Adrianna Amato (@AdriannaAmato)
Sophomore
University of Missouri
Adrianna Amato is a student at the University of Missouri receiving a degree in radio-television journalism and a minor in political science. She currently works as a multimedia journalist and web producer at KOMU-TV8 and a general assignment reporter for local NPR affiliate, KBIA-FM. She also serves as the social media coordinator for Mizzou’s College of Engineering.
Adrianna has a passion for learning and reporting. She enjoys covering local news and seeing new things every day. In her future career, Adrianna aspires to educate people on uncovered issues and news around the world.
Adrianna was born and raised in Arizona, living most of her life in the Phoenix-metro area. She enjoys sports, cooking and spending time with family and friends.
Caitlin Coughlan (@ccoug)
Senior
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Caitlin is a senior journalism major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the current Managing Editor of Amherstwire.com. In the summer of 2009, she completed an internship in the Massachusetts Governor’s Press Office where she photographed events attended by the Governor and Lieutenant Governor and worked on independent projects. In the spring of 2009, she became one of the editors of The Amherst Wire, a student-run multimedia news website at UMass Amherst. She has also been a news and features photographer for the UMass Daily Collegian and wrote for her high school and local newspaper.
Caitlin is a senior journalism major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the current Managing Editor of Amherstwire.com. In the summer of 2009, she completed an internship in the Massachusetts Governor’s Press Office where she photographed events attended by the Governor and Lieutenant Governor and worked on independent projects. In the spring of 2009, she became one of the editors of The Amherst Wire, a student-run multimedia news website at UMass Amherst. She has also been a news and features photographer for the UMass Daily Collegian and wrote for her high school and local newspaper.
Caitlin Dewey
Senior
Syracuse University
Paula Echevarria
Graduate Student
University of Miami
Keisha Frazier (@keish125)
Senior
Temple University
Keisha Frazier is an aspiring mix-media journalist, whose experience with writing and passion for documentary journalism has set her apart from the rest. She is a native New-Yorker who currently is finishing her last year at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is majoring in Broadcast Journalism and has a minor in Spanish. She also studied abroad in Spain last summer and also has an interest in Minority Media.
Keisha enjoys spending time with her family, her church, and her friends, while staying very active on campus. She is Vice President of Temple Association of Black Journalists and a member of Sigma Lambda Upsilon/Señoritas Latinas Unidas Sorority, Inc. She’s a dedicated PC lover, who has a soft-spot for MACs (probably because of Final Cut Pro). She is excited to enter the changing world of Journalism.
Molly Gray (@mollygrayosu)
Junior
Ohio State University
Molly Gray is a senior at Ohio State University studying journalism and international studies with a minor in Russian. She has interned with the local NBC affiliate, several websites and the communications department at the Moritz College of Law. She has worked on the school newspaper, The Lantern, for three years as a sports writer, arts editor, graphic designer and managing editor of design. She is originally from Los Angeles and after graduating hopes to attend law school.
Heather Hodder (@heatherh_nj)
Senior
George Washington University
Heather Hodder is a second semester senior in the School for Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University, graduating with a B.A. in Political Communication in December 2010. This summer, Heather worked as a freelance writer/photographer for The Livingston Patch (NJ) for Patch.com. Along with writing for student newspapers like The Daily Colonial, The GW Hatchet and The Washington Square News, she has interned at The New York Times and The U.S. Department of State. In April 2010, Heather won a Larry King Scholarship Award, through The School for Media and Public Affairs and The Larry King Foundation. This Fall, Heather is interning in the Foreign Policy Program of The Brookings Institution. After graduation, Heather plans to become a true Washingtonian, living and working in D.C., but will always remain a Jersey Girl at heart.
Mandy Hofmockel (@mandyhofmockel)
Senior
Penn State University
Mandy Hofmockel is a senior majoring in media studies and political science at Penn State University. This summer she was a Dow Jones News Fund multimedia intern, writing, blogging and creating multimedia for California Watch, a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, Calif. This fall, Mandy returns to her college newspaper, The Daily Collegian, as a multimedia leader. She was also web editor, copy desk chief and reporter at the Collegian. Mandy is scheduled to graduate from Penn State in May 2011, and plans to pursue a career at an online news organization.
Ethan Klapper (@ethanklapper)
Senior
American University
Ethan Klapper is a senior at American University in Washington, D.C., where he studies journalism and political science. He is the managing editor of TheEagleOnline.com, the website of AU’s student newspaper, The Eagle. Ethan has interned twice at The Washington Post, where he produced videos and worked on the politics section of washingtonpost.com. He’s also interned at the Bureau of National Affairs, where he covered the federal government, The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News and mediabistro.com. Ethan has been a member of ONA for over a year and enjoys participating in the monthly meetups of the group’s D.C. chapter.
Kevin Loker (@kevinloker)
Junior
George Mason University
Kevin Loker is a junior at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, where he serves as executive editor of the online student media convergence project, Connect2Mason.com. This semester, Kevin also interns as an online content editor for Washington Post Live, a new events and conference division of the D.C. paper. While much of his experience and interest lies in web publishing/production, editing, and live coverage planning and execution, Kevin still likes to write. His newest gigs include a once-a-month blog post for USA TODAY College and weekly contributions to mediabistro.com‘s 10000Words.net.
