Alicia Bell (they/she) is a strategist, community organizer, parent, caretaker and weaver currently serving as the Director of the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy. They manifest ubuntu as a nationally recognized expert in community engagement, media reparations, and BIPOC journalism. Professionally, Bell began her journalism work in her hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, and even as her work grows to a national and global scale, remaining connected and rooted locally remains imperative. Personally, Bell’s work in journalism is an effort to alchemize the media harm that laid the foundation for the material harm their friends and family have experienced regarding incarceration, poverty, HIV, colonization and more.

With over a decade of experience in philanthropy, Courtney Bengtson excels in funder, community and media relations, grantmaking and market research. As chief strategy officer at Wichita Foundation since October 2021, she guides the organization’s vision, manages a more than $1 million grant portfolio and oversees a $5 million impact investment fund. In her prior role as director of strategic initiatives, Bengtson integrated strategy, funding and initiatives, managing Wichita Foundation’s largest grant to date. 

Sarabeth Berman serves as the chief executive officer of the American Journalism Project (AJP), the first venture philanthropy dedicated to local news. AJP makes grants to nonprofit local news organizations across the country, supporting the successful launch of new enterprises and partnering with existing news organizations to grow and sustain their businesses. Since launching in 2019, AJP has committed more than $55 million in investments in its growing portfolio of 44 nonprofit local news organizations (40 established organizations and four startups currently being incubated). 

Jim Brady has been vice president of Journalism at Knight Foundation since 2021 and oversees Knight’s journalism portfolio of more than $200 million. During his tenure, he was instrumental in developing the strategic framework behind Press Forward, a $500 million effort to revitalize local news in the United States. A longtime digital media innovator and executive, Brady has guided Knight’s investments in sustainable and scalable local news business models that allow for revenue diversification, market expansion, strategic partnerships, and innovative product development. His previous experience ranges from leading major brands such as washingtonpost.com and Digital First Media to starting a company that built local news sites in three cities. He served as CEO of Spirited Media, which developed the local news sites Billy Penn in Philadelphia, the Incline in Pittsburgh and Denverite in Denver. Brady differentiated the organizations with a mobile-first approach and a business focus on events and membership — rather than advertising — as core revenue lines. Previously, as editor-in-chief of Digital First Media, Brady was responsible for the strategy and management of the 75 daily newspapers, 292 non-daily publications and 341 online sites owned by Journal Register Company and MediaNews Group.

Danielle K. Brown, Ph.D. is the 1855 Community and Urban Journalism Professor at Michigan State University and director of the LIFT Project. Her interdisciplinary scholarship centers on the production, patterns and effects of media and misinformation about Black communities. In pursuit of developing reparative models of narrative change, Brown’s work uses mixed-methods approaches and prioritizes engaged efforts that provide meaningful connections between her research and the communities at the center of her research. Her research is published in an interdisciplinary selection of top academic journals including Nature, Journal of Communication, Social Media + Society, and Political Communication. She serves as an associate editor for the International Journal of Press/Politics.

Heather Chaplin is the founding director of Journalism + Design at the New School, where she is an associate professor of journalism. She writes and speaks regularly on building resilient news systems for the future, work that has been supported by Knight Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the Democracy Fund, among others. Before joining tThe New School, Chaplin covered digital culture for All Things Considered, as well as publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, GQ and the Cut. She is the author of two books.

Cézanne Charles is a creative practitioner and researcher. Her work focuses on the intersection of art, design, technology, economy, social justice, and public policy. Together with John Marshall, she formed rootoftwo in 1998. Their projects explore the consequences of under-imagined futures and facilitate people to envision and shape collective actions for more just transformations. Rooted in physical making and computing practices, they create artifacts, spaces, publications, experiences, events and works for the public realm. They are 2023 Creative Capital Awardees for their forthcoming project ‘Anyspace? Whatever.’ Charles serves on the boards of Allied Media Projects, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and Design Core Detroit’s UNESCO City of Design initiative.

Amy Chester is the managing director for Rebuild by Design, which has catalyzed over $8 billion in investments into climate infrastructure by creating collaborative approaches to design and build systems and policies that help the most vulnerable communities adapt to climate change. Chester brings 25 years of experience in municipal policy, community engagement, real estate development and communications to advocate for the urban environment. Previously, Chester worked for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as chief of staff to the deputy mayor for legislative affairs and as a senior policy advisor, where she was responsible for the public engagement strategy of PlaNYC, the mayor’s sustainability agenda, which included initiatives such as the Million Trees Campaign, congestion pricing, and the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan. Chester has worked with the New York City Council and more than a dozen electoral and issue-based campaigns, and has worked to build affordable housing and provide benefits to freelance workers.

Paul Cheung is a mission-driven executive driving transformative change in journalism. As the CEO of the Center for Public Integrity, he leads the charge in integrating investigative journalism, community- centered practices and data to hold the powerful to account. His previous role at the Knight Foundation focused on scaling AI, fostering business sustainability in media, and combating misinformation. With a career spanning over two decades, Cheung has consistently operated at the forefront of digital transformation in media, having initiated AI, VR/AR, and digital training programs. He has held leadership positions at outlets such as NBC News Digital, the Associated Press, the Miami Herald and the Wall Street Journal.

Following in the footsteps of his mother, Maiola T. Coleman, and grandmother, Tommie W. Thomas, Marcus Tillman Coleman Jr. serves at the intersection of building public-private partnerships with faith-based and nonprofit organizations. Coleman currently serves as the director for the Department of Homeland Security Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, one of several centers of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Marcus has supported a number of disaster activations, including Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, Ida, Ian and Nicole; the Jackson Water Crisis; 2015 influx of unaccompanied children; Operation Allies Welcome; and post-incident national outreach after several active shooter and mass casualty incidents.

Matthew Copeland has served as WyoFile’s chief executive editor since 2017. In those years, WyoFile has more than octupled its audience, nearly quadrupled the ranks of its member contributors and tripled its staff. He is an award-winning writer and editor who began his relationship with WyoFile as a freelance reporter. A native of Charlottesville, Virginia, Copeland studied as a Howard Hughes Scholar of the Life Sciences and competed as a student athlete at Penn State, then served a six-year corporate sentence in the internet technology industry. Upon escape, he found his way to Lander, Wyoming, where he met his wife, started a family and was thoroughly ruined for a life lived anywhere else. Copeland is an avid hunter, angler and wild-country junkie who believes that facts matter, integrity is non-negotiable and few things are as powerful as a good story well told.

Beth Daley is the executive editor and general manager of the Conversation U.S. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for climate reporting at the Boston Globe, she also worked at the New England Center for Investigative Reporting as a reporter and director of partnerships. As director of strategic development at InsideClimate, she worked to diversify the Pulitzer Prize–winning news outlet’s revenue stream.

Sara Fischer is a senior media reporter for Axios and a founding staff member at Axios. She is also a media analyst at CNN. Fischer authors a weekly newsletter on media trends that reaches over 100,000 professionals across the media, tech and entertainment industries. Beyond her weekly column, Fischer oversees Axios’ media coverage for the newsroom and steers the company’s products and events around that topic. Her coverage spans corporate media, advertising and marketing, technology, social media, deals, entertainment, media regulation, policy and consumer habits.

Stefanie Friedhoff is co-founder of the Information Futures Lab, Professor of the Practice, and Senior Director of Strategy and Innovation at the Brown University School of Public Health. She is a leading journalism, communications and global health strategist with 30 years of experience in international media, academia and government. At Brown, she researches rapidly changing information ecosystems and the relationship between information inequities and health outcomes, and partners with creators of trusted information on new models for meeting the information needs of diverse communities.

Jesus Garcia-Gonzalez is a Senior Program Officer at the San Antonio Area Foundation overseeing the Livable and Resilient Communities Impact Area, where he manages a portfolio of organizations working at the intersection of food security, affordable housing, tree equity, healthcare access, immigrant and refugee rights, houseless LGBTQ, journalism and workforce development. Aside from leading the Press Forward South-Central Texas Chapter, he is currently leading the Latine Giving Trends study, which is the first study that will assess local Latine Giving and seeks to redefine what Latine Philanthropy is and how to better measure its impact.

Hollie Russon Gilman is a political reform program senior fellow at New America and an affiliate fellow at Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. She is currently serving as a senior advisor to the Trust for Civic Infrastructure. Her work focuses on topics at the intersection of civic engagement, digital technology and governance. Her research looks at building a more equitable, inclusive and genuine multiracial, multiethnic democracy. This includes exploring participatory innovation, civic infrastructure, cities and the opportunities and challenges of digital technologies to enhance governance and generate more equitable public policy. She led the working group to build a Trust for Civic Infrastructure from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ Our Common Purpose report.

Liza Gross is senior advisor at Solutions Journalism Network, an independent nonprofit organization working to legitimize and spread the practice of Solutions Journalism––rigorous, critical reporting on responses to social challenges. She specializes in building news collaboratives to strengthen local media ecosystems by transforming information flows to make them more participatory and inclusive. Gross has worked for over three decades as a journalist and media executive of news organizations and nonprofits. She is an expert specializing in the transition of traditional media outlets to a multimedia model and in the development and execution of innovative communications strategies for nonprofit organizations

Alvaro Gurdián is the Vice President of La Noticia, the leading Spanish-Language media company in North Carolina where he has worked for over 20 years. Along with his job at La Noticia, Alvaro volunteer’s his time to build an ecosystem that empowers small publishers, and specially publishers of color, though his work as a board member of LION and the National Association of Hispanic Publications(NAHP), where he is the President. Alvaro is also Vice-President of La Noticia Foundation a 501(c)3 organization which is the charitable arm of La Noticia, Inc. La Noticia Foundation was created in 2003 to help outstanding Latino students obtain a college education. Its mission is to help Latino students with the grades and the desire to go to college but without the financial means to do. In the last 15 years, La Noticia has given scholarships for more than $200,000. Besides his busy business schedule, Alvaro finds time to volunteer in the Charlotte community by serving on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Opportunity Task Force, a group of people working to build economic mobility and access to opportunity to the most needed members of our community. He taught computer classes at The Latin American Coalition, served on the Board of Directors of McColl Center for Visual Arts and he is a former member of the Board of Directors of Loaves & Fishes.

Jarrad Henderson is a respected industry leader who seeks to democratize journalism by empowering diverse voices to share their stories. A 4-time Emmy Award-winning visual journalist, multimedia alchemist and inspirational educator, Henderson has produced impactful content in large newsrooms for over a decade — specializing in access to visual storytelling education, documentary filmmaking, photojournalism, video editing, media entrepreneurship, media literacy, mentorship and professional development.

Tatiana Hernandez is CEO of the Community Foundation of Boulder County. During her tenure, the foundation has led numerous disaster-related philanthropic efforts, including responses to COVID-19, a mass shooting and multiple fires. The foundation is currently responsible for the largest philanthropic response to a natural disaster in Colorado history. Prior to joining the foundation, Hernandez served as president of the Emily Griffith Foundation and was a senior program officer at the Kresge Foundation. In Boulder, Hernandez served as arts director for the Hemera Foundation where––in partnership with the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation and Colorado Creative Industries––she developed Arts in Society, Colorado’s largest private-public funding program for the arts. Hernandez began her philanthropic career at the Knight Foundation, where she led the Knight Arts Challenge, supporting artists and arts organizations in eight cities. She oversaw a portfolio of more than $100 million in investments and distributed $10 million annually.

Sudhamshu is a Ph.D. student at Rutgers University working with Professor Kiran Garimella. He brings a multifaceted background to his research, with prior experiences as an engineer, computational social scientist, entrepreneur, and campaign strategist. Sudhamshu’s research focuses on studying and mitigating the effects of misinformation within diaspora communities through private messaging platforms like WhatsApp. His research focuses on building bespoke interventions and deepening engagement with a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including community organizers and the individuals most directly affected. His commitment to translating research into actionable solutions is also reflected in his previous work, where he led data-driven advocacy campaigns to devise traffic decongestion strategies in India.

Mukhtar M. Ibrahim is the founder and CEO of Sahan Journal, a nonprofit news organization that covers Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. He is passionate about using journalism to empower communities and build a more equitable, informed, and engaged society. Mukhtar is known for his leadership in promoting sustainable business models for journalism and his standing as a thought leader in journalism. His leadership has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Carnegie Corporation of New York’’s Great Immigrant Award, Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal “40 Under 40”, and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’’s First Decade Award.

