Alumni Newsletter, Fall 2019

Chauncey Alcorn, ’15, was hired as a staff writer/general assignment reporter for CNN Digital’s business vertical.

Deonna Anderson, ’16, joined GreenBiz  as associate editor,  where she reports about environmental sustainability and business.

After working as an editor at Bauer Xcel Media for the past four years, Jaclyn Anglis, ’14, was hired in October as a managing editor for the website All That’s Interesting .

After working as a graphics editor in The Wall Street Journal’s London bureau for three years, Martin Burch, ’12, moved to Barcelona, Spain, to be the data strategist for Dow Jones Newswires.

After working for almost two years as the European correspondent for Borsen, the largest Danish business daily,  Morten Buttler, ’16, joined Bloomberg in August as a reporter in Copenhagen covering governments and politics.

Melissa DiPento, Social Journalism, ’17, is working at the J-School as the program administrator for the News Innovation and Leadership and Social Journalism programs.

Last summer, Rob Dozier, ’18, started working as an associate producer on the current season of the “Juan Ep” podcast.

Anastasia Economides, ’09, was promoted to copy desk chief for LendingTree.

Previously a senior writer for Departures Magazine, Sean Flynn, ’12, was promoted to deputy digital editor.

Craig Giammona, ’13, was promoted to the finance team’s real estate leader at Bloomberg after being part of the consumer team since 2014.

Tsering Gurung, ’17, joined Amnesty International Nepal as media and communications coordinator.

Rebecca Harris, ’15,  joined The Infatuation‘s product and engineering team to run the membership program and manage Text Rex, a text messaging-based restaurant recommendation service.

In June, Kyle Kucharski, ’18, was hired at Indagare to write travel and culture-related features, photograph hotels and restaurants, and manage content.

Dorien Luyckx, Tow-Knight ’18, is working at the University of Antwerp on a project focused on developing innovating marketing strategies for the news industry.

Samantha Maldonado, ’18, joined POLITICO on October 1 as New Jersey’s energy and environment reporter.

Sarah Matusek, ’18, was hired as a staff writer and editor at The Christian Science Monitor.

In September, Brianna McGurran, ’14, moved to Berlin, Germany, where she is a freelance writer and editor for various finance outlets. She also plans to teach business English and public speaking at German companies.

In addition to her current role as the weekend morning producer at WCBS-TV, Annais Morales, ’11, teaches News Video Reporting as part of the journalism program at CUNY Hunter College.

Maddy Perkins, ’14, was promoted to managing editor, operations and innovation from assistant management editor at SourceMedia.

Gabrielle Sierra, ’13, is the host and a producer of  “Why It Matters,” a new podcast presented by the Council on Foreign Relations that aims to delve into foreign policy topics in an approachable way.

In June, Roxanne L. Scott, ’14, participated in the RIAS Journalist exchange, a two-week program with trips to Berlin, Prague, and the NATO headquarters in Brussels to learn about European media, politics, and history.

Andee Tagle, ’18, joined NPR’s Life Kit series as a news assistant on November 1.

Elly Wong Yu, ’13, was hired as an investigative reporter at KPCC, an NPR affiliate in Los Angeles.

NYCity News Service was named Best College/University Website in the country for the fourth consecutive year and the fifth time since 2013 in Editor & Publisher’s national EPPY awards contest.  “Climate Countdown,” which explores how global warming is affecting New York City’s infrastructure, also won an EPPY award in the Best College/University News Feature category.

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Zainab Akande, ’14, senior editorial manager of The Dodo’s Snapchat, received The Dodo’s Best Use of Snapchat award at the Digiday’s 2019 Publishing Awards.

Ariam Alula, Social Journalism ‘19, was featured in Black Youth Project with her essay, “I worry about how to care for my brother with autism and his mental health when my parents are gone.”

Allen Arthur, Social Journalism ‘16, was named a Livingston Award Finalist for his work with The Marshall Project and USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee.

Lena Camilletti, Social Journalism ‘19, was highlighted by Buzzfeed for her work at the Vermont-based newsweekly Seven Days. She helped develop the All Our Hearts project that features her sister’s memorial and shows the human cost of the opioid epidemic.

Natalie Fertig and Steve Trader, both 2014 alums, launched the podcast “Law360 Explores – Legalization” about the legal tensions of launching a marijuana business when the federal government still views it as illegal.