Grace Muller
Senior
Penn State University
Grace Muller joined the Centre County Report news team in August 2010 as a web producer and reporter. Before joining the Centre County Report, Grace was the news producer of Penn State Network News, in State College, Pennsylvania. She had an internship at PBS station, WQED, in Pittsburgh, her hometown. Grace will graduate from The Pennsylvania State University in December 2010 with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and a minor in Women’s Studies.
Kim Nowacki (@knowacki)
Graduate Student
University of Southern California
Kim Nowacki is a graduate journalism student at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism in Los Angeles. After six years as the lead arts and culture writer at a mid-size paper in Washington State, she came back to school to study online journalism/new media/digital media/THE FUTURE. Most recently, she’s been researching the notion of entrepreneurial journalism and its relationship with the Web and social networking. This past summer, though, Kim was an old-school general assignment intern at the Weekend Argus newspaper in Cape Town, South Africa. Already an amazing experience to report in another country, her internship was also during the soccer World Cup, which of course turned her into a full-blown football fan.
Melissa Quijada (@Media_Honeybee)
Senior
University of Maryland
I am a senior at the University of Maryland studying online journalism and political science. For about a year I have been reporting for the university’s independent student newspaper, The Diamondback. I have covered graduate student unionization efforts and diversity issues for the paper. This year I joined the web team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. I take special interest in topics related to international relations, feminism and cultural diplomacy. In the future I hope to produce quality web investigative journalism and play a part in enhancing global media literacy.
Nyssa Rabinowitz
Senior
Michigan State
David Reinbold
Graduate Student
American University
David Reinbold graduated from Penn State University in May 2010 with a B.A. in journalism and a minor in information sciences and technology. He is currently a graduate student at American University pursuing an MA in international media. He has worked for the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa.; Charleston Gazette, care of the Dow Jones News Fund, in Charleston, W.Va.; and the Philadelphia Inquirer. His interests include politics, current events, foreign languages, and writing.
Lauren Santa Cruz
Graduate Student
University of Miami
My name is Lauren Santa Cruz and I am a graduate student at University of Miami in Multimedia Journalism. I graduated from UM with a BA in Psychology and Photography. I am most enthusiastic about photography, video production/content gathering, and editing. Over the past two semesters we have been honing our videography skills and now we are moving forward and making exciting things happen! At the moment I am in New York filming my thesis project on the last traveling train carnival in the United States. My colleagues and I have just wrapped up two very ambitious international projects titled “My Story, My Goal” which puts a face on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and another project titled, “Colorful but not Colorblind” which portrays the discrimination of Roma Gypsies in Eastern Europe. The URL for the sites are mdg.glocalstories.org and roma.glocalstories.org respectively. I will be graduating in December 2010 and look forward to telling stories in a new and exciting way on the web.
Lauren Slavin (@laurenslavin)
Junior
Towson University
Lauren is a 20-year-old junior at Towson University in Baltimore, Md. She is studying mass communication with concentrations in journalism and new media and public relations. She is currently the senior editor at The Towerlight, Towson’s independent student news organization, but she also served as the paper’s arts editor. You can learn more about the daily work The Towerlight does at towerlightuncut.wordpress.com , a blog Lauren runs as a means of communicating transparency with the paper’s audience. She also serves on the Baltimore Student Media board of directors. Lauren is originally from Annapolis, Md.
Nicole Stempak (@nicolestempak)
Senior
Kent State University
Nicole Stempak is a senior magazine journalism major at Kent State University. She is the editor of Artemis, the women’s magazine on campus; co-copy editor of Fusion, the LGBTQ magazine; and a staff writer for The Burr, the general interest magazine on campus. She has also written and copy edited for the Daily Kent Stater, the independent student newspaper. She has interned for WHIRL magazine and The Almanac of American Politics and freelanced for Cleveland Jewish News, FashionablyCleveland.com and Spangle.com.
Liz Wagner (@lizwags)
Graduate Student
New York University
Liz Wagner is a graduate student at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her program, Reporting New York, focuses on underreported urban issues in underserved communities. A local television reporter for four years, Liz decided to head back to school and pursue her passion for long-form reporting and documentaries. She is currently assisting the director of her graduate program with a documentary about uranium contamination on Navajo Nation, and continues to report for the News 12 Network in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and contribute to NYU’s professional publication, Pavement Pieces. She has previously worked for CNN, ABC, NBC, and KRNV, the NBC affiliate in Reno. She received a BA in Broadcasting from USC.
Kate Yanchulis
Senior
University of Maryland
Kate Yanchulis, 21, is a senior at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism planning to complete her B.A. in journalism and American studies in December. She will neither confirm nor deny the fact that the Terrapin basketball team played a role in her college decision. Since her freshman year, she has worked as a sports reporter for the University of Maryland’s independent student newspaper, The Diamondback, covering sports ranging from field hockey to football. She also put her love of sports to use in various internships, including her work at the Sports Network Desk of USA TODAY, where she produced and managed online content and reported on local sporting events. That experience introduced her to a new passion, multimedia journalism, which she explored this summer as part of the News21 national journalism fellowship program. She is thrilled to get the chance to continue that as a student correspondent at the ONA conference.