Sonny Messiah-Jiles is the CEO and publisher of the Defender Network, Houston’s leading Black information source. The network includes the Defender newspaper, the website www.defendernetwork.com and social media platforms. She has been at the company’s helm since 1981, when, at age 27, she purchased the newspaper. Messiah-Jiles is a founding member of Word-in-Black, a consortium of ten African American media companies. She is currently a board member of the Local Media Association. She has been chairperson of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (The Black Press of America), a federation of African American newspapers nationwide, and vice chair of the NNPA Fund.

S. Mitra Kalita is an award-winning veteran journalist, media executive, prolific commentator and author. At the height of the pandemic, Kalita founded two media companies to ensure communities of color are served, supported and centered. The first, Epicenter-NYC, which started as a newsletter to help New Yorkers get through COVID-19, is now a community journalism multiplatform company, and URL Media, a growing network of Black- and brown-owned media organizations that share content, distribution, and revenues to increase their long-term viability. She’s on the board of the Philadelphia Inquirer and writes a weekly column for TIME Magazine and Charter. Before launching her companies, Mitra served as senior vice president at CNN Digital, overseeing the national news, breaking news, programming, opinion, and features teams. Her media background also spans the Los Angeles Times, where she was managing editor, Wall Street Journal, Quartz and the Washington Post.

Kathy Kiely is the Lee Hills Chair for Free Press Studies at the Missouri School of Journalism. Before joining the Mizzou faculty, she was a reporter and editor for more than four decades, based in Washington, D.C. She worked for a number of regional and national news outlets, including USA TODAY, Bloomberg, the New York Daily News and the Houston Post, and helped cover ten presidential campaigns along with the occasional hurricane and international crisis. At Mizzou, Kiely teaches multimedia reporting and storytelling techniques to young journalists, provides support to professional journalists in distress and works to advance news literacy in her state and region.

Amy L. Kovac-Ashley is the executive director of the Tiny News Collective (TNC), whose mission is to support the voices historically excluded from media and media ownership. TNC provides the tools, resources and learning community to help news founders build sustainable news organizations that reflect and serve their communities. Kovac-Ashley has spent a dozen years coaching news organizations, executives and journalists. Her work at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and the American Press Institute focused on supporting local news sustainability and improving organizational culture. She was also a journalism educator and administrator at West Virginia University and Georgetown University. Previously, she was a reporter and editor in traditional and digital newsrooms across the East Coast and has a deep background in audience and community engagement.

Chris Krewson is the executive director of LION Publishers, a national nonprofit serving local journalism entrepreneurs, which counts more than 500 publishers as members across the United States and Canada. He’s a former vice president of strategy for Spirited Media, former founding editor at Philadelphia’s Billy Penn and the former top digital editor for Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania. He is based in Havertown, just outside Philadelphia. 

Marc Lavallee joined Knight Foundation in May 2022. He is the director of technology product and strategy for the Journalism program. Lavallee brings more than two decades of experience as a technologist and executive in the journalism industry to this role. Prior to joining Knight, Lavallee worked at the New York Times for over a decade, where he led cross-functional teams of developers, designers and product strategists in the newsroom and on the business side. In 2016, Lavallee launched a new research and development unit focused on applying emerging technologies like AI and 5G in the service of journalism. Previously, he was a software developer and technology architect at various news organizations, including NPR, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and National Journal.

Yuhong Liu is associate professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Santa Clara University (SCU). Her research interests include trustworthy computing and cyber security of emerging applications, such as online social media, Internet of Things and Blockchain. With her research expertise on online social network security and trustworthy computing, she served as the PI for the Alleviating Misinformation for Chinese Americans (AMICA) project, funded by Knight Foundation. In the AMICA project, the SCU team developed automated crawling/retrieval tools to create an ongoing repository of actors, posts, categories, entity-diversity and user engagement patterns for candidate misinformation operations targeting Chinese Americans. In addition, she serves as the TPC chair for the 2024 IEEE Digital Platforms and Societal Harms conference and is involved in the IEEE Standards P7011, Standard for the Process of Identifying and Rating the Trustworthiness of News Sources.

Rob Lloyd is deputy city manager for the City of San José, California, overseeing the Transportation, Aviation, and Technology service areas, as well as the Planning and Permitting Focus Area for the nation’s 12th-largest municipality—a $1.5 billion portfolio with over 1,000 employees. San José’s 7,000 employees and $5.5 billion budget serve one million residents and 60,000 businesses in the heart of Silicon Valley. Previously, Lloyd served as the city’s chief information officer, directing the municipality’s diverse civic technology portfolio. Over two decades, Lloyd has held C-level roles in the technology, government, and utilities sectors in California, Arizona, Oregon, and Colorado. His teams have earned over 35 national honors for customer engagement, for attaining operational excellence, and for innovative programs.

Edison Lopez was born in Margate, Florida, to Puerto Rican parents. He began creating content on TikTok at the age of 17 as an outlet for his passion for video creation. His content features a variety of comedic skits, including highlighting Latino double entendres and imitating diverse Latino accents. Lopez found his niche with his first viral video, “The Puerto Rican Kid at School, which he created in response to the lack of Puerto Rican representation on TikTok. Its popularity led him to not only focus on Puerto Rican subject matter, but also on Latino subject matter as a whole, recognizing the need for culturally relevant content and messaging. His videos grew to include history lessons on Latino music pioneers and trailblazers, factual history of Latin America, and more, often serving as the first introduction to historical and Latino targeted facts to his mostly Gen Z audience. Recognized for his storytelling and editing style, Lopez has collaborated with various brands, including Verizon, Adidas, Amazon and McDonalds and has been featured in media outlets such as ABC News Live, Vice, New York Times, Telemundo, and NPR.

Rafael Lorente became dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism on July 1, 2023. Previously, he was the associate dean for academic affairs, director of the master’s program, a senior lecturer, and director of the Capital News Service Washington, D.C., and Annapolis bureaus. Before joining academia, Lorente, a 1998 Merrill master’s alum, was a journalist at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald, particularly focused on legislative and political matters and higher education. As a reporter in Washington for the Sun Sentinel, he covered the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, the attacks of September 11, and U.S.-Cuba relations.

Mira Lowe is dean of the School of Journalism & Graphic Communication at Florida A&M University. During her 30-plus year career in media, she has led and managed at award-winning newspapers in New York, iconic magazines in Chicago, a global digital and broadcast outlet based in Atlanta and a public media news center in Gainesville, Florida. As dean, Lowe serves as the chief academic and administrative officer of FAMU’s journalism and mass communications program. Prior to FAMU, Lowe was assistant dean for student experiences and director of the Innovation News Center at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications; senior editor at CNN Digital, where she managed the planning, execution and programming of features content on multiple verticals and special projects across a global portfolio; editor-in-chief of JET magazine, becoming the first woman to helm the venerable African -American newsweekly; and assistant managing editor for its sister publication, Ebony magazine, at Johnson Publishing Company.

Duc Luu joined Knight Foundation in January 2022. He is the director of sustainability initiatives of the Journalism program. Luu is a business development and operational leader with more than a decade of experience across media and research organizations. Prior to joining Knight, he was publisher and chief revenue officer for Washington City Paper, a local news leader for the Washington, DC, area. He has also served in business development and new product innovation roles at the Economist and Foreign Policy magazine.

Mark MacGann has thirty years’ experience at the nexus of business and government, having served in global senior executive and management roles for some of the world’s most successful corporations (Uber, NYSE, Veon, Nokia). Until recently, he served as a Commissioner of the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development. In early 2022, he embarked on a life-changing journey with some of the world’s most experienced investigative journalists, and since then he has been known as the whistle-blower behind the Uber Files. He is currently working on a number of writing and academic projects, and continues to advocate for greater transparency in lobbying, and stronger social protection for millions of so-called platform, or gig workers.

Elodie Mailliet Storm is a recognized creative and business leader in the visual storytelling space. She was named one of the top 100 people in Photography by American Photo. In 2016, Mailliet Storm was also named a JSK fellow in media innovation at Stanford University, where she researched the monetization of photography in the age of social and search. During her 11 years at Getty Images, she oversaw and helped build Getty Images’ content offering and helped lead its strategic development. Most recently, she was Getty Images’ senior director of strategic development based in the Bay Area, focusing on Getty Images’ relationships with platforms such as Google, Instagram and Pinterest. Previously, she managed content partnerships with over 300 large media companies globally such as Vice, Condé Nast, National Geographic and others. Mailliet Storm co-founded Getty Images’ high-end portraiture and fashion division, Contour, which she led until 2014, representing the work of over 100 high-end portrait and fashion photographers. She also co-founded the Getty Images Instagram grant.

Erin Millar is a co-founder and the CEO of Indiegraf, a platform that makes it easy to start, grow and manage a local news organization. Millar also leads the $3.5 million News Startup Fund, which has seeded over 20 community news startups. Before creating Indiegraf, Millar founded the Discourse, where she led an award-winning journalism team and developed a successful business model for in-depth local news.

Graciela Mochkofsky is the dean at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where she was previously the executive director of its Center for Community Media and founding director of its Bilingual Journalism Program. She is a contributing writer for the New Yorker and the author of seven books of nonfiction, including The Prophet of the Andes: An Unlikely Journey to the Promised Land (Knopf, 2022). She is a recipient of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for outstanding reporting across the Americas.

Tim Murphy has served as a program officer at McKnight with both the Program Alignment team and the Vibrant & Equitable Communities team since 2021. In this hybrid role, he extends the capacity of McKnight’s program teams, enhancing strategic alignment and organizational effectiveness toward advancing programmatic goals and the foundation’s mission. Through this he leads two cross-cutting grant portfolios––one around media and journalism and the other around democracy in Minnesota. Murphy is an avid news consumer and believer in the power of local to create a sense of connection and belonging.

Alejandro de Onís leads Knight’s communications. As part of the executive team, he is responsible for defining communications goals and amplifying the foundation’s impact. De Onís spearheaded the development and implementation of a new visual brand and reimagined digital efforts to engage diverse and local audiences. He was promoted from director of digital strategy in 2022. A seasoned creative strategist, de Onís oversees design and video production that covers a range of topics around the arts, community engagement and democracy. He collaborates with leading academics, artists and executives from peer foundations.

John Palfrey is the president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Palfrey is a well-respected educator, author, legal scholar and innovator with expertise in how new media is changing learning and education. Prior to joining the foundation, he served as head of school at Phillips Academy, Andover. Palfrey is the board chair of the United States Impact Investing Alliance and serves on the board of the Fidelity Non-Profit Management Foundation. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and serves on the governance council. He is the former board chair of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Palfrey holds a JD from Harvard Law School, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and an AB from Harvard College. Palfrey is an accomplished author; his most recent book is Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces: Diversity and Free Expression in Education. A revised and expanded version of his book Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age, which he co-authored with Urs Gasser, was issued in 2016.

Maribel Pérez Wadsworth is the president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. She is the first woman and the seventh president to lead the foundation. Drawing on her experience as the former president of Gannett Media and publisher of USA Today, Wadsworth brings a well-honed commitment to Knight’s mission of informing and engaging communities. Starting as an editorial assistant with the Associated Press in 1994, Wadsworth’s career evolved from reporter and editor roles to a key position in Gannett’s corporate team, where she led the company’s digital transformation.

Carla Thompson Payton is vice president for program strategy for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, she supports the foundation’s efforts to promote thriving children, working families and equitable communities. Thompson Payton provides leadership and management for the creative and strategic direction of programming from design through implementation, evaluation and dissemination. As a member of the executive team, she is also responsible for the overall direction and leadership of the foundation. Prior to joining the foundation in 2012, Thompson Payton was deputy director of the Office of Child Care at the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC. There, she was responsible for developing national early childhood education policy, managing the $5 billion annual budget of the Child Care Development Fund and providing oversight to ten regional offices serving states, tribes and territories.

Hannah Poferl is assistant managing editor, chief data officer and head of audience at the New York Times. Since she began leading the audience team in 2019, she has grown both its staffing and its expertise, driving industry-leading performance on social media, search and editorial analytics. Since becoming the company’s first chief data officer in 2021, she has occupied a unique senior leadership role that spans both news and business, with executive oversight of audience and data strategies, the cross-company data and insights team, and international growth efforts. 

