Steve Katz is publisher for the Mother Jones, the award-winning non-profit investigative journalism media organization founded in 1975. He joined MoJo in 2003 after several years as vice president of development for Earthjustice, the nation's leading non-profit environmental law firm. While at Mother Jones, Steve helped found and was the first project director for The Media Consortium, a network of more than 50 independent, progressive media organizations around the United States. Steve has thirty years’ experience working in the fields of the environment advocacy, the arts, social justice, and neighborhood-based housing development. Prior to joining Earthjustice in 1995, he was managing director for the California urban environmental advocacy organization, Communities for a Better Environment. During the mid and late 1980s, Steve worked in the non-profit arts world, including three years as managing director for the San Francisco-based touring ensemble, A Traveling Jewish Theatre. He also was associate director for housing and planning at Brooklyn's Flatbush Development Corporation n the early 1980s, and development coordinator for the Bronx-based sweat equity urban homesteading group, People's Development Corporation, from 1976 to 1978. Steve received his B.A. from Oberlin College, and earned a PhD in Sociology from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife Rachelle, dog Mingus, and several fish. His son, Noah, is studying acting at the Juilliard School in New York.  

Rob King was named senior vice president, editorial, ESPN Print & Digital Media in June of 2011. In the role, he is responsible for supervision of all content and the overall editorial direction for the leading portfolio of digital sports properties, including all text, audio, video and multimedia content. He oversees the management of the award-winning team of editors, writers and designers across ESPN.com and its network of related sites, ESPN The Magazine, espnW, and ESPN Rise. Rob had previously served as vice president and editor in chief of ESPN.com, adding oversight of digital video and audio content as well as all editorial content on ESPN’s local sites. Rob works closely with ESPN’s many news, information, content and programming units to develop greater cross-platform integration and development of cross-media franchises. Rob brings extensive experience and sound news and editorial judgment to the job. Since 2004 he served as a senior coordinating producer in the studio production unit, responsible for (at various times): ESPN's award-winning NBA studio programming; the award-winning Outside the Lines; ESPN's on-location coverage of major golf events, including the Masters and the U.S. Open; and ESPNEWS, the nation's only 24-hour sports news television network. Rob began his career in the newspaper business, working at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J., and the Commercial-News in Danville, Ill. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Wesleyan University in 1984.

Stephen Komives is the executive director of the Society for News Design. He is responsible for both the long-term and day-to-day management of the society and its enterprises, including member services, publications, educational direction, design competitions and annual workshops. Prior to joining SND, he was design editor at the Orlando Sentinel in Orlando, Fla. for five years. He also worked at newspapers in Connecticut, New Mexico and Georgia. Komives holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.

Aaron Lammer is a web designer, former ghostwriter, and the co-founder of Longform.org. He is currently working on a sportswriting spinoff to Longform.org, SportsFeat.com, the forthcoming Longform iPad app, and thinking about new reading experiences. He lives in Brooklyn.

Vadim Lavrusik is the journalist program manager at Facebook and an adjunct professor teaching social media at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Prior to Facebook, Vadim worked as the community manager and social media strategist at Mashable.com. Before Mashable, he worked on social media at The New York Times. Vadim received a Master of Science degree in Digital Media from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City where he produced NYC 3.0, a website that included an in-depth documentary on New York City's tech startup community.

Joe MacLeod used to be a shoe clerk. He has enjoyed working at City Paper in Baltimore for 22 years, the last million of which he has served as art director. His favorite font is Wedgie. Buy Joe a drink and he will tell you all the Missile Launch Codes.

Matt Mansfield has spent most of his life obsessed by design. As a kid, Matt created a Crayola color theory that informs his work to this day. As an adult, he has spent nearly two decades working as an information designer and art director. Matt teaches at Northwestern University, as an associate professor at the Medill School of Journalism and the co-director of the school's unique program in Washington. D.C. He's also an active design consultant, working with publications large and small on everything from overall redesigns to type design and implementation to training for visual staffers. Long known as one of the leading visual journalists in the U.S., Matt was a deputy managing editor at Silicon Valley's San Jose Mercury News, which won more than 200 professional design awards (from big important places like the Society of Publication Designers and the Society for News Design), before joining the wonderful world of academia. Under his leadership, the Merc was judged a "World's Best-Designed Newspaper" and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature photography. Matt lives in Washington, D.C., along with more Apple products than he cares to mention.