Simon Galperin, Social Journalism ‘16, was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered to discuss a solution for communities underserved by local news: newsroom and library collaborations.

In August 2019, Tow-Knight alum Emiliana Garcia‘s project CLIP (Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística) successfully launched the website and its first collaborative cross-border investigation, “Transnacionales de la Fe.”

Rachel Glickhouse, Social Journalism ‘15, an adjunct professor, is part of the ProPublica team that won a News & Documentary Emmy for their work on “Documenting Hate,” the two-part investigative series with PBS Frontline.

Angela Hill, ’07, co-reported and co-produced “A Broken Trust,” a documentary about sexual assault on Indian reservations.

Last summer, Anna Limontas-Salisbury, ’08, received a fellowship with Kettle Pond Writer’s Retreat and performed in three showcases with Roots, Wounds, Words, a creative non-fiction workshop for writers and storytellers.

Thiago Medaglia, Tow-Knight ’16, is a  Knight Fellow at MIT in Cambridge, MA.

Class of 2016 alum Barbara Marcolini’s New York Times team received the News and Documentary Emmy for Outstanding New Approaches: Current News for the piece One Building, One Bomb: How Assad Gassed His Own People.

A video Heather Martino, ’13, pitched, scripted, and produced for UNICEF was seen on taxi cabs during the United Nations General Assembly and used to kick off the 30th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child at the U.N.

Oliver Morrison, ’14, won a Golden Quill Award for a collaboration between PublicsSource and Pittsburgh Magazine on the state of the green energy industry in Western Pennsylvania.

On October 6, Paula Moura, ’18, got her first producer byline for The New York Times, “The Amazon Is Still Burning. Blame Beef”. 

Hersh Patel, Tow-Knight ’18, won a NYC Media Lab Award for his company Hindsight, a smart-tagging predictive technology that pre-identifies search terms in an article and attaches related content and targets advertising.

Sofia Perpetua, ’13, wrote about indigenous motherhood in “A child raised by many mothers: What we can learn about parenthood from an indigenous group in Brazil” for The Washington Post.

Nesh Pillay, ’14, the founder of Press Pillay, a digital communications agency on a social mission, was featured in Canadian SME magazine.

In September Tiziana Rinaldi, Social Journalism ‘19, moderated a panel on “Effective Models of Immigrant Workforce Integration in New York and Across the U.S.” at the annual workforce conference organized by the NYCETC. She was also featured by World Education Services (WES), alongside six other immigrants, in a video exhibit that WES produced: “Living The Mission: Stories of Immigrants Project.”

Annie Shreffler, ’08, and her colleague Laura Colarusso were featured in an article about their work at WGBH’s Forum Network. 

Walter Smith-Randolph, ’10, will be the alumni speaker at the Class of 2019’s commencement ceremony on Dec. 13, 2019 at TheTimesCenter. Walter is a reporter for WKRC, Cincinnati’s CBS station.

Diara Townes, Social Journalism ‘19, was selected for the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship program at MIT. 

Kristine Villanueva, Social Journalism, ‘17, an audience engagement editor at the Center for Public Integrity, partnered with the Roosie Report in Jackson Heights, Queens to crowdsource a data project on complaints about child separation at the border.

Kalli Anderson, who’s been teaching at Ryerson University in Toronto for the last four years, will be joining the J-School next spring as director of the audio program.

Social Journalism Director Carrie Brown was quoted in a piece by Insight into Diversity about empathy in journalism. The headline said, “Journalism Schools Find New Approaches to Covering Underrepresented Audiences.”

Daniel Kaminski has been promoted to Manager of IT Services and Support after working as an IT specialist at the school since 2012. “Those of you who have experienced his support over the last seven years – and that is probably just about everyone – know how smart he is about fixing our problems and how patient he is with our endless questions,” Dean Sarah Bartlett said in her announcement to the J-School community. “Please join me in congratulating Danny on his well-deserved promotion. We are excited to see how he builds the department. ”

With more than 30 years of experience raising millions of dollars for institutions such as NYU’s Stern School of Business, Rutgers University, and the Pratt Institute, Joan McCormick joined the Newmark J-School as executive director of development on November 18.

After teaching a research class at the J-School in 2011, Lisa Tradup-Flom is back as the Center for Community and Ethnic Media’s  general manager.

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Chief Librarian Barbara Gray reminds alumni to check out the Research Center’s online resources.

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