Renowned health care system thought leader and advocate for health care reform, Wendell Potter provides fresh, high-caliber insight that shapes conversations and U.S. policy. His influential views are frequently cited in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and as a news commentator on CNN, NPR and MSNBC, among other media outlets. Potter’s level of understanding of American health insurance companies, one of the largest and most important industries in the world, is unique in its level of inside insight into how insurers play their game. Potter’s career trajectory from investigative reporting to the communications helm of a major health insurance corporation took a remarkable turn when he chose to blow the whistle on the industry’s business practices as a congressional expert witness. His courageous exposure of profit-driven decisions that often compromised patient well-being became a turning point, marking him as an individual committed to transparency, ethics, and a fundamental reevaluation of the health care landscape. In his substack newsletter HEALTH CARE uncovered, Potter examines and reports on breaking news within the U.S. health care system and insurance industry, and its impact on patient care.

Stacy Reed is chief program officer for the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, where she drives strategy and operations of grantmaking and special initiatives. In this role, she has led a multi-sector venture to raise educational attainment across Sangamon County; helped secure funding and built programming to increase the local nursing workforce and embed behavioral health specialists in schools; and shaped local systems to address long-term solutions to homelessness. Prior to joining the foundation, she supervised client accounts at Public Communications Inc. and Jasculca/Terman & Associates in Chicago, where she built public awareness campaigns for nonprofit, education and health care institutions.

Karen Rundlet is CEO and executive director of the Institute for Nonprofit News. She and the INN team work to accelerate the growth of more than 425 public service news organizations that make up the INN Network. Rundlet previously served as senior director for the Knight Foundation’s Journalism program, where she managed a more than $30 million portfolio of grants supporting newsrooms and field-building organizations. Prior to that, Rundlet worked at the Miami Herald, with WLRN and at newsrooms in Atlanta and New York. 

Liza M. Santana is an award-winning publicist, acclaimed speaker and media maven who has been in the industry for over two decades. She has provided public relations and marketing counsel to a number of corporations, non-profit organizations and internationally recognized events. Santana contributes to several publications focusing on food, spirits, travel and social events. Prior to opening her firm, she worked at the Miami Herald/ El Nuevo Herald, Spanish Broadcasting and the New Times.

Fran Scarlett is a business strategist, consultant and coach who is passionate about building sustainable entrepreneurial organizations. Scarlett has worked with companies of all sizes and has started and operated two publications targeted to women and other underrepresented audiences.  She also has worked with entrepreneurial and established companies across multiple industries. Scarlett is a member of Blue Engine Collaborative, a consortium of consultants and advisors to media companies, startups, foundations, academia and others on revenue and audience growth, product development, consumer user experience and digital strategy. Prior to her current role, she served as chief knowledge officer at the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) a network of 400+ nonprofit, mostly digital newsrooms where she oversaw the network’s capacity-building programs in revenue generation, business strategy, leadership development and organizational equity.

Joshua Sirefman is the CEO of Michigan Central, a social enterprise committed to building solutions and skills at the intersection of mobility and society. In this role, Sirefman is developing an ambitious and multidisciplinary plan to tackle pressing mobility challenges with solutions that will unlock a more sustainable and human-centered future. Sirefman brings decades of experience in transformative city building to Michigan Central. Prior to joining the Michigan Central team, Sirefman co-founded and served as president of Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet company focused on urban innovation. Prior to creating Sidewalk Labs, Sirefman founded and led a development services firm that oversaw complex, large-scale projects for corporate, nonprofits and government entities. Sirefman has also served as a key member of the economic development team of former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Rachel Silverstein, a lifelong clean water enthusiast, serves as equal parts investigator, scientist, educator and legal advocate, functioning as the public spokesperson for our watershed and protecting the right to clean water. Silverstein is executive director and waterkeeper at Miami Waterkeeper and she has served as a Knauss Sea Grant Fellow and professional staff for the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard in Washington, DC. While earning her Ph.D. in marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science, Silverstein studied the effect of climate change on coral reefs. Her research, partially funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, used genetic methods to answer ecological questions. As waterkeeper, Silverstein has been awarded the Miami Herald’s Visionary Award, UM Abess Center’s Reitmeister Award and the Diatom Award for Environmental and Civic by the mayor of Miami Beach. She has been named in the top 20 environmentalists by the New Times.

Robin Sparkman is the president and co-CEO of ProPublica. The largest investigative newsroom in the country and the recipient of six Pulitzer Prizes, ProPublica has local investigative teams in New York, the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, South, Southwest and in Austin, Texas, in a partnership with the Texas Tribune. Sparkman oversees all of ProPublica’s non-journalism operations, and is currently leading the organization in the creation of its first strategic plan. Previously, she was the founding CEO of the nonprofit media organization StoryCorps for eight years. Sparkman spent more than two decades as a reporter and editor, serving as editor-in-chief of the American Lawyer, and as executive editor and deputy editorial director of American Lawyer Media.

Wendi C. Thomas is the founding editor and publisher of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, an award-winning nonprofit newsroom focused on poverty, power and policy. Launched in 2017 with freelancers and $3,000, MLK50 has grown to a ten-person organization that has made a measurable, tangible impact in the lives of working-class Memphians.

Inga Kristina Trauthig is the head of research of the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin. In her role, she conducts original research and helps lead the lab’s strategy and management. She speaks regularly to academic, media, and government audiences, and her writing has appeared in both popular and scholarly outlets, such as the Hill, Lawfare, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and New Media & Society. Her work has been featured by outlets like Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Houston Chronicle, Foreign Policy and the Washington Post. With support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Miami Foundation, Omidyar Network and Open Society Foundations, the Propaganda Research Lab has been researching how emergent technologies are used in global political communication, including its effects on democratic developments and implications for minority communities.

Richard Watts is the founder of the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont (UVM) that documents and encourages university-led student reporting programs and the coordinator of UVM’s Community News Service––a state-wide, multi-outlet academic-news partnership with a mission to provide content to community news outlets and give students applied learning experiences. Watts has a master’s degree in journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University and a Ph.D. related to media studies from the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and has worked as a reporter, campaign manager, policy analyst, teacher, internship coordinator and researcher.

Michael Wear is founder, president and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution based in the nation’s capital with the mission to contend for the credibility of Christian resources in public life, for the public good. He has served as a trusted resource and advisor for a range of civic leaders on matters of faith and public life for the last decade, including as a White House and presidential campaign staffer. Wear previously led Public Square Strategies, a consulting firm he founded that helps religious organizations, political organizations, businesses and others effectively navigate the rapidly changing American religious and political landscape.

Kylee Mitchell Wells is the executive director of Ballmer Group’s Southeast Michigan team, where she sets and leads strategy and investments to improve economic mobility for children and families in the region and the state. Mitchell Wells has an extensive background in nonprofit program management, government and corporate finance. Her previous roles include senior director, Michigan market at Enterprise Community Partners; associate director for the City of Detroit Office of Grants Management; and program officer on the Financial Stability Team of United Way for Southeastern Michigan.

Kenton T. Wilkinson is Regents Professor and Director of the Thomas Jay Harris Institute for Hispanic & International Communication in the College of Media & Communication at Texas Tech University. Wilkinson’s research interests include international communication, U.S. Hispanic/Latinx-oriented media and health communication. He is currently part of a research project funded by the Knight Foundation that is researching and addressing the circulation of disinformation about health issues among Hispanic/Latinx populations living on the South Plains of Texas.

Lauren M. Woods, a dedicated program manager at The Chicago Community Trust, plays a pivotal role within the Building Collective Power strategy. With a focus on strategic grantmaking, Woods oversees the media and storytelling program, managing a 2.5 million dollar grant portfolio dedicated to supporting local news initiatives in Chicago. She leads efforts to strengthen local journalism, media and civic storytelling, aiming to empower citizens to actively engage in shaping their democracy. Notably, Woods was instrumental in designing and serving on the implementation team for Press Forward Chicago, a pioneering grantmaking initiative supporting the city’s media landscape.

Jessica Yellin is the former chief White House correspondent for CNN and an Emmy, Peabody and Gracie Award–winning political correspondent for ABC, MSNBC and CNN. Yellin has interviewed presidents and traveled the nation and the globe covering elections, conflict and stories of human perseverance. She is now the founder of News Not Noise, the viral Webby Award–winning digital media brand. With a passion for informing and inspiring audiences, she started explaining the news on Instagram long before other credentialed journalists were doing so. She has built trust with a passionate and highly influential audience. Over 1 million subscribers and followers across Instagram and other digital media rely on Yellin and News Not Noise to understand what matters, which experts to trust, and how to manage their “information overload.”

Richard Young has worked on civic health in Kentucky for over a decade. He is the founder and executive director of CivicLex, a civic health and media organization in Lexington that spans local news, bridge building, civic education, public space and collaborative governance. He is also a founding Steering Committee member of the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange. Since 2014, Young’s work in Kentucky has been featured on NextCity, PBS NewsHour, Foreign Affairs, On Point, the Wall Street Journal, CityLab, PEW Charitable Trusts and more.

Ashley Zohn joined Knight Foundation in January 2019 and was named vice president, Learning and Impact, in March 2021. Zohn, who has more than a decade of experience advancing data-driven decision-making in the nonprofit, public and private sectors, oversees Knight’s research and assessment portfolios. Knight commissions field-leading research on topics that affect communities, journalism and the arts, as well as surveys of public attitudes about the media, the First Amendment, and technology. Its assessment program increases the impact of grantmaking by evaluating Knight’s investments and sharing insights widely. Prior to Knight, Zohn oversaw the Continuous Improvement Program at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In this capacity, she was responsible for reviewing the agency’s responses following federally declared disasters and building continuous improvement capacity at FEMA’s disaster operations.

After 13 years, it’s still a dream come true for Lisa Ashner Adkins, JD, to serve as president/CEO of Blue Grass Community Foundation (BGCF).

Lisa believes it’s a privilege to help build more generous, vibrant, engaged and equitable communities across Kentucky, while having a blast helping individuals and organizations give away their money to do the most good. During Lisa’s tenure, the Community Foundation’s assets have grown from $30 million to more than $200 million. But she’ll be the first to tell you that BGCF measures its success by the charitable dollars invested back into the community, which now total more than $150 million.

Lisa is a collaborator, convenor and leader who focuses on working in partnership with community. New initiatives during Lisa’s tenure at BGCF include The GoodGiving Challenge, an annual, online giving campaign for local nonprofits; On the Table, a Knight Foundation national replication effort to foster civic engagement; the Lexington Black Prosperity Initiative, a Black-led racial equity fund; and multiple partnerships with the city of Lexington to create a more walkable, bikeable and people-centered downtown.

Lisa serves as co-chair of Philanthropy Southeast’s Community Foundations Committee and has served on the transition team for two Lexington Mayors, Jim Gray and Linda Gorton.

Ashley Alvarado (she/her) is vice president of community engagement and strategic initiatives at Southern California Public Radio (KPCC + LAist). She develops strategies and opportunities to engage new and existing audiences across platforms. Ashley is focused on engagement and source development to diversify sourcing, enrich programming, and grow audience.

She is board president of Journalism That Matters, on the board of the Online News Association, on the board of Greater Public, on the advisory committee of Gather, on the national advisory board of Poynter, and a Table Stakes coach.

In 2019, SCPR won the inaugural Gather Award for engaged journalism portfolio at the Online Journalism Awards. SCPR won the award again in 2020 and 2022.

As Chief Strategy Officer at the Wichita Foundation, Courtney articulates and implements the vision and framework for the Foundation while focusing on effective growth of the organization. She joined the Foundation in 2013 and has served in a variety of capacities, including program management of the Knight Foundation Fund at WF. During her tenure, Courtney designed and executed the agreement of WF’s single-largest investment in organizational history, significantly increased discretionary grantmaking, negotiated the first WF impact investment, and, in 2022, worked with Board and staff to redefine the Foundation’s mission, vision, values and metrics.

Her past experience includes the Wichita State University Foundation and communication consulting. Courtney has a master’s degree in communication and a bachelor’s degree in journalism, both from Wichita State University. She was chosen for CFLead’s Executive Leadership Institute for VPs in 2021 and the Wichita Business Journal’s 20 to Watch in the 2020s.

Sarabeth Berman serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the American Journalism Project, the first venture philanthropy dedicated to local news.

Previously, she was Global Head of Public Affairs at Teach For All, a network of social enterprises in more than 50 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 helped build Teach For China and managed a Chinese contemporary dance company. She was a 2006 Henry Luce Scholar based in Hong Kong.

A graduate of Barnard College, she and her husband, the journalist Evan Osnos, live in Washington, D.C., and have two children. Sarabeth serves on the boards of Capital B and the Mark Morris Dance Group.

