Fergus Pitt Fergus Pitt is a research fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism. He worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for twelve years, where he started producing and reporting radio current affairs, stepped sideways into online development and production, then ran projects, wrote strategy and managed product development. He received his M.A. in Journalism (Business & Economics) from Columbia University in New York, and a B.A. in Journalism from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. He tweets from @fergle.
Charles Berret Charles Berret is a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He researches the cultural and technological history of typographic media, especially the development of digital typography from earlier platforms. More broadly, he is interested in visual culture, semiotics, machine aesthetics, and the interconnected histories of technology, graphic design, and the book.
Before arriving at Columbia, Charles worked as a journalist in Cairo and a book reviewer for literary journals. He studied philosophy at the University of Michigan and journalism at Northwestern University. He tweets from @cberret.
Nabiha Syed Nabiha Syed is an Associate in the Emerging Technologies section of Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz law firm and a visiting fellow at Information Society Project Fellow at Yale Law School. She was formerly the First Amendment Fellow at The New York Times and is a Co-Founder of the Media Freedom and Information Access legal clinic and Drone U. Her legal practice includes matters of newsgathering including drones and sensors, litigated access to courts, and freedom-of-information issues. She also writes on legal, political, and social issues concerning drone technology. Her JD is from Yale Law School. She holds a Master of Studies in Legal Research, Comparative Media Law and Policy from Oxford University, and a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University. She tweets from @nabihasyed. Kathleen Culver Kathleen Culver is an assistant professor in the University of Wisconcin- Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication and associate director of the Center for Journalism Ethics. She also serves as visiting faculty for the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and curates education content for PBS Media Shift.
She focuses on the ethical dimensions of social tools, technological advances and networked information. She combines these interests with a background in law and the effects of boundary-free communication on free expression. She holds a B.A., Journalism and Mass Communication (Reporting), an M.A., Journalism and Mass Communication (Media Law) and a Ph.D., Mass Communication (Media Law) all completed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She tweets from @kbculver.
Josh Stearns Josh Stearns is the Director, Journalism & Sustainability for the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Formerly he was the Press Freedom Director at Free Press. His work focuses on building community around the news through organizing, creative storytelling, high impact events, public education and collaborative problem-solving. He currently manages three national campaigns focused on strengthening press freedom, expanding public media and opposing media consolidation. He is a founding board member of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. His graduate degree in American Studies is from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He tweets from @jcstearns.
Matthew Schroyer Matthew Schroyer is a communications specialist, social network analyst, and data journalist based in Urbana, Illinois. He develops unmanned aircraft systems (commonly called drones) and sensor node technology for journalism and STEM education. He is the founder and president of the Professional Society of Drone Journalists. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He tweets from @matthew~r~yan.
Mike Hord Mike Hord is an Electrical Engineer at SparkFun Electronics, designing electronic parts for makers. He has been in the field for ten years, six of which have involved EMC regulations for the EU or the US. When not hacking electronics, he is hacking the future by raising two young children. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, from North Dakota State University. He tweets from @uptownmaker.
Diana Marina Cooper Diana Cooper is the Head of Unmanned Aerial Systems and Robotics, at the LaBarge Weinstein LLP law firm in Ottawa, Canada. She also specializes in intellectual property, technology and privacy. In her spare time, Diana builds hobby robots and flies her own drone. Diana’s interest in robots and drones led her to write a number of academic papers focused on the regulation of robotics. She graduated from University of Ottawa with a JD, Cum Laude, Law & Technology, and obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Ryerson University and a Masters of Arts from McMaster University. She was also awarded the Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP Prize in Business Law. She tweets from @Diana~MC~ooper.
Matt Waite Matt Waite is a Journalism Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he teaches digital journalism, programming and data visualization and founded the Drone Journalism Lab. In 2009, he won a Pulitzer Prize for developing the fact checking site PolitiFact.com while working as a News Technologist at the St. Petersburg Times. Previously, he worked as a staff writer and investigative reporter at the same newspaper. He holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and at time of writing is taking the FAA’s ground school classes to get The Drone Journalism Lab a Certificate of Authorization. He tweets from @mattwaite.
Mickey Osterreicher Mickey H. Osterreicher is the General Counsel for the National Press Photographers’ Association. He is experienced in contract, media, copyright and First Amendment Law and has been actively involved in matters such as cameras in the courtroom, the federal shield law, media access, public photography, orphan works and copyright infringement. He worked as a photojournalist with material appearing in The New York Times, Newsweek and USA Today as well as on ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News and ESPN. He went to law school at the State University of New York at Buffalo and holds a B.S. in Photojournalism. He tweets from @nppalawyer.
Deirdre Sullivan Deirdre Sullivan practices in the legal department of The New York Times Company. Deirdre’s practice focuses on the business, legal and policy aspects of new media issues that arise across digital platforms, including digital ad operations and related privacy concerns. She counsels all of the The New York Times Company brands. Prior to joining The New York Times Company, Deirdre was an associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. Deirdre is a graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law. The views she expresses in this report are her own and do not reflect the views of The New York Times Company.
Lucas Graves Lucas Graves is an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on new organizations and practices in the emerging news ecosystem, and more broadly on the challenges that digital, networked communications pose to established media and political institutions. He is currently at work on a book about the fact-checking movement in American journalism. He co-authored the first two reports published by the Tow Center, on internet advertising metrics and on business models for online news. He worked as a magazine journalist with work appearing in Wired magazine, Interview, Time Out New York, Food & Wine, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other publications. Graves received his doctorate and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University. He holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Chicago. He tweets from @gravesmatter.
Beth A. Stauffer Beth Stauffer is an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow working in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Innovation Team. Her research interests are grounded in phytoplankton ecology and water quality in marine and freshwater ecosystems. She is also intensely interested in the development and application of new tools to study and model aquatic ecosystems over time and space. Throughout her graduate career, she was involved in the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) exploring technologies for embedded, autonomous sensing and novel technologies for aquatic research. She was awarded her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and held the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University. Her B.S. in Marine Science is from the University of Miami.
Lela Prashad Lela Prashad is the Chief Data Scientist and Co-Founder of NiJeL, a company which helps people and organizations tell their stories and become more efficient and effective through data and maps. Previously, she directed the 100 Cities Project at Arizona State University and is still active in urban research with ASU. She established and ran the water program for the environmental non-profit Arizona PIRG and worked with the United States Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards Team, and Arizona Departments of Environmental Quality and Water Resources. Lela holds an Master of Science in Geological Sciences from ASU and a Bachelor of Science in Geosciences from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She tweets from @lelap.