of experience in the newspaper business, the last ten in management positions. He served eight months as the executive editor for El Diario La Prensa, the nation's oldest Spanish-language daily. He worked for 27 years for El Nuevo Día in Puerto Rico, six of them as the managing editor. A native of the Dominican Republic, Mr. Rojas holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Puerto Rico. He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Brian D. Smedley, Ph.D., has been vice president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and director of its Health Policy Institute (HPI) since September 2008. The institute explores disparities in health and generates policy recommendations on health equity concerns. Mr. Smedley previously served as research director for The Opportunity Agenda, a communication, research and advocacy organization that he co-founded in 2004. Before that, he had served as a senior program officer in the Division of Health Sciences Policy of the Institute of Medicine, where he was study director for the report, "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care," and three other reports.Previously, he was director for public interest policy for the American Psychological Association, a Congressional Science Fellow in the office of Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-VA), and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Educational Testing Service.Among his awards and distinctions: the National Academy of Sciences' Individual Staff Award for Distinguished Service in 2003 and 2000; the Congressional Black Caucus "Healthcare Hero" award in April 2002, and the Early Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest from the American Psychological Association in 2002. A Detroit native, Mr. Smedley graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with degrees in psychology and social relations and earned a doctorate in psychology from UCLA.
Antronette K. Yancey, M.D., M.P.H.,is a professor in the Department of Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, and is co-director of its Center to Eliminate Health Disparities. Dr. Yancey's primary research interests are in chronic disease prevention and adolescent health promotion. She returned to academia full-time in 2001 after five years in public health practice, first as director of public health for the city of Richmond, Virginia, and, until recently, as director of chronic disease prevention and health hromotion for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Dr. Yancey has authored more than 100 scientific publications, including briefs, book chapters, health promotion videos, and more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles. She has generated more than $20 million in extramural funds, including four National Institutes of Health independent investigator grants as principal investigator. She serves on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention and Health Literacy Roundtable and the National Physical Activity Plan Steering Committee. She chairs the Board of Directors of the Oakland, CA-based Public Health Institute. Dr. Yancey completed her undergraduate studies in biochemistry and molecular biology at Northwestern University, her medical degree at Duke University, and her preventive medicine residency and master's degree in public health at UCLA. She is a basketball enthusiast and published poet and spoken word artist. Her 1997 book of poetry and art, a collaboration with artist Todd Berrien, is "An Old Soul with a Young Spirit: Poetry in the Era of Desegregation Recovery." Her spoken word music CD, a collaboration with musicians Ciro Hurtado and Kim Jordan, was released in 2001. Since 2006, Dr. Yancey has been a public health commentator for the local National Public Radio affiliate, KPCC. Her second book, "Instant Recess: How to Build a Fit Nation for the 21st Century," will be published by the University of California Press in 2010.
ReportingonHealth.org Advisers
Sue A. Cross is senior vice president of global new media and U.S. print/broadcast markets for the Associated Press. Previously, she was AP's vice president/online for U.S. newspaper markets. Ms. Cross led development of Money & Markets, AP's multimedia financial informationproduct,was on the launch team forAP's Online Video Network, and initiated redevelopment of AP's hosted online newsproduct. In 2004 and 2005, she served as regional vice president for the Western United States, during which she expanded AP's services for the U.S. ethnic media market. From 1998 through 2003, she was chief of bureau for Los Angeles, overseeing international, national and state coverage from California and Nevada. She created a multimedia newsroom and expanded AP's West Coast entertainment report with a focus on real-time coverage of entertainment events. Ms. Cross has served as AP's bureau chief in Phoenix, assistant bureau chief in Chicago, and news editor in Illinois and Texas.In Chicago she was responsible for broadening the scope of AP's medical and health reporting from medical journals.Shepreviously worked as a reporter inOhio and Alaska. Ms. Cross holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Ohio State University, where she specialized in health and science coverage and served as editor in chief of The Lantern student newspaper. She serves on the board of directors of theInterAmerican Press Association and is active in organizations includingtheAssociation for Health Care Journalists,the Online News Association,Society of Professional Journalists,and International Womens Media Foundation. Ms. Cross lives with her husband, author and blogger Michael Steere, in Montclair, New Jersey.