Madeleine Bair is the founder of El Tímpano, an award-winning civic media organization that has been described by peers as an “outstanding innovation model” for its work to produce journalism with and for the Bay Area’s Latino immigrant communities.

Madeleine has been carrying a microphone in her backpack since she belonged to the Oakland bureau of Children’s Express. She has taught radio production to young adults, worked on a morning show at Chicago Public Radio, produced multimedia for Human Rights Watch, and collaborated with media activists from around the world. Her stories have appeared in the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Colorlines, and Orion, and broadcast on PRI’s The World and Independent Lens.

As second generation publisher of Black Voice News, Paulette is transforming the half century old weekly print outlet into a solutions-oriented data journalism and justice-focused community news organization. As past president of the California News Publishers Association and current board member of the California Press Foundation, she works to strengthen the state’s information ecosystem. In 2019 she co-founded Media in Color, a philanthropically funded initiative designed to assist legacy media outlets serving communities of color with digital transformation. She also led an effort to create a guidebook for California-based community foundations, community media, and philanthropy to financially support local journalism.

Paulette is also on the boards of the James Irvine Foundation, American Press Institute, and Inland Empire Community Foundation.

Jim Brady, who joined Knight Foundation in 2021, is a digital media innovator whose experience ranges from leading major brands such as washingtonpost.com and Digital First Media to starting a company that built local news sites in three cities. 

Brady is CEO of Spirited Media,  which developed local news sites Billy Penn in Philadelphia, The Incline in Pittsburgh and Denverite in Denver, which differentiated themselves with a mobile-first approach and a business focus on events and membership — rather than advertising — as core revenue lines, In 2019, Spirited Media sold Denverite to Colorado Public Radio, The Incline to digital startup Whereby.us and Billy Penn to WHYY, Philadelphia’s iconic public radio station.

Previously, as editor-in-chief of Digital First Media, Brady was responsible for the strategy and management of the 75 daily newspapers, 292 non-daily publications and 341 online sites owned by Journal Register Company and MediaNews Group. He also built and managed the company’s Thunderdome unit, which comprised more than 50 digitally focused journalists charged with providing cutting-edge national content for DFM’s local properties. 

During Brady’s tenure as executive editor of washingtonpost.com, the site won a national Emmy award for its Hurricane Katrina coverage, a Peabody Award for its “Being a Black Man” series, and numerous other journalism awards. He also ran AOL’s news coverage of the 9/11 attacks and 2000 presidential election, and served as ESPN’s public editor from 2015-18.

Brady is a past president of the Online News Association, a two-time judge of the Pulitzer Prizes, and currently serves on the boards of the American Press Institute, NewsMedia Alliance, and the National Press Foundation. He is a graduate of American University.

Thomas Brennan is the founder of The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit newsroom exploring the human impact of military service. He served as an infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan before studying investigative reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. His reporting has appeared in Vanity Fair, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and on the front page of The New York Times. Thomas is the recipient of two Fourth Estate Awards, three Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award.

Emma Carrasco is the senior vice president of corporate affairs at NBCUniversal News Group, which is comprised of NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC and through its broadcast and digital platforms reaches more American adults every month than any other news organization. In this role she partners with leaders throughout the organization to drive internal collaboration, such as “Inspiring America: the 2021 Inspiration List,” a new annual, cross-brand and cross-platform franchise. She also focuses on engagement opportunities with various constituents and communities of importance to the News Group.

Prior to joining the NBCUniversal News Group, Carrasco was senior vice president and global engagement officer for the National Geographic Society. She and her team played a critical role in liaising with key stakeholders around the world, including foreign delegations and dignitaries, corporations, funders and global program partners. Under her leadership, the National Geographic Explorers Festival was expanded and internationalized, convening changemakers in Washington, D.C., London, Mexico City and Hong Kong.

She previously served as chief marketing officer and senior vice president of audience development for NPR, responsible for all aspects of marketing, branding, communications, events, consumer products, audience services and non-news programming (cultural and music programming, podcasts) to diversify and build audience share. She partnered closely with news leadership, journalists and member stations across the country on audience development and acquisition strategies, including the launch of the live events practice NPR Presents.

Over the years, Carrasco has also contributed her skills to República/Havas, Nortel Networks, McDonald’s, Univision and Fleishman-Hillard.

She serves on the board of Toast Ale, a social enterprise that tackles food waste by turning surplus bread into beer.

Carrasco holds a B.A. in communication and media studies from Loyola Marymount University.

John Celestand serves as the Program Director for the Knight x LMA BloomLab, a $3.2 million initiative funded by the Knight Foundation and managed by Local Media Association (LMA) to help drive sustainability for 26 Black-owned local media organizations through technology. Mr. Celestand is responsible for organizing and managing the Lab and its activities, working with the participants, the rest of the LMA team, independent consultants, industry R&D partners and various service providers.

Before joining LMA, John was the Director of Engagement at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington, DC where he oversaw community engagement initiatives and led multiple cohorts of public media stations participating in grant-funded programs.

John was a member of the 2000 Los Angeles Lakers NBA Championship team playing alongside the late great Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal He also spent six years in Europe playing for some of the most well-known teams in France, Italy, and Germany. After his playing career ended, John spent several years working as a sports broadcaster for various media organizations including ESPN Regional Television, Sportsnet New York and Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia. He also served as a columnist for SNY and wrote feature articles for the Big East Conference.

Jeff Cohen oversees Arnold Ventures’ media portfolio. Before joining the foundation, he spent more than 40 years as a reporter and editor.

Arnold Ventures provides grants to more than 60 communications endeavors. The majority of investments are designed to increase reporting capacity in three areas: investigative journalism, groups that cover policy in state capitals, and single subject websites that dovetail with the foundation’s research interests.

Before concentrating solely on nonprofit journalism, Jeff was Arnold Ventures’ executive vice president of communications and led a team responsible for the foundation’s communication strategies that helped turbocharge the transition of research into policy and the philanthropy’s branding, digital channels, social media, and news and media outreach.

He joined Arnold after many years of editing his hometown newspaper, the Houston Chronicle. The Chronicle’s Sunday circulation peaked at more than 800,000 during his tenure and was a catalyst of change in Houston and Texas.

Sue Cross is executive director of the Institute for Nonprofit News, a network of more than 400 independent, nonprofit news media organizations that strengthen the sources of news for thousands of diverse communities. Cross joined INN in 2015 to build this emerging media network and advance social enterprise models for investigative and other public service journalism.  Today, the INN Network has become one of the largest alliances of journalists in North America, creating enduring solutions to community news needs and coverage of our most critical public issues. Cross is a former senior vice president for the Associated Press global news agency, where she created digital news services, expanded Spanish language and Latin American operations and introduced video to the newspaper industry. Cross serves on the board of visitors for Stanford University’s John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship, the National Advisory Council for the Emma Bowen Foundation and the Brennan Center State Court Report Advisory Board at NYU. She lives in Los Angeles.

Lisa V. Gale, Ph.D., is the principal and founder of LVG Strategy Group, a consulting firm that provides strategic research, organization and program development, and mentorship of leaders to social mission-driven organizations that serve Black and Brown communities. Among the firm’s clients is StoryCorps, where for the past six years, she served as Chief Program Officer, leading the organization’s many community engagement activities, including its iconic MobileTour, the groundbreaking One Small Step project, and the emerging Lift Every Voice and Sing initiative. Before StoryCorps, Lisa served as Deputy Commissioner, Employment Services, for the NYC Human Resources administration, providing pathways to employment and education for recipients of public benefit programs. Lisa is a dedicated researcher and a social worker by training who has worked for more than 30 years in adult literacy, workforce and community development and community-based media. A self professed “CUNY baby”, Gale holds a BBA in marketing and consumer research from Baruch College, a master’s in social work from Hunter College School of Social, and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Larry Hogan is not a career politician. As a lifelong Marylander and small business owner who was fed up with sky-high taxes, politics as usual, and decades of one-party rule, he started Change Maryland, the largest non-partisan grassroots citizen organization in state history.

In 2014, out-numbered in party registration by more than 2-1, and outspent by more than 5-1, Larry Hogan pulled off the biggest upset in America on election night, becoming only the second Republican Governor elected in Maryland in 50 years.

Once in office, Governor Hogan quickly became an example of leadership for the nation, accomplishing what many believed was no longer possible: bipartisan, common sense solutions.

As Governor, Larry Hogan cut taxes for eight years in a row by $4.7 billion, including the largest tax cuts in state history. Overall, after inheriting a $5.1 billion structural budget deficit, the governor left office with a record $5.5 billion in reserves—a more than $10 billion swing. Under his leadership, Maryland produced the greatest economic turnaround in America, going from 49th out of 50 states to number six. He restored peace and order to Baltimore City during the riots of 2015, reduced the cost of health care premiums by over 30%, made historic investments in education, transportation infrastructure, and protecting the environment, and was the only Republican Governor in the country to overturn a Democratic gerrymandered map. He even achieved all this while overcoming a personal battle against cancer.

After four years of economic success and bipartisan progress in one of the bluest states in America, Governor Hogan was overwhelmingly re-elected to a second term in 2018, making him only the second Republican to do so in the entire history of the state.

When COVID struck the United States in 2020, Governor Hogan led the nation’s governors through this crisis as Chairman of the National Governors Association. In Maryland, the governor’s decisive and balanced leadership helped save countless lives and livelihoods.

Regardless of party affiliation, Marylanders agree: Governor Hogan delivered results for his state. As Governor Hogan left office, polling consistently showed an overwhelming majority of all Republicans, Democrats and Independents—nearly 80% of all Marylanders—approve of the job he did, the highest of any governor in Maryland history and one of the highest of any governor in the nation.

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.

He graduated from Wesleyan University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Between college and law school, he served in the Peace Corps in Venezuela’s Amazon Territory and was the Peace Corps Programming and Training Officer in Colombia, based in Bogotá. After law school, he practiced law in Hartford, Connecticut, until he joined the Hartford Courant, then Newsday in New York, before moving to Miami.

Ibargüen is a member of the boards of the Paley Center for Media and the National Museum of the American Latino, and formerly the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Wesleyan University, Smith College, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and ProPublica, as well as the Secretary of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board and the Citizen Advisory Committee of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Ibargüen served on the boards of American Airlines, PepsiCo, AOL and Norwegian Cruise Lines. He is a former board chair of PBS, the Newseum and the World Wide Web Foundation, founded by web inventor Sir Tim Berners­-Lee to promote a free and universal web.

Ibargüen is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the Council on Foreign Relations. For his work to protect journalists in Latin America, Ibargüen received a Maria Moors Cabot citation from Columbia University. He has been awarded honorary degrees by several universities, including Wesleyan University, The George Washington University and the University of Miami.

Kelly Jin is Vice President for Community and National Initiatives at the Knight Foundation, where she leads a team of 20 in eight offices across the country, a $150M active grant portfolio, and $30M in annual grant-making. The Community and National Initiatives team invests in the future of more engaged and informed 26 Knight cities, with investment strategies including downtown and neighborhood revitalization, smart cities, public spaces, and economic opportunity.

Kelly most recently served as Chief Analytics Officer for the City of New York and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics. Her New York City team focused on delivering insights for a more equitable and efficient city. Her office launched the NYC Recovery Data Partnership, a first-of-its-kind effort for community, non-profit, and private organizations to share data with the City to aid in COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.

Previously, she was a director at the Laura and John Arnold Foundation and worked in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she advised the chief technology officer and chief data scientist of the United States. She built and co-led the City of Boston’s analytics team, working alongside front-line workers to gain a deeper understanding of how to collect data to make informed decisions and recommendations.

Kelly speaks nationally on using data and technology to responsibly improve governments and organizations. Her teams and projects have been featured in Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Economist, New York Times, PBS NewsHour, Wired, City & State, and Governing. Kelly holds a degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and is a trustee of the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science.

Michele Jolin is the CEO and Co-Founder for Results for America. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Earlier in her career, Michele was appointed in 2010 to be a Member of President Barack Obama’s White House Council for Community Solutions. She additionally served as a Senior Advisor for Social Innovation at the White House under President Obama, where she designed and launched the first Social Innovation Fund. Prior to that she was a member of President Obama’s Presidential Transition Team, where she helped create the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation and the new Obama Administration’s social innovation policy agenda. Before joining the White House, Michele led the Presidential Transition Project at the Center for American Progress and co-edited the book Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President.

Catherine Kelly is the Executive Director and Founding Editor of BridgeDetroit, a nonprofit newsroom founded on a belief that Detroit’s 700,000 residents deserve a transparent, innovative and diversely staffed newsroom. The media outlet serves as a vital news and civic information source for the city’s residents.