Joy Mayer is an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism. Her work focuses on community engagement in journalism, and how news and information can be more of a conversation and less of a lecture. Being more audience-focused, and more responsive, can be good for the journalism, good for the community and good for the bottom line. After a 2010-2011 fellowship at the Reynolds Journalism Institute, Joy has returned to being a faculty editor at the Columbia Missourian newspaper, with a focus on community outreach. She teaches classes in participatory journalism, multimedia design and print design. Before joining the journalism school in 2003, she was a designer and editor at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Wichita Eagle. Her most fun job of all time was writing for The Paper, an alternative weekly in Juneau, Alaska.

Editor, publication designer, photography lover, San Francisco resident, and Phoot Camp founder Laura Brunow Miner is ... writing her own bio: "I started Phoot Camp in order to introduce some of the super creative and talented photographers I knew through my former role as editor at JPG Magazine. It's been an incredibly rewarding process to see the relationships that have come out of it. Since starting Phoot Camp, I've also launched my own photo story publication, Pictory, and I love seeing the two work together."

Will Atwood Mitchell is the programmer and online strategist for Washington City Paper. He has been substantially involved in the publication's transition from a print-centric to blog-centric production cycle. In 2010, he redesigned washingtoncitypaper.com to significantly enhance the presentation of longform stories, and continues to work daily to improve the way readers find, enjoy, and share them. His deep understanding of the day-to-day needs of online content producers recently led him to develop crossmultip.ly, a web page for proportionally resizing rectangles. He also provides programming and system administration support for Longform.org.

Michelle Nicolosi is the executive producer of www.seattlepi.com.

Dave Olson (@daveohoots) is the Community Marketing Director for social media dashboard maker HootSuite. Working in the Internet space since 1996, Dave’s experience includes ISPs, ecommerce, open source web communities, movie promotion, a green business directory and an alternative accreditation program during the Vancouver Olympics. A graduate of Evergreen College in Inter-disciplinary Studies, he frequently presents at events and to the media discussing technology, art, and culture. After living and traveling worldwide, Dave now enjoys exploring his local North Vancouver mountains and forests.

Andrew Pergam, (@pergam), a former broadcast journalist and managing editor, is the editorial director of J-Lab. In this role, he works with J-Lab grantees and oversees the creation of new learning tools for professional and citizen journalists. Most recently, he led the strategic growth and editorial operations of NBCConnecticut.com. Before that, he spent years as a television reporter, whose subjects ranged from high-profile federal corruption trials to tic-tac-toe-playing chickens. Andy earned a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and serves on the school's alumni board. As an undergrad, he studied writing and political science at Johns Hopkins University. When not focusing on innovations in journalism, he works on his gourmet cooking skills.

Aron Pilhofer is editor of Interactive News at The New York Times. His team blends journalism and technology to enhance The Times's reporting online through social media, community and dynamic, data-driven Web applications. He is also co-founder of two news-related nonprofits: DocumentCloud.org and Hacks and Hackers. Aron joined The Times in 2005 as a projects editor on the paper's newly expanded computer-assisted reporting team. Prior to joining The Times, he reported for the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, Gannett newspapers in New Jersey and Delaware and was on the national training staff of Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Erin Polgreen is the managing director of The Media Consortium, where she oversees strategic development and implementation of a variety of projects. As the staff representative on TMC’s membership committee, Erin also oversees membership engagement and recruitment for TMC. From 2005-2007, Erin was the associate publisher for In These Times, where she managed advertising, marketing, event planning, and other outreach initiatives. Prior to working at In These Times, Erin served with City Year Chicago, an Americorps program, where she co-led a team of literacy tutors at an elementary school on the West Side of Chicago. Erin has written about media, politics, comic books and Feminism for Attackerman, In These Times, Campus Progress and Care2, among other publications. She is an active member of Chicago's cycling community, and a founding organizer of the Chicago Chapter of Hacks/Hackers. Follow her on Twitter: @erinpolgreen.

Allison Plyer is deputy director of the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. She works collaboratively with the Brookings Institution to analyze the state of the New Orleans recovery through the regular publication of The New Orleans Index and with the Urban Institute to analyze the state of housing in the New Orleans Metro. Allison is recognized as an expert in post–Katrina demographics and New Orleans recovery trends. Allison spearheaded the City of New Orleans' challenge to the Census Bureau's 2007 population estimate, resulting in a nearly 50,000 person adjustment to the Bureaus estimate of the citys population, and again in 2008 resulting in another 25,000 person adjustment -- ultimately bringing the estimate for New Orleans within 3 percent of the 2010 Census count.   