Robertson Barrett, spent over 14 years managing online ventures in new media and publishing before joining Perfect Market as Chief Strategy Officer in 2009. His experience includes senior positions at Tribune Interactive, Time Inc. (time.com), Disney (abcnews.com), and Primedia, Inc. (Channel One Interactive). Most recently, Rob served as Executive Vice-President of Tribune Interactive, where he headed the operations and strategic development of online properties for 40 U.S. markets and oversaw all Tribune news, entertainment and TV sites including latimes.com, chicagotribune.com and baltimoresun.com. As Senior Vice President, Interactive and General Manager, latimes.com, Rob managed the development of The Times multimedia and online operations' $75 million interactive portfolio. There, he led all Tribune markets in yearly growth and increased latimes.com's audience by 50% in 2007 and 100% in 2008, receiving the Tribune Company's top management award for his success. He also served as Vice-President and General Manager of the Feed Room, Inc. an Internet news venture backed by NBC, overseeing the creation of video-on-demand for NBC, Tribune Company, CBS and local station groups. His career in publishing began at Raleigh, North Carolinaís News & Reporter where he was a staff reporter. He holds a BA from Duke University and a Master's from Harvard University.
Andrew DeVigal has been multimedia editor of the New York Times since October 2006. Mr.DeVigal has worked in the news industry since 1993 as a staff artist, graphic journalist, web designer, producer/developer and researcher. He served previously as an assistant professor of journalism at San Francisco State University and also taught courses in new media and visual journalism at the Poynter Institute. Mr. DeVigal is the founder of InteractiveNarratives.org, a Web site that showcases the best of multimedia journalism. He is also co-founder and co-principal of DeVigal Design, a communication firm with offices in San Francisco and New York. Mr. DeVigal is active in the Asian American Journalism Association and participated in its executive leadership program in 1998.
Ralph Gage is director of special projects for The World Company, a pioneer in multimedia journalism that publishes seven newspapers in Kansas. He is also corporate secretary for WorldWest Limited Liability Company, which operates papers in Colorado and Arizona, and manager of Orbiter Limited Liability Company, which operates KTKA-TV in Topeka. Until December 2007, he was The World Company's chief operating officer, as well as general manager of the Lawrence Journal-World and News, its flagship newspaper. Mr. Gage is a native of Ottawa, Kansas and a journalism graduate of the University of Kansas. He previously worked on newspapers in Salina, Kansas and East St. Louis, Illinois.
Diana Hembree is editor-in-chief of Consumer Health Interactive, a health and medical Web site.She previously served as a senior editor at Hippocrates, a national magazine for physicians, and as a news editor and reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco, where she worked on health-related stories for "60 Minutes," "Frontline," the Times of London syndicate, and dozens of newspapers, magazines and local and national TV stations. Earlier in her career, Ms. Hembree was a contributing editor at Parenting magazine and helped launch ParentTIME, the magazine's Web site. She also worked as a book editor on "Generation Extra Large: Rescuing Our Children from the Epidemic of Obesity" and several other books. She has lectured on journalism at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Laney College, San Francisco State and other institutions. She has received more than two dozen national journalism awards, including the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award for television reporting, the National Education Writers Award, a Jesse Neal Award for magazine editing, the National Press Foundation's Spanish Language Fellowship, and a team award for World Wide Web health reporting.
Christian A. Hendricks has been vice president for interactive media at McClatchy Co. since August 1999. He joined McClatchy in 1992 as advertising manager for marketing for the Fresno Bee, where he served as marketing director from 1993 to 1994, when he was named manager of technology for McClatchy. He held this position until 1996 when he was promoted to president and publisher of Nando Media (now known as McClatchy Interactive), McClatchy's interactive publishing and software development operation, where he worked until August 1999. The New Media Federation of the Newspaper Association of America recognized him as a "New Media Pioneer" in 2003.