Susan King is the John Thomas Kerr Distinguished Professor and served as the school’s dean from Jan. 1, 2012, until Dec. 31, 2021. Under her leadership, the school revitalized the undergraduate education curriculum to respond to the digital and visual demands of the communication business, centralized and strengthened student services, and built the Curtis Media Center, a state-of-the-art learning environment utilizing the latest technology. During her tenure, the school also surpassed the school’s campaign fundraising goal of $75 million.

King received the prestigious Scripps Howard Administrator of the Year Award in 2020.

King’s professional career has spanned the school’s two major disciplines — journalism and strategic communication.

After starting her broadcast journalism career in Buffalo, New York, she spent more than 20 years in Washington, D.C., as an anchor and reporter covering politics, including serving as a White House correspondent for ABC News. She also reported for CBS, NBC and CNN, and hosted the “Diane Rehm Show” and “Talk of the Nation” for NPR.

King was confirmed by the Senate twice during her five-year career in government during the Clinton administration. She was a presidential appointee in the U.S. Department of Labor, where she served as the assistant secretary for public affairs, as well as the executive director of the Family and Medical Leave Commission. She also led public affairs for a short period at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In 1999, King joined Carnegie Corporation of New York as vice president for external affairs, leading communications. She launched and led the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The initiative supported 12 premier U.S. journalism schools, including UNC, in their re-invention strategies. King helped establish the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy awarded by the Carnegie Family of Institutions and led the corporation’s 100th year celebration.

King serves on numerous boards, including BBC Media Action, WUNC Public Radio, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, Carolina Beacon and the Leadership Roundtable. Previously, she served on the boards of BBC Media Action and her alma mater, Fairfield University. She is a founder of the International Women’s Media Foundation and was recognized with the IWMF’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. King received the DeWitt Carter Reddick Award for Communication Excellence from the Moody College of Communication in 2015 and was inducted into The Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2014. King was awarded the Earle Gluck Distinguished Service Award by the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters in 2018.

David D. Kurpius joined the Missouri School of Journalism as dean in 2015, pairing a focus on strategic innovation and growth with the School’s famed Missouri Method of hands-on learning.

Beginning in 2016, Dean Kurpius implemented an ongoing strategic planning process to engage faculty, staff, students, alumni and industry leaders and chart the next century of work for the School. This resulted in a future-focused and student-centered curriculum with increased student graduation and success rates, improved newsroom structures, more local journalism coverage, and broad growth in diversity, equity and inclusion.

Since starting his career as a local television reporter, improving local journalism in service to democratic life is at the core of Kurpius’ work. His research and leadership continually emphasize this effort. Kurpius actively engages the School’s Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) to improve local coverage. He oversees the School’s six professional newsrooms — KOMU-TV (NBC), The Columbia Missourian newspaper, Vox Magazine, KBIA-FM (NPR), Missouri Business Alert, and the Missouri News Network (statehouse bureau) — that are at the center of this effort.

Kurpius also increased the School’s impact in Missouri outside of its professional newsrooms, expanding partnerships with the Missouri Press Association and the Missouri Broadcasters Association to share statehouse coverage with more than 100 Missouri news organizations.

Marc Lavallee joined Knight Foundation in May 2022.

He is the director of technology product and strategy for the journalism program. Marc brings more than two decades of experience as a software developer and technology executive in the journalism industry to this role.

Prior to joining Knight, Marc worked at The New York Times for over a decade, where he led cross-functional teams of developers, designers and product strategists in the newsroom and on the business side. In 2016, Marc launched a new research and development unit focused on applying emerging technologies like machine learning and 5G in the service of journalism.

Previously, he was a software developer and technology architect at various news organizations, including NPR, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and National Journal.

Duc Luu joined Knight Foundation in January 2022. He is the director of sustainability initiatives of the Journalism Program. 

Duc is a business development and operational leader with more than a decade of experience across media and research organizations. Prior to joining Knight, he was publisher and chief revenue officer for Washington City Paper, a local news leader for the Washington, D.C. area. 

He has also served in business development and new product innovation roles at The Economist and Foreign Policy magazine. 

Kristen Mack is Vice President, Communications, MacArthur Fellows, and Partnerships for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She manages a comprehensive communications strategy designed to strengthen MacArthur’s reputation, the impact of the organizations it supports, and the communities they serve. Kristen puts storytelling at the center of all of her work and is committed to identifying compelling narratives that amplify individual and collective voices.

She manages a portfolio of programs, including the MacArthur Fellows and 100&Change and oversees institutional and Presidential communications. Kristen also leads MacArthur’s strategic thinking around institutional partnerships and collaborations.

Prior to joining MacArthur, Kristen served as Director of Corporate Communications at the global public relations agency Golin. Earlier in her career, Kristen was a City Hall reporter for the Chicago Tribune and political writer for the Washington Post and Houston Chronicle.

Kristen received her Bachelor of Arts from Emory University and her Master’s of Journalism of Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.

Kristen serves on the Board of Directors of Chicago Sun-Times Media Inc. and Forefront, Illinois’ statewide association representing grant makers and nonprofits. She is also a Leadership Greater Chicago Daniel Burnham Fellow. And Economic Club of Chicago

Eric Marsh, Sr. is the Community Outreach Organizer for WHYY and manages the daily operation of N.I.C.E. (News & Information Community Exchange), a mutual-aid journalism collaborative that organizes, supports, and develops hyper-local, grassroots content creators who provide news and information content to underserved communities across the Delaware Valley.

Sonny Messiah-Jiles is the CEO and Publisher of the Defender Network, Houston’s leading Black Information Source. The network includes the Defender newspaper, the website www.defendernetwork.com and social media platforms. She has been at the helm of the company since 1981 when she purchased the newspaper at age 27.

Messiah Jiles is a founding member of Word-in-Black, a consortium of 10 African American media companies. She is currently a board member of the Local Media Association. She has held the position of chairperson of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (The Black Press of America), a federation of African-American newspapers across the country and recently was Vice Chair of the NNPA Fund. She also served as the National Alumni Chair for the Houston Alumni Organization (University of Houston). Currently, Messiah-Jiles serves as Vice President and Director of Grand Slam, a marketing/investment consulting firm and formerly served on the advisory board of KIPP Houston. Her professional activities include being the first African-American female board member of the Greater Houston Partnership, and she currently serves on the executive committee of M.D. Anderson Board of Visitors. She has served on the Advisory Board of J.P. Morgan Chase-Houston, United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast, Center for Houston’s Future, NAACP-Houston, JobPlus, Hester House, March of Dimes Texas Gulf Coast Chapter, American Diabetes Association, and American Leadership Forum.

Messiah-Jiles received an undergraduate degree from the University of Houston and did postgraduate work at Texas Southern University and Rice University.

Prior to purchasing the Defender, Sonny worked as a radio news reporter, a television talk show host, and an advertising account executive at the Houston Chronicle and Majic 102-KMJQ.

Messiah-Jiles is married to Jodie Lee Jiles, who works in commercial real estate. They have two sons, Jodie and Clyde. She is a native of McNair/Baytown, Texas.

Karen Michel is President and CEO of IndiJ Public Media, a nonprofit news organization that covers the Indigenous world through a digital news site and a weekday newscast. Based in Wisconsin, Karen leads the business operations of the company, which owns ICT (formerly Indian Country Today), located in Phoenix, Arizona. Previously she served as publisher and editor of Madison Magazine and is a past board president of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. She is a former executive editor of The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, Louisiana, and a former assistant managing editor of the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Karen started in newspapers at the La Crosse Tribune in Wisconsin and later became a staff writer for The Dallas Morning News. She has written extensively about Native American issues as a freelancer and was a columnist for The New York Times Syndicate. She is a past president of the Native American Journalists Association, the president of the IndiJ Public Media Board of Directors and a member of the Friends Board of PBS Wisconsin. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Marquette University and will receive an honorary doctorate from Marquette on Feb. 9, 2023.

Lila Mills is the founding editor-in-chief of Signal Cleveland, the Ohio Local News Initiative’s Cleveland newsroom. Lila, who has experience in community building and journalism, led the launch of Cleveland Documenters in 2020. Cleveland Documenters trains and pays Greater Clevelanders to document local government meetings. More than 600 residents are part of Cleveland Documenters and their work fuels the Signal Cleveland newsroom.

Formerly associate director at Neighborhood Connections, a Cleveland-based organization that has done groundbreaking work building community networks, Lila also has been a newspaper reporter, a student-journalism advisor and a freelance news producer. Born and raised on the southeast side of Cleveland, Lila is a first-generation college graduate with degrees from Columbia University.

Graciela Mochkofsky was appointed dean of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism by the CUNY Board of Trustees on June 27, 2022. The third dean since the school opened in 2006, she officially assumed the position on August 1 as the only Latina at the helm of a graduate school of journalism in the U.S.

Mochkofsky joined the Newmark J-School in 2016 to launch the nation’s first bilingual master’s journalism concentration in English and Spanish. Three years later, she added the Center for Community Media (CCM) to her portfolio, serving as executive director to an enterprise that supports hundreds of news outlets covering immigrants and communities of color across the country.

Under Mochkofsky’s leadership, the Newmark J-School trained six cohorts of bilingual journalists who are working in newsrooms across the country. She also hosted five Latino Media Summits, both in person and remotely; conceived and developed separate Latino, Black, and Asian media initiatives; and led a groundbreaking project that helped New York community media receive $25 million in city advertising in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

All the while, she has continued her journalistic work, as a writer for The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, where she produces a monthly column on Latinx culture and politics.

A native of Argentina, she is a winner of the 2018 Maria Moors Cabot prize for outstanding reporting across Latin America and the Caribbean.

She was a political correspondent with La Nación in Argentina, has been a columnist and blogger for El País in Spain, and a contributor to publications in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S., including The California Sunday Magazine, The New Yorker online, and The Paris Review blog.

She is the author of six nonfiction books in Spanish, two of them about the relationship between press and political power in her home country. Her latest book, The Prophet of the Andes, about a Peruvian Catholic community that converted to Orthodox Judaism and emigrated to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, was published in English by Knopf in August.

Mochkofsky has served as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Cullman fellow at the New York Public Library, a Prins Foundation fellow at the Center for Jewish History, a visiting scholar at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia University.

She has taught undergraduate courses in reporting and writing and investigative and literary journalism in Buenos Aires, and she has lectured at Princeton, the CUNY Graduate Center, NYU’s Institute for the Humanities, and many other universities. Mochkofsky has also served as a juror for the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation Journalism Prize, Latin America’s most important journalism award.

She sits on the boards of Report for America, Radio Ambulante, and the Type Media Center, and is a member of the Advisory Circle of the American Journalism Project.

She earned her bachelor’s in journalism and communications at Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires and has an M.S. in Journalism from the Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

La June Montgomery Tabron is president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan, one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Since joining the Kellogg Foundation in 1987, Tabron has risen to become the organization’s first woman and first African American chief executive, leading work to support thriving children, working families and equitable communities.

Currently, Tabron serves on the Kellogg Company board and chairs the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Trust. She also serves on other boards, including Battle Creek Community Health Partners, Bronson Healthcare Group, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), and the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA).

Tabron holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management. She received honorary doctorates from Grand Valley State University, Ithaca College, Marygrove College and Union Institute & University. She is a certified public accountant. In 2020, Tabron was named the recipient of the Bynum Tudor Fellowship at Kellogg College in Oxford, England. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies awarded Tabron the Louis E. Martin Great American Award, the organization’s highest honor, in 2022.

Jill Ozarski is an expert on land and water conservation and joined the Walton Family Foundation in 2016. In that role she works with grantee partners across the seven-state Colorado River region to conserve water, restore watersheds, and leverage public funding. Prior to joining the Foundation, she served as the Senior Natural Resources Policy Advisor to U.S. Senator Mark Udall and held other leadership and policy positions with NGOs. She is a 2015 Fulbright-Ian Axford Fellow in Public Policy where she worked in New Zealand to advance public-private partnerships. She is a graduate of Southampton College (B.S.) and Duke University, where she earned a Master of Public Policy and Master of Environmental Management. Her passion is finding community-driven collaborative solutions to the increasingly complex demands facing people and nature.

In her personal time, she represents Congressional District 1 on the Colorado Recreational Trails Committee and the Colorado Conservation Easement Oversight Commission, and chairs the stateside Land and Water Conservation Fund subcommittee. She lives in Denver with her husband and two young children, and spends her free time hiking, cycling, and cross-country skiing with her family.