Richard Prince is a veteran journalist who writes "Richard Prince's Journal-isms," a  thrice weekly news column on diversity issues in the news media, for the website of  the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Richard chairs the Diversity Committee of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, and for many years, chaired the Media Monitoring Committee of the National Association of Black Journalists. He continues to moderate the NABJ's listserve, and hosts a monthly dinner roundtable to facilitate networking among Washington, D.C., journalists. From its 2002 founding until 2007, Richard edited the Black College Wire, a news service for black college students that aims to improve college newspapers and increase their frequency of publication. Richard has worked for The Washington Post, the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y., and The Public i, an online news report produced by the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. Richard is a founding member of the William Monroe Trotter Group, an association of African American newspaper columnists for which he helps maintain a presence on the web. He is a native of New York City, having grown up there and on Long Island, and a graduate of New York University.

Evan Ratliff is the cofounder and editor of The Atavist, a digital publishing house for original longform, multimedia nonfiction. The Atavist, which publishes exclusively to mobile devices and ereaders in partnership with authors, has been lauded as an innovative approach to the future of publishing by the New York Times, Fast Company, Business Week, and others. Evan is also an award-winning journalist whose writing appears in Wired, the New Yorker, National Geographic, and many other publications. He is the co-author of Safe: The Race to Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World (HarperCollins, 2005). His 2009 story "Vanish," about his attempt to disappear and the public's effort to find him--which ended in New Orleans--was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. He is a two-time finalist for the Livingston Award, and his writing has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Best of Technology Writing 2006 and 2010, The Best American Magazine Writing 2010, and The Best American Nonrequired Writing 2010. Evan also serves as the story editor for Pop-Up Magazine, the world's first live magazine, which showcases the work of some of the country's most interesting writers, documentary filmmakers, photographers, and radio producers.

Denise Reagan @denisereagan is the assistant managing editor for visuals at The Florida Times-Union and Jacksonville.com where she leads all visual aspects of the newspaper and website. She has designed and art directed pages, coordinated projects, created new content and worked on redesigns at the News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Ind., the Detroit Free Press, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, the Savannah Morning News and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. A graduate of the University of Florida's journalism school, she approaches design as an extension of storytelling, one that distills the crafts of reporting, writing, photography, illustration, graphics and editing into a cohesive unit. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications and the president of the Society for News Design Foundation, the charitable arm of the organization.

Hanaa Rifaey brings a diverse background in outreach to the The American Independent News Network, with previous experience in advocacy organizations as well as on Capitol Hill. Since moving to D.C. from the Pacific Northwest, she has managed programs and campaigns in a variety of issue areas including civil rights, health care, and climate change. Hanaa received her undergraduate degree from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington and her master's degree at George Washington University in Washington, DC. She enjoys searching for the perfect bowl of pho in her spare time.

Chris Rohland is currently the director of sales at Boston Deals by Boston.com and has over 21 years of experience in advertising, publishing, advertising sales management, and marketing. Prior to his current position at Boston.com, Chris was part of the team that launched and built BuyWithMe.com where he oversaw the sales and new market development for the site. Before jumping head first into the rapidly growing deal space, Chris spent 12 great years in the alternative weekly industry cutting his teeth at the then start-up publication Fort Worth Weekly. Since then he has been the publisher of Boston's Weekly Dig, president and publisher of New York Press, and publisher and director of advertising for Las Vegas Weekly. Chris lives in the Boston area and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Boston Advertising Club, as a Connector for Boston World Partnerships and on the National Board of Directors for the College of Mass Communications at Texas Tech University.  He surfs, skis and loves a proper pint of Guinness. Buy him one and he might tell you everything he knows.

Author and journalist Tom Rosenstiel designed the Project for Excellence in Journalism and directs its activities. A journalist for more than 30 years, he worked as media critic for the Los Angeles Times and chief congressional correspondent for Newsweek magazine and is vice chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, an initiative engaged in conducting a national conversation among journalists about standards and values. At PEJ, he is the editor and principal author of the Project's Annual Report on the State of the News Media, a comprehensive report on the health of American journalism. He also directs the Project's other research efforts, including its weekly real time content analysis of the mainstream press called the News Coverage Index and its content analysis of blogs and social media called the New Media Index. His newest book, with Bill Kovach, is "Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload," (Bloomsbury 2010). Among his other books, Rosenstiel is the author with Kovach of "The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect" (Crown 2001, updated 2007), winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize from Harvard University, the Society of Professional Journalist Sigma Delta Chi award for research in journalism and the Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism from Penn State. "Elements" has been described as "one of five essential books" on journalism (Roger Mudd, the Wall Street Journal), a "modern classic" (William Safire, The New York Times) and "the most important book on the relationship of journalism and democracy published in the last 50 years" (Roy Clark, the Poynter Institute). It is a required text in most journalism schools in the country and has been translated into more than 23 languages. His writing also has appeared in such publications as Esquire, The New Republic, The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review and The Washington Monthly. A former media critic for MSNBC's The News With Brian Williams, he is a frequent commentator on radio and television and in print. He is a frequent lecturer and analyst on the revolution in media.