Manny Hernandez is a social entrepreneur and a community strategist committed to connecting people touched by diabetes and raising diabetes awareness. He is the president of the Diabetes Hands Foundation (DHF), a nonprofit that runs the first two social networks for people touched by diabetes: TuDiabetes.com (in English, started in March 2007) and EsTuDiabetes.com (in Spanish, started in August 2007). He has had LADA (a form of type 1 diabetes) since 2002 and has used an insulin pump since 2005. He has been a columnist for dLife.com since 2007. In early 2008, Mr. Hernandez worked briefly for Ning, an online social networking company in Palo Alto. From 2000 to 2008,he worked in web product management, online community management, content management and search engine marketing in a number of companies, including Full Sail University, Quepasa.com, Earth911 and Pets911, and from 1996 to 2000, he worked for Procter & Gamble in Venezuela. Mr. Hernandez earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Universidad Metropolitana in Venezuela and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University. While attending Cornell, the Web bug bit him, and it hasn’t abandoned him since. He wrote "Ning for Dummies," which was published in April 2009 and collaborated on "Twitter For Marketing for Dummies," due to be published in the Fall of 2009.You can find him on Twitter (@askmanny) and read his personal blog at www.askmanny.com.
Joe R. Howry is editor and vice president of the Ventura County Star. Before becoming editor in 2004, he was managing editor for 11 years. Under Mr. Howry's leadership, the Star won the general excellence award in its circulation category in 2006 and 2007 in the annual California Newspaper Publishers Association competitions. The Star also won the general excellence award for its Web site in the Online Newspaper Association's annual competitions in 2004 and 2007, the only organization to win twice.Mr. Howry previously served as the managing editor of the Statesman-Journal in Salem, Oregon. He worked at the Reno Gazette for 10 years after getting his start in journalism at the Daily News in Havre, Montana. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Montana.
Alma Martinez is a reporter and program host for Radio Bilingüe in Fresno, where she focuses on the health needs of the farm worker community. Radio Bilingüe is a community news and cultural network that broadcasts in Spanish, English,Mixteco, and Hmong on more than 100 U.S. affiliates and nearly 20 stations in Mexico. A California Endowment Health Journalism Fellow in 2005, Ms. Martinez has reported extensively on environmental health issues. Born in Mexico, Ms. Martinez attended Los Banos High School and California State University, Fresno. She began her broadcast career at local television station KMSG in Fresno, where she produced a 30-minute documentary on the life of a farm worker family from Soledad. In June 2002, she joined the National Latino Public Radio Network, Radio Bilingüe, as associate producer of the news talk show "Línea Abierta." Recently, Ms. Martinez recorded the voices of farm worker "promotoras de salud" -- health promoters - who are providing vital health information to uninsured families in the community.
Michael Skoler entered journalism after leaving the French wine business and reading a book titled "How to Be a Freelance Writer." His subsequent work in print, radio, television and online has earned him numerous honors, including the duPont-Columbia Silver Baton, the Robert Kennedy F. Memorial Award, and a 1993 Nieman fellowship at Harvard University. Mr. Skoler spent a decade at National Public Radio, first as a science editor and correspondent and then as a foreign correspondent based in Nairobi. He has also taught and lectured on journalism in the United States, Europe and Africa. Mr. Skoler earned a bachelor's degree at Harvard University, and in 1999, he earned an MBA at the University of Virginia as a Frank Batten Media Fellow, after which he joined McKinsey and Company as a management consultant serving media and technology companies. In 2003, he became managing director of news for American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio. There, he created Public Insight Journalism, a new journalism model that uses a fast-growing citizen source network of 75,000 to inform coverage by MPR and eight other news organizations around the country. In 2006, Mr. Skoler became the founding executive director of the Center for Innovation in Journalism at American Public Media. He left the center in July 2008 to take a family sabbatical in southern Mexico.