Emily Ramshaw is the CEO and co-founder of The 19th*, the nation’s first independent nonprofit newsroom at the intersection of gender, politics and policy. The 19th* aims to elevate the voices of women and LGBTQ+ people — particularly those left at the margins of American media — with free-to-consume and free-to-republish daily journalism, newsletters and live events. 

Prior to The 19th, Ramshaw was editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, an award-winning local news startup and the largest statehouse news operation in the nation. She is on the board of the Pulitzer Prize, where she is serving a nine-year term. In 2020, Ramshaw was named to Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list. 

Ramshaw started her career at The Dallas Morning News, where she broke national stories about sexual abuse inside Texas’ youth lock-ups, reported from inside a West Texas polygamist compound and uncovered “fight clubs” at state institutions for people with disabilities.

A native of Washington, D.C., Ramshaw graduated from Northwestern University in 2003 with dual degrees in journalism and American history. She lives in Austin with her filmmaker husband, their spunky and spectacular 7-year-old daughter, and a one-eyed wonder dog.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel believes that the future belongs to the connected. She works to promote greater opportunity, accessibility, and affordability in our communications services in order to ensure that all Americans get a fair shot at 21st century success. She believes strong communications markets can foster economic growth and security, enhance digital age opportunity, and enrich our civic life.

From fighting to protect net neutrality to ensuring access to the internet for students caught in the Homework Gap, Jessica has been a consistent champion for connecting all. She is a leader in spectrum policy, developing new ways to support wireless services from Wi-Fi to video and the internet of things. She also is responsible for developing policies to help expand the reach of broadband to schools, libraries, hospitals, and households across the country.

Named as one of POLITICO’s 50 Politicos to Watch and profiled by InStyle Magazine in a series celebrating “women who show up, speak up and get things done,” Jessica brings over two decades of communications policy experience and public service to the FCC. Prior to joining the agency, she served as Senior Communications Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, under the leadership of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV and Senator Daniel Inouye. Before entering public service, Jessica practiced communications law in Washington, DC.

She is a native of Hartford, Connecticut. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University and New York University School of Law. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two children.

Karen Rundlet joined Knight Foundation in November 2015.

She is a director in the Journalism Program. Rundlet works to identify methods, models, programs and projects that will lead to a financially sustainable future for local news, as well as prepare leaders who will manage, partner and serve diverse, digital teams and audiences. Her portfolio includes grantees such as City Bureau, NewsMatch, Sahan Journal, and Solutions Journalism Network.

Before entering the field of philanthropy, Rundlet worked as a journalist/manager at the Miami Herald, where she built the newsroom’s first-ever video studio and led initiatives to make video integral to the MiamiHerald.com audience experience.

She also produced business reports for various public radio newsrooms, including WLRN/Miami Herald News and American Public Media’s “Marketplace.”

Rundlet spent the first part of her career working as a television news producer in Miami, Atlanta and New York City.

She earned a bachelor of arts degree from Georgetown University and was a Maynard Institute fellow.

Most recently, she served on the board of the Lyric Theater in Overtown and is currently an Ambassador for Black Art at the Perez Art Museum Miami.

Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, a $16 billion international social justice philanthropy with offices in the United States and ten regions around the globe. He chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. Under his leadership, the Ford Foundation became the first non-profit in US history to issue a $1 billion desi/gnated social bond in US capital markets for proceeds to strengthen and stabilize non-profit organizations in the wake of COVID-19.

Before joining Ford, Darren was vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing global and domestic programs including the Rebuild New Orleans initiative after Hurricane Katrina. In the 1990s, as COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation—Harlem’s largest community development organization—he led a comprehensive revitalization strategy, including building over 1,000 units of affordable housing and the first major commercial development in Harlem since the 1960s. Earlier, he had a decade-long career in international law and finance at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and UBS.

Darren co-chairs New York City’s Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, and serves on The Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform and the UN International Labour Organization Global Commission on the Future of Work. He co-founded both the US Impact Investing Alliance and the Presidents’ Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy and is a founding member of the Board Diversity Action Alliance. He serves on many boards, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the National Gallery of Art, Carnegie Hall, the High Line, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. In the summer of 2020, he was appointed to the boards of Block, Inc. and Ralph Lauren. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and is the recipient of 16 honorary degrees and university awards, including Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal. In 2022, he was awarded commander of France’s Order of Arts and Letters, the nation’s highest cultural honor, for his work as a benefactor of the arts. He was also appointed by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II to the Order of the British Empire for services to UK/US relations.

Educated exclusively in public schools, Darren was a member of the first class of Head Start in 1965 and received his bachelor’s and law degrees from The University of Texas at Austin, which in 2009 recognized him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award—its highest alumni honor. He has been included on numerous leadership lists, including TIME’s annual 100 Most Influential People in the World, Rolling Stone’s 25 People Shaping the Future, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Ebony’s Power 100, and Out magazine’s Power 50. Most recently, Darren was named Wall Street Journal’s 2020 Philanthropy Innovator.

Lilly Weinberg joined Knight Foundation in August 2012. She is the senior director with the Community and National Initiatives, managing Knight’s $140 million investment in 18 small to midsize Knight communities.

Weinberg graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School and the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she concurrently earned master’s degrees in public administration and business administration. While attending graduate school, she worked with the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the New York City Economic Development Corp., in both cases creating strategies to promote economic development, entrepreneurship and business growth. She also worked with CVS Caremark on successfully developing new marketing and digital strategies.

Prior to entering graduate school, Weinberg worked with the Connected by 25 Institute, where she specialized in simplifying complicated foster care policies and implementing them.

Weinberg earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and environmental studies from Emory University, which allowed her to study and research sustainable development in Botswana, Namibia, Peru, and Turks and Caicos.

She is a graduate of the Leadership Miami class and was a fellow of New Leaders Council. She then served as the executive director and on the advisory committee for the New Leaders Council Miami Chapter until 2016. In 2018, she was chosen to participate in the Leadership Florida Connect Program and Miami’s Young American Leadership Program at Harvard Business School. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the International Downtown Association and The Friends of the Underline, a proposed 10-mile linear park and urban trail under the Miami-Dade Metrorail.

Mary Margaret White is the CEO of Mississippi Today, the state’s flagship nonprofit newsroom whose accountability reporting on Mississippi politics and policy has created impact ranging from the changing of the state flag to the exposure of the largest embezzlement of public funds in state history. One of the organization’s very first hires, Mary Margaret oversees the whole business operation, with a special focus on donor cultivation and philanthropy, and has been integral in the planning and execution of the Deep South Today expansion.

She is a 2021 graduate of the Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program at Columbia University and a 2020 fellow of the Online News Association’s Women’s Leadership Accelerator. Mary Margaret holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Mississippi and a master’s degree in Southern Studies from the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. A lifelong Mississippian, she lives in Jackson with her husband and two daughters.

Kinsey Wilson is the founder and head of Newspack, a technology startup funded by the Google News Initiative and WordPress.com designed to help digital news organizations find a path to financial sustainability. To date, more than 200 sites have launched on the platform. Kinsey has worked at the intersection of journalism, business and technology for more than two decades. He held top editorial and business positions at The New York Times, NPR and USA TODAY and played a key role in the digital transformation of their businesses, including innovations such as NPR One and The Times breakout podcast, The Daily. He was also closely involved in the development of The Times’ 2015 strategic manifesto, Our Path Forward, which set the stage for its gains in subscribers and digital revenue. Wilson is on the board of the Institute for Nonprofit News, the board of visitors for the Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University and the board of directors of the Berkshire Eagle. He also serves as advisor to Hark Audio, a podcast listening startup. He was an early leader of the Online News Association and lives in Cambridge, MA.

Richard is the Founder and Executive Director of CivicLex, a civic health and media organization that works in Fayette County, Kentucky, to transform the relationship between residents and their local government and rebuild faith in local democracy. He is also a founding Steering Committee member and steward of the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange, bringing together rural and urban communities in Kentucky to understand their interdependence.

María Inés Zamudio is an award-winning investigative journalist. Prior to joining CPI, Zamudio was a radio reporter covering racial inequalities for WBEZ, the Chicago NPR station. Her coverage of the city’s water affordability crisis led to a moratorium on water shutoffs, the creation of a city-wide program to help low-income homeowners, and a state-funded $42 million water emergency assistance program for residents who can’t afford their water and sewer bills.

Zamudio has spent the last decade investigating racial inequalities and the policies behind them. Her coverage has received multiple awards, including the National Press Foundation’s Poverty and Inequality award, Edward R. Murrow Award, The Studs Terkel Award, which recognizes excellent coverage of Chicago’s diverse communities.

In 2015, Zamudio and a team of reporters from NPR’s Latino USA received a Peabody National Award for their coverage of Central American migrants. Zamudio’s story was reported from the Mexico-Guatemala border and it focused on the danger women Central American women face while traveling through Mexico as they try to reach the United States.

Zamudio has also led efforts to increase the number of journalists of color in the industry. In 2020, Zamudio co-created a first-of-its-kind FOIA mentorship program to support Chicago journalists of color working on projects using public records.

Allred is president of Source Media Properties, which includes three local news sites, a full-service digital marketing agency and an artificial intelligence startup. The Source Brand Solutions marketing team creates compelling messaging for clients across the United States. The Source newsrooms are known for their tightly-focused local coverage, entrepreneurial culture and national leadership in audience engagement and the practice of solutions journalism. Source reporters serve nearly a half million users a month across four counties in North Central Ohio. Allred also serves as a board member of LION Publishers and is deeply involved in the civic life of Mansfield, Ohio. 

Aronson-Rath is executive producer of FRONTLINE, PBS’s flagship investigative journalism series, and a leading voice on the future of journalism. She oversees FRONTLINE’s reporting on air and online, and directs the series’ editorial vision, executive producing over twenty documentaries each year on critical issues facing the country and world. Under her leadership, FRONTLINE has earned two Oscar nominations and won every major award in broadcast journalism, including Peabody Awards, Emmy Awards, an Institutional Peabody Award and the first Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Gold Baton in a decade.

Baim is president and co-publisher of the Chicago Reader. She is also co-founder of Windy City Times. Baim received the 2013 Chicago Headline Club Lifetime Achievement Award. She is in the NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame, the Association for Women Journalists-Chicago Chapter Hall of Fame and the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. She has won numerous LGBTQ community and journalism honors, including the Community Media Workshop’s Studs Terkel Award in 2005. Baim has written and/or edited thirteen books, including “Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America.”

Belgrad joined Knight Foundation as Miami program associate in May 2019. He became an officer in the Journalism Program in April 2021. His work focuses on advancing the business models that sustain independent local news. Before joining Knight, Belgrad helped grow Pacific54, a boutique digital marketing agency in Miami, serving startups, universities, banks and nonprofits. A self-taught marketer and hobbyist glassblower, Belgrad started his career at a B2B SaaS startup in San Francisco and has spent time building an art studio in Colorado.

Benavidez is a civil and human rights attorney working at the intersection of law, tech and democracy. She serves as senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights at Free Press, where she leads the organization’s efforts to fight digital threats to democracy and to push for media and platform accountability. She previously served as the director of PEN America’s U.S. Free Expression Programs, where she guided the organization’s national advocacy agenda on First Amendment and free expression issues. She has authored policy reports on legislative attacks on fundamental rights. She previously worked in private practice and at the ACLU of Georgia, litigating significant cases representing victims of voting rights violations, unconstitutional police practices, First Amendment infringements and more.

Brady joined Knight Foundation as vice president of the journalism program in 2021. He is a digital media innovator whose experience ranges from leading major brands, such as washingtonpost.com and Digital First Media, to starting a company that built local news sites in three cities. 

Brown joined WBEZ’s award-winning newsroom in 2019 as managing editor, after spending more than twenty-five years working in newspapers. Brown leads Chicago Public Media’s strategy and the station’s news operations across digital and broadcast media. She also oversees the newsroom, programming, podcasts, events and Vocalo, its urban alternative music station. Prior to joining Chicago Public Media, Brown spent a decade at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She also served as co-chair of Cox Media Group’s Diversity and Inclusion Council. Brown is a board member of the Local Media Association and a member of the Economic Club of Chicago. She is a 2021 Sulzberger Executive Leadership Fellow at Columbia University, a 2015 fellow of Leadership DeKalb in Atlanta and former president of the Dunwoody-Atlanta chapter of Jack and Jill of America, a national organization of Black mothers nurturing children in culture and leadership.