Will Scott has been working online since 1994. Search Influence, founded in 2006, is a full-service online marketing company with more than 30 employees and 36 contractors based in New Orleans and serving customers from Maine to San Diego in the U.S. and internationally.

Ernest R. Sotomayor directs the Columbia University Journalism School's efforts in career counseling, assisting students in finding opportunities such as internships, fellowships and fulltime employment in print, broadcast and online media fields. He joined Columbia in February 2005 after 16 years as an editor at Newsday in Long Island, N.Y., and specializes in issues related to print journalism. Ernest joined New York Newsday in 1989 and was Brooklyn/Queens Editor, overseeing daily and enterprise coverage of the city's largest boroughs. He later served as Newsday’s Long Island regionals editor and deputy business editor. He was part of the editing teams that oversaw coverage of major stories, such as both attacks on the World Trade Center, the explosion of TWA Flight 800, investigations of the Port Authority and the online coverage of the Iraq War. Prior to joining Columbia, he was the Long Island editor for Newsday.com, overseeing local coverage on the newspaper's website. He served for two years as president of UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc. and presided over its third national convention in August 2004 in Washington, the largest journalism convention ever held. He graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

Jake Tapper has been ABC News' senior White House correspondent since November 2008. In 2010, the White House Correspondents' Association awarded him the Merriman Smith Award for presidential coverage under deadline pressure. Prior to his assignment at the White House, Jake was ABC News' national/senior political correspondent based in the network's Washington, D.C. bureau. Jake contributes regularly to "Good Morning America," "Nightline, and" "World News with Diane Sawyer;" files regularly for ABC's digital properties, including ABC News Now and ABCNews.com, where he maintains a popular blog, Political Punch; and is a frequent substitute host of "This Week." Jake is the author of "Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency," and "Body Slam: The Jesse Ventura Story." He began his journalism career as a senior writer for Washington City Paper and won a Society of Professional Journalists award for his work there. Jake is a Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Jennifer and two children.

Doris Truong is a multiplatform editor at The Washington Post. She was part of The Post's 2010 "Top Secret America" team. She formerly supervised the editing of 13 weekly suburban sections and also worked on the National desk, where she helped with the Abramoff investigative reporting package that won the 2006 Pulitzer. A graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, Truong is the 2011-12 national president of the 1,400-member Asian American Journalists Association. She is a Maynard Media Academy alumna and a graduate of AAJA's Executive Leadership Program. Truong has been a guest faculty member at the Poynter Institute and has presented to multiple journalism groups.

Vinicius Vacanti is a co-founder of Yipit, a service that finds you great local deals by learning your tastes. Prior to Yipit, Vinicius co-founded UnHub and 140it. Earlier, he worked at Quadrangle Group and The Blackstone Group. Vinicius graduated from Harvard College in 2003 with a degree in Applied Mathematics. He served as a teaching fellow for Harvard’s Computer Science department for two years.

David Wright (@davewrightjr) is lead interactive designer at NPR, where he designs and builds award-winning digital news platforms. Over the past decade, Wright's work for news agencies has been recognized by organizations and publications including Communication Arts, Editor and Publisher, The Peabody Awards and AIGA.

Fran Zankowski is the currently the CEO/general manager of the Colorado Springs Independent. From the joys of single independent newspapers to the travails and pains of the 2nd largest daily newspaper corporation in the country, Fran has logged time in nearly every department: circulation, production, editorial, advertising and management. Fran’s experience ranges from being the CEO of the Advocate Weekly chain of newspapers, publisher of the Hartford  Advocate; ad manager at the New Haven Advocate, and at the Independent Weekly in Durham, N.C., and general manager of a Washington, D.C., slick city magazine. And then a  chunk of stuff from farm publications, disco radio, overnights with Larry King and copyboy for the Baltimore Sun. He serves as the vice-president of the AAN board of directors. When not in Colorado, you can find Fran enjoying the humidity and chasing the wild things out of his gardens back in Connecticut.