Jane Ellen Stevens is a fellow at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri and an associate faculty member at the Knight Digital Media Center at the UC Berkeley. She has worked for the Boston Globe and San Francisco Examiner, done multimedia reporting for the New York Times and Discovery Channel, and lived and worked in Kenya and Indonesia.Ms. Stevens founded a syndicated science and technology feature service with 20 newspaper clients worldwide, including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and Asahi Shimbun's AERA Magazine. She's written for magazines, including National Geographic, and was among the first group of video journalists at New York Times Television. She taught the first multimedia reporting classes at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, developed TOPP.org, and consults with news organizations, including the Ventura County Star and NPR, about making the transition to Webcentric newsrooms. She blogs at ReJurno.com.
Lisa Stone is a co-founder and chief executive officer of BlogHer, a publishing syndicate of more than 1,500 women bloggers that reaches more than 8 million women a month through its Web site, www.BlogHer.com. Ms. Stone previously helped launch three sponsored blogging networks: American Lawyer Media| Law.com's legal blog network (2004), Knight Ridder Digital's Thatsracin.com (2005), and Glam Media (2005). While an executive at Programming for Women.com, she launched an 18-channel network and helped grow it to a Top 30 site.She has launched successful online networks and interactive programming for many national brands and has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, The Oakland Tribune, Publisher's Weekly and Frommer's, among other publications. She was the first internet journalist awarded a Nieman Fellowship by Harvard University. Her personal blog, Surfette, began as an extension of her 2004 convention blog for theLos Angeles Times. She also blogs on BlogHer on politics and media.
Ex Officio
Mary Lou Fulton is the communications and media program officer at The California Endowment, where she is responsible for managing a grant-making portfolio focused on the external policy and political environment for health and community health policy issues. Before joining The Endowment in 2009, Ms. Fulton served as vice president of audience development for the Bakersfield Californian, where she oversaw the conceptualization and launch of new products and publications. Her team was also responsible for the conceptualization and development of the “Bakomatic” Social Media Platform that now powers thousands of blogs in Bakersfield and has been licensed to other media companies, including the Gannett and McClatchy corporations. The platform was honored with a 2006 Knight-Batten Award for Innovation in Journalism. In addition to her extensive background in social media, Ms. Fulton has considerable experience as a journalist, serving as both an editor and writer at the Los Angeles Times, Associated Press and AOL.com, where she was managing editor. She also played a key role in the creation of washingtonpost.com, where she oversaw staff, news presentation, and design as managing editor. Ms. Fulton earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunication and her master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Geneva Overholser is director of the School of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. Previously, she held the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting for the Missouri School of Journalism, where she was based in the school's Washington bureau. She was editor of The Des Moines Register from 1988 to 1995, where she led the paper to a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. While at the Register,she also earned recognition as Editor of the Year by the National Press Foundation and was named "The Best in the Business" by American Journalism Review. Ms. Overholser has been ombudsman of The Washington Post, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times, a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group, and a reporter for the Colorado Springs Sun. She has been a columnist for the Columbia Journalism Review and frequent contributor to Poynter.org. She also spent five years overseas, working and writing in Paris and Kinshasa. She chairs the board of the Center for Public Integrity. In addition, she serves on the journalism advisory committee of the Knight Foundation and on the boards of the John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford University, the Committee of Concerned Journalists, the Fund for Independence in Journalism, and the Academy of American Poets. She was for nine years a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, the final year as chair, and is a former officer of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Ms.Overholser holds a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree in history from Wellesley College.
Ernest James Wilson III, Ph.D., is Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication and dean of the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. He is also a senior fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, a joint project of USC Annenberg and the USC College's School of International Relations and an adjunct fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy. Dean Wilson's scholarship focuses on the convergence of communication and information technology, public policy and the public interest. He is also a student of the "information champions," who are leaders of the information revolution around the world. His current work concentrates on the politics of global sustainable innovation in high-technology industries; on China-Africa relations; and the role of culture in U.S. national security policy. In addition to his most recent books - "The Information Revolution in Developing Countries" and "Negotiating the Net in Africa" - Dean Wilson co-edits the MIT Press series, "The Information Revolution and Global Politics," and an MIT journal, "Information Technologies and International Development." Dean Wilson is the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board. He earned a doctorate and a master's degree in political science from UC Berkeley and a bachelor's degree from Harvard College.