Carragher-Haim is a 13-year-old student at the Dwight Englewood School in Englewood New Jersey. His academic interests include, science, math, and poetry. He lives in the Upper West Side with his family and two Havaneese dogs. He is an active athlete playing, basketball, soccer, tennis, and football. 

Coates is the author of the bestselling books “The Beautiful Struggle,” “We Were Eight Years in Power,” “The Water Dancer,” and “Between the World and Me,” which won the National Book Award in 2015. He was a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship that same year. As a journalist with a career spanning over two decades, he’s written for numerous publications, including the Washington City Paper, the Village Voice, the New Yorker and the New York Times. During his time reporting for the Atlantic, from 2008 to 2018, he penned numerous articles and essays, including the National Magazine Award–winning 2012 essay “Fear of a Black President” and the influential 2014 essay “The Case For Reparations.” Coats also enjoyed a successful run writing Marvel’s Black Panther (2016–21) and Captain America (2018–21) comic series. In Fall 2022, he will join Howard University’s faculty as a writer-in-residence and the Sterling Brown Chair in the department of English.

Collins-Dexter is a former senior campaign director at Color Of Change, where she oversaw the media, culture and economic justice departments. She is also a researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. As part of her work, she researches, writes and presents on issues that are core to Black participation in democracy and the U.S. economy, with particular focus on the role technology and information integrity play in improving or deteriorating community health. Collins-Dexter is a regular commentator in the media on racial justice. Collins-Dexter’s first book, “Black Skinhead: Reflections on Blackness and Our Political Future,” will be released by Celadon Books in September 2022.

Cross leads the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), a network of more than 360 nonprofit news organizations building the most stable, sustainable model for inclusive, independent journalism as a public service. She joined INN in 2015 to build its emerging news network and advance social enterprise models for investigative and other public service journalism. Cross is a former senior vice president for the Associated Press global news agency, where she created digital news services, expanded Spanish language and Latin American operations, introduced video to more than a thousand news sites and managed a national news cooperative. 

Dr. Fagbuyi is a distinguished ER physician, war veteran, biodefense and public health expert, media contributor and CEO of Erudition. He served as medical director for disaster preparedness at Children’s National Health System, and was an assistant professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine, where he earned his MD at age twenty-five. Dr. Fagbuyi was one of the first and youngest African Americans appointed by a U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the National Biodefense Science Board. He also served as chairman of the Anthrax Vaccine Working Group, HHS, and as a special medical advisor to the FDA. As a medical expert, he has provided public health information to media outlets, including CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, the Washington Post, Business Insider, National Public Radio, Associated Press, Science, CBS and The Today Show.

Dr. Frederick is the seventeenth president of Howard University, where he also previously served as provost and chief academic officer. Dr. Frederick has advanced Howard University’s commitment to student opportunity, academic innovation, public service and fiscal stability. Dr. Frederick received his BS and MD from Howard University. Following his post-doctoral research and surgical oncology fellowships at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, he began his academic career as associate director of the cancer center at the University of Connecticut. Upon his return to Howard University, his academic positions included associate dean in the College of Medicine, division chief in the department of Surgery, director of the Cancer Center and deputy provost for Health Sciences. He also earned an MBA from the School of Business in 2011. 

Gustus is executive editor of the Salt Lake Tribune. She previously worked for McClatchy as the west region editor, overseeing ten news organizations in Idaho, Washington and California, including the flagship Sacramento Bee. Gustus has also served as an editor in Reno and in Colorado, where her work on transparency contributed to a new law that facilitates greater access to public records.
The document Lauren mentioned during KMF 2022 is here: https://kf.org/3JQBX0I

Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and has a MacArthur Fellowship, a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and three National Magazine Awards. Hannah-Jones also earned the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism and was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists and by the Newswomen’s Club of New York. She was inducted into the Society of American Historians in 2020 and into the North Carolina Media and Journalism Hall of Fame in 2021. She was named one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine in 2021. In 2016, Hannah-Jones cofounded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of reporters and editors of color. She holds an MA in mass communication from the University of North Carolina and earned a BA in history and African American studies from the University of Notre Dame. Hannah-Jones is the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she has founded the Center for Journalism and Democracy.

Hoban founded the not-for-profit North Carolina Health News after spending more than six years as the health reporter for North Carolina Public Radio WUNC, where she covered health care, state health policy, science and research with a focus on public health issues. Hoban is a registered nurse who worked in a variety of community health settings for almost fifteen years, including an inner-city emergency department, home hospice and home care and as a medical project director for Médecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders in Indonesia. After a decade and more than 3,000 articles, NC Health News has become a recognized authority on health care in North Carolina, garnering multiple state and national awards. Hoban also serves on the board of LION Publishers, an organization dedicated to rebuilding the United States’ frayed local news ecosystem. 

Ibargüen 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. He graduated from Wesleyan University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Between college and law school, he served in the Peace Corps. After law school, he practiced law in Hartford, Conn., until he joined The Hartford Courant, then Newsday in New York, before moving to Miami. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 

Dave Isay is one of the most trusted and respected broadcasters working today. The recipient of six Peabody Awards and a MacArthur Fellowship, his work taps into the heart and soul of the human experience. Founded in 2003, StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit organization based in Brooklyn that has brought more than 600,000 Americans together — two at a time — to record intimate conversations about their lives, create human connection, pass wisdom from one generation to the next and leave a legacy for the future. Each conversation is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

Jin joined Knight Foundation as vice president of the community and national initiatives program in 2021. She brings to her role data, technology and strategy experience in federal, state and local governments. 

Jones is president of MSNBC, the premier destination for breaking news, award-winning journalism, in-depth analysis and informed perspectives. She is responsible for oversight of programming, editorial units, business development and technical operations. 

Prior to taking on this role in 2021, Jones served as senior vice president, NBC News and MSNBC, where she spearheaded cross-platform breaking news and major events for both networks, including coverage of COVID-19 and the networks’ Decision 2020 programming. Jones received an Emmy Award for strategic coverage of the Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage in 2016 and executive produced the most-watched Democratic presidential debate in history during the 2020 election cycle. She received a BA in mass media-arts broadcast from Hampton University.

Jorgenson is a video producer, editor and writer at The Washington Post. While at the Washington Post, Dave launched their TikTok channel, where he posts short, newsworthy TikToks twice a day, five days a week. The account has gained over 1.1 million followers. For his work on TikTok, he earned two Webby nominations in 2020 and a win in 2021. He won an award from the North American Digital Awards for ‘Best Digital Project to Engage Young and/or Millennial Audiences.’ He also made the Forbes 30 under 30 list in December 2020.

Lambert is president and chief executive officer of the Peyton Anderson Foundation in Macon, Georgia. Established in 1988, the foundation initiates projects to meet needs in the Macon community, responds to requests from charitable organizations and provides college scholarships to promising students with financial need. Lambert graduated from Mercer University with a degree in business administration. Prior to joining the Peyton Anderson Foundation, she was president and CEO of Macon’s award-winning International Cherry Blossom Festival and executive director of Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful. Lambert is a member of Southeastern Council of Foundations, Georgia Grantmakers Alliance and Macon Council of Foundations. She is vice chair of NewTown Macon and serves on the board of directors of the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, Central Georgia Technical College and the Museum of Aviation.

Leow is a creator-in-residence at CUNY and the founder of Bewilder, an outdoor recreation startup based in California. She’s a long time journalist who has worked as a video producer for the Associated Press and a senior Snapchat editor for Vox.com. She was previously a media columnist for the Reynolds Journalism Institute, a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University, and the former national president of the Asian American Journalists Association. You can reach her at @YvonneLeow.

Marshall is chief content officer and executive vice president of WFAE, the NPR station in Charlotte. Previously, she was the chief operating officer of LifePosts, a collaborative storytelling platform that she helped launch; director for the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University; and general manager and senior vice president for Everyday Health. Before joining Everyday Health, Marshall was executive editor and senior vice president at News Corporation. Marshall also spent seventeen years at the Washington Post, where she led its award-winning digital team. She is on the boards of Greater Public, the National Trust for Local News and the North Carolina Open Government Coalition, and is an adviser to the Center for Journalism & Liberty, the North Carolina Local News Workshop and the Religion News Service.

Mehta is editor-in-chief of Fast Company, overseeing its print, digital and live journalism. She previously served as a deputy editor at Vanity Fair, where she edited feature stories and coedited the annual New Establishment ranking. She also curated the invitation-only New Establishment Summit and Founders Fair conference for women entrepreneurs, which she launched in 2017. She has worked as a writer and editor at Bloomberg Media, Fortune and the Wall Street Journal. Mehta began her career as a business reporter at the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia. She received a BA in English and an MS in journalism from Northwestern University. 

Merida is executive editor of the Los Angeles Times, where he oversees the newsroom as well as Times Community News and Los Angeles Times en Español. Previously, Merida was a senior vice president at ESPN and editor-in-chief of the Undefeated, a multimedia platform that explores the intersections of race, sports and culture. During his tenure at ESPN, he also oversaw the investigative/news enterprise unit, the television shows E:60 and Outside the Lines, and chaired ESPN’s editorial board. Before joining ESPN, Merida spent twenty-two years at the Washington Post as a congressional correspondent, national political reporter, long-form feature writer, magazine columnist and senior editor in several roles. During his tenure as managing editor, he helped lead the Post to four Pulitzer Prizes, and the newspaper embarked on a digital transformation that made it one of the fastest growing news organizations in the country

Raul Moas joined Knight Foundation in 2018. Prior to joining Knight, Moas served as the managing director of Miami Angels, Florida’s largest angel investor collective, which brings together exceptional entrepreneurs and accredited investors to fuel success.  Moas is passionate about Greater Miami and deeply involved in making his community a better place. As a founding member of the Global Shapers Miami Hub, the young professional arm of the World Economic Forum, he focused on promoting more equitable and inclusive economic development. Moas is also a member of Class VIII of The Miami Foundation’s Miami Fellows program.

Mochkofsky joined the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in February 2016 as the first director of its Bilingual Journalism Program. A native of Argentina, she received the 2018 Maria Moors Cabot Prize for outstanding reporting across Latin America and the Caribbean. Mochkofsky has worked as a political correspondent and contributor with La Nación in Argentina, El País in Spain, the California Sunday Magazine, the New Yorker online and the Paris Review blog. She is the author of six nonfiction books in Spanish. Her forthcoming book, The Prophet of the Andes, will be published in English by Knopf. Mochkofsky has served as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library, a Prins Foundation Fellow at the Center for Jewish History, a visiting scholar at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia University.

Moog is CEO of Chicago Public Media; he brings to this role experience leading and growing organizations during times of change, years of civic leadership, a commitment to local journalism and significant experience in digital innovation. He joined Chicago Public Media in 2020, after having served as a member of its board of directors and as a past board chair. Prior to Chicago Public Media, he was the founder and CEO of several innovative technology companies. Throughout his career, Moog has been committed to creating diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace cultures that provide opportunities for learning, excellence and professional development. He is passionate about the important role journalism plays in creating a healthy democracy, fostering civic engagement and building stronger communities.  

Oliveri is vice president of communications and marketing at the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, the largest private provider of nonprofit grants and student aid in northern New England. The foundation manages more than $1 billion in charitable funds donated by hundreds of families and individuals and awards some 7,000 grants and scholarships exceeding $50 million annually. Oliveri leads all aspects of the foundation’s communications and marketing strategies, including messaging and brand strategy, public relations and digital and print media. She studied economics and political science at the University of New Hampshire’s Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics and earned a master’s degree in public administration at University of New Hampshire.

Paganelli is a Practice Leader at Real Chemistry, an healthcare communications company. She runs the firm’s 60-person healthcare earned media team, bringing twenty years of experience serving as a storytelling advisor to a range of healthcare organizations. During the pandemic, her dedicated team supported dozens of companies on the front-lines of COVID-19 across vaccines, treatments, testing, and beyond. She counsels organizations on how to tell their stories accurately, authentically and transparently. A news-junkie herself, Paganelli works with agenda-setting reporters across the media ecosystem to drive meaningful stories that inspire, educate, and drive action. She feels strongly that tackling healthcare mis- and dis-information is a shared responsibility that requires less lip-service and more action in our ever-changing digital (and skeptical) world.

Robinson Anglin is vice president for program for the Cleveland Foundation, the nation’s first community foundation. She originally joined the Cleveland Foundation in October 2017 as the program director for youth, health and human services. Since March 2020, Robinson Anglin has led the Greater Cleveland COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund/Funders Collaborative on COVID Recovery, working with a wide range of funders to raise over $20 million to support local pandemic relief and recovery. From 2006 to 2017, she served as associate director for programs at the Victoria Foundation in Newark, New Jersey. Her prior positions include executive director of the Association for Public Policy and Management and an analyst at the Congressional Research Service, both in Washington, DC. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Smith College and a master’s degree in public policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Rundlet joined Knight Foundation in November 2015. As director of the journalism program, her focus is on investing in new methods and models to advance excellence in journalism and civic media as a way to support informed local communities.

Sandorf is president of the Charles H. Revson Foundation. Before joining Revson, she was a co-founder and executive director of Nextbook, a national organization dedicated to the creation and promotion of Jewish literature, culture and the arts. From 1991 through 1999, she was president of the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH), an organization she founded that worked to deliver permanent solutions to chronic homelessness in partnership with philanthropic foundations, nonprofit organizations and government at the local, state and national levels. Previously, she was a program director at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). She currently serves as an adviser to the Oak Foundation, is vice-chair of the board of directors of the Center for Urban Community Services, is a member of the INN Communications Strategy Advisory Board, and is a member of the board of directors of the West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing, the A.M. and Ruth Z. Fleishman Foundation and the Carolina Beacon. 

Sharma is editor-in-chief at Teen Vogue. Previously, she was managing editor and senior correspondent at NowThis, where she led audience growth on new platforms from Instagram to Facebook to YouTube, working at the social video-first company since 2014. She’s produced several short documentaries and filed dispatches on immigration from the United States-Mexico border, reported from mass protests in St. Louis and traveled to Moscow for the show she hosts and produces, The Russia Desk. Sharma won an Edward R. Murrow Award with the NowThis Reports team for a short documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Sharma has long been an enthusiastic voice for the most innovative models in digital journalism. Prior to NowThis, she worked as a reporter and editor for Vocativ, where she managed a team of international reporters. She covered the 2012 presidential election for MSNBC and got her start in journalism with an internship at Talking Points Memo in 2009.

Sidahmed is Co-Executive director of Documented, a nonprofit news site that covers immigration in the New York area. Before founding Documented, he was a reporter at the Guardian US in New York on the national desk as well as with the award-winning Guardian Mobile Innovation Lab. He started his career covering the Syrian refugee crisis in Beirut for the local English-language newspaper, the Daily Star.

Shah is president of the Rockefeller Foundation, a global institution committed to promoting the well-being of humanity around the world through data, science and innovation.  Under his leadership, the foundation raised and deployed more than $1 billion to respond to the COVID pandemic at home and abroad, launched a Pandemic Prevention Institute to prevent future health crises, and created a $10 billion Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet to help secure a just and green recovery. Shah serves on President Biden’s Defense Policy Board and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Thomas joined Knight Foundation in February 2016. He is the former executive director of Queen City Forward, a hub for entrepreneurs who have business ideas that address social needs. As founding executive director, he was responsible for launching the organization and building programs to catalyze and support social entrepreneurship, college entrepreneurship and civic innovation. He previously served as the director of education of the Light Factory Contemporary Museum of Photography and Film. A professional photographer, Thomas co-published a book of photography and stories with Valaida Fullwood titled “Giving Back: A Tribute to Generations of African American Philanthropists,” which received the 2012 Terry McAdam Book Award. Thomas earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Duke University and is a graduate of several leadership programs, such as Leadership Charlotte, the Leadership Development Initiative and the Innovation Institute at the McColl Center for the Visual Arts. 

Torres, a committed partnership-builder, has worked in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors fostering collaborations to drive social change. His experience includes policy-making in several fields, from transportation to tourism. Prior to McCormick, he led work at Grand Victoria Foundation developing networks to improve early childhood and environmental policy in Illinois. Torres holds degrees in City Design and Policy, from the London School of Economics, and Humanities, from Yale University.

Trahant is editor-at-large for Indian Country Today (ICT) and leads the Indigenous Economics Project, a comprehensive look at Indigenous economics, including market-based initiatives. Trahant was hired to revive ICT after it went out of business in 2017. The success has been phenomenal. The digital site now reaches 700,000 people per month and the broadcast is carried on two dozen public television stations. Trahant is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has held endowed chairs at the University of North Dakota and University of Alaska Anchorage. He has worked as a journalist since 1976.

VandeHei is co-founder and CEO of Axios, a media company focused on breaking news and invaluable insights that help readers and viewers get smarter faster across the topics reshaping our country and lives. VandeHei has steered Axios into becoming one of the most celebrated digital media success stories of the past few years, including overseeing the launches of Axios Local and Axios HQ. VandeHei is also an executive producer of Axios on HBO, the Emmy Award–winning docu-news series. Before Axios, VandeHei cofounded and was CEO of Politico, the media company that upended and revolutionized political and policy journalism in Washington, New York and Europe.

Julio Vaqueiro is the anchor of “Noticias Telemundo,” Telemundo’s flagship evening newscast. An Emmy-award winning journalist, Vaqueiro has covered some of the most important stories in recent years, including the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, immigration issues at the U.S.-Mexico border and the political and economic crisis in Venezuela. Before moving to the United States, Vaqueiro also worked as a reporter and anchor at Efekto TV in Mexico City. He earned his bachelor’s degree in communications from Universidad Anáhuac del Norte in Mexico City. 

Waldman is president and cofounder of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered topics and communities. It is an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. He is also the founder and chair of the Rebuild Local News Coalition, which advocates for public policies to help local news, and a cofounder of the National Trust for Local News. He crafted the plan for it after authoring the Federal Communications Commission landmark report “Information Needs of Communities,” which National Public Radio described as “one of the most comprehensive overviews of the U.S. media ever produced.” An experienced entrepreneur, he co-founded the multi-faith religion website Beliefnet.com, which won the National Magazine Award, and LifePosts.com, a platform for online memorials. Earlier, he was national editor of U.S. News & World Report and national correspondent for Newsweek. He wrote a book on the creation of AmeriCorps called “The Bill.” He’s also the author of the national bestseller “Founding Faith.” Waldman is on the board of directors of the GroundTruth Project.

Walker Lloyd is director of development and community engagement at Block Club Chicago, where she works with subscribers, foundations and corporations to expand Block Club’s support base. Prior to Block Club Chicago, she was team coordinator for the Journalism and Media program at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. 

Dr. Wallace holds a Ph.D. in epidemiology and has more than fifteen years of professional research experience in epidemiology, research design, pharmacoepidemiology, health economics, outcomes research and biostatistics. She is currently an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Public Health. Whe serves as a member of Team Halo (United Nations Verified Initiative), Project FIDES (World Health Organization) and was chosen as a “vaccine luminary” for the 2021 G7 Vaccine Confidence Summit. Dr. Wallace has also been featured as an opinion contributor for The Hill and has been interviewed or profiled in several mainstream media outlets such as BBC World News, the Washington Post, Good Morning America, Bloomberg, CBS News and National Public Radio.

A news and fundraising industry veteran with expertise in revenue diversification and strategic audience development, Walter-Brown is the founder and CEO of News Revenue Hub, which provides critical technology infrastructure and consulting services to independent digital newsrooms seeking greater financial sustainability. Founded in 2016, the Hub has helped more than seventy local, regional and national news organizations crowdfund over $50 million.

Wardle is considered one of the world’s leading experts on misinformation. She is a professor at the School of Public Health at Brown University. She leads First Draft, a nonprofit she cofounded in 2015. In 2009, she left her academic position at Cardiff University to develop an organization-wide training program for the BBC on social media, verification and misinformation, and has been obsessed with the topic ever since. In 2017, she coauthored the foundational report “Information Disorder: An Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policy for the Council of Europe.” Over the past decade she has been a fellow at TED and the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, research director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and head of social media for the United Nations Refugee Agency. She holds a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Pennsylvania.

Waters is associate director at Democracy Fund, an independent foundation working to ensure that our political system can withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people. Waters leads the Digital Democracy Initiative, which is focused on strengthening platform accountability and developing media policy measures to support our public square, centered on the experiences of Black, Indigenous and people of color. This portfolio includes funding to advance data policy innovation within a human rights framework, develop meaningful transparency and oversight mechanisms to counter disinformation and support media policy avenues to fund local, community and equitable journalism.

Webb advises CEOs of the world’s most-admired companies, three-star admirals and generals, and the senior leadership of central banks and intergovernmental organizations. The founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute, Webb pioneered a data-driven, technology-led foresight methodology that is now used in hundreds of organizations. She is a professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business, a visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Säid School of Business, a nonresident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center, a fellow in the United States-Japan Leadership Program and a foresight fellow in the U.S. Government Accountability Office Center for Strategic Foresight. She was elected a life member to the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of several popular books, including “The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity” and “The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe Is Tomorrow’s Mainstream.” Webb was named by Forbes as one of five women changing the world, listed as the BBC’s 100 Women of 2020 and included in the Thinkers50 global ranking of the fifty most influential management thinkers.

Weinberg joined Knight Foundation in August 2012. She is a senior director of the Community and National Initiatives Program. Weinberg manages Knight’s $140 million investment in eighteen small-to-midsize Knight communities and strategic initiatives across Knight cities. 

Weiss is founding director of SciLine, a philanthropically funded, editorially independent free service for journalists, based at the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science. SciLine connects journalists to scientists and other resources to facilitate the inclusion of research-backed evidence in news stories. Weiss has more than three decades of experience in journalism and media affairs, including fifteen years as a science reporter at the Washington Post, where he wrote more than 1,000 news and feature articles about the economic, societal and ethical implications of advances in science and technology. Weiss holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Cornell University and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.

West’s scholarship focuses on issues involving the First Amendment and the United States Supreme Court and has appeared in top legal journals such as the Harvard Law Review, the UCLA Law Review and the California Law Review. A graduate of the University of Chicago School of Law, West served as a law clerk for Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Her other professional experience includes several years practicing media law with the Los Angeles law firms Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Davis Wright Tremaine. West has provided legal commentary to numerous news organizations including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, the National Law Journal, MSNBC and National Public Radio. 

Most recently, Williams was SVP and editor-in-chief of Vox, where she managed all editorial and business operations for the explanatory news network. In addition to Vox.com, Williams oversaw one of YouTube’s largest news channels (with more than 9 million subscribers) and more than a dozen podcasts, including the daily news show Today, Explained, and a TV operation anchored by the Netflix franchise Explained. Prior to becoming the top editor at Vox, Williams served as executive editor and managing editor. Before joining Vox, Williams was an editor at Mother Jones and deputy editor of The Root. 

Wilson is founder and head of Newspack, a technology initiative funded by Google and WordPress.com designed to help digital news organizations address their technology needs and find a path to financial sustainability. To date, more than 150 sites have launched on the platform. Wilson has worked at the intersection of journalism and technology for more than two decades. He has held top editorial and business positions at the New York Times, National Public Radio and USA TODAY, and played a key role in the digital transformation of their businesses, including innovations such as NPR One and the Times breakout podcast, The Daily. He was also closely involved in the development of the 2015 strategic manifesto Our Path Forward, which set the stage for the Times’ gains in subscribers and digital revenue.

Jai Winston joined Knight Foundation in 2016.

Previously, Winston was an associate of strategy and corporate development in the Office of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Ariel Investments, a minority-owned money management firm in Chicago. At Ariel Investments, he focused on working with senior members of the firm and on other firm-wide strategic initiatives. In addition, he co-led several of the CEO’s special projects, including some of the firm’s national work on financial literacy and minority entrepreneurship. Winston earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Yang is associate professor of public relations in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Yang’s research is positioned at the intersection of strategic public relations, inter-organizational networks and civil society research. Yang studies issue advocacy and the dynamic network ecology among nonprofit organizations, corporations and governments. She has published over sixty peer-reviewed journal articles. Yang serves on the editorial board of Public Relations Review and Journal of Public Relations Research. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma.

Zurik is evening news anchor and chief investigative reporter at WVUE-TV in New Orleans. In addition, he also serves as vice president of investigations for Gray Television. In that role, Zurik oversees Gray’s National Investigations Unit and its OTT App-Investigative TV. Zurik’s hard-hitting investigations continue to effect change and garner respect and his work has been recognized with journalism’s top awards, including two Peabody Awards, three Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Batons, twelve National Edward R. Murrow Awards, the IRE Medal, six IRE Certificates and twelve Sigma Delta Chi Awards.