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Our team and boards

Leadership   Back to Top

Beth Daley

Beth Daley

Executive Editor and General Manager

Beth Daley is the Executive Editor of The Conversation US. 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. Daley attended Stanford University as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow in 2011/2012.

Bruce G. Wilson Jr

Bruce G. Wilson Jr

Chief Innovation and Development Officer

Bruce Wilson helped launch The Conversation US after spending his entire career working at the intersection of academic leadership and media. He previously worked as the Director of Higher Education at NBC Learn, a division of NBC News, and prior to that spent the bulk of his career at The Chronicles of Higher Education and Philanthropy, where he was publisher from 2003 - 2009.

Editorial   Back to Top

Bryan Keogh

Bryan Keogh

Managing Editor

Before joining The Conversation in 2014, Bryan spent the previous decade writing and editing on business, finance and economics topics, most recently as the editor of a business magazine based in Beirut. Before that, he covered corporate finance for Bloomberg News in London and New York. He earned his Master's from New York University's Business and Economic Reporting program in 2007 and studied journalism and philosophy at the University of Minnesota.

Emily Costello

Emily Costello

Director of Collaborations + Local News

Beginning in the summer of 2023, Emily is working on an initiative to regionalize The Conversation's model and forge additional collaborations to support local news organizations. Part of this work involves building trust between universities and local reporters. Emily is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Barnard College. She is a member of the first journalism cohort for Take the Lead: 50 Women Can Change the World.

Martin LaMonica

Martin LaMonica

Director of Editorial Projects and Newsletters

Martin has worked as a reporter and editor for more than 30 years at digital and print publications. Before joining The Conversation, he wrote regularly on energy, technology and science for MIT Technology Review, Xconomy, the Boston Globe and the Guardian. He previously worked as a reporter at CNET News/CBS Interactive and was executive editor at a Silicon Valley-based business technology newspaper. He started his journalism career in Paris where he worked for five years.

Jamaal Abdul-Alim

Jamaal Abdul-Alim

Education Editor

Jamaal Abdul-Alim is an award-winning journalist who hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He broke into the news business as a crime reporter at the old Milwaukee Sentinel during his undergraduate years at the University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee ('96). He covered higher education for more than a decade, mostly as a freelancer in Washington, D.C., during the Obama and Trump administrations. His articles have appeared in publications that range from The Wall Street Journal to US News & World Report.

Jeff Inglis

Jeff Inglis

Politics + Society Editor

Jeff has three decades of experience working for news organizations in Antarctica, New Zealand, Vermont, Missouri, Maine and Massachusetts. He has covered many topics in politics, society, science and technology, and beyond. He has a BA in history from Middlebury College and an MA in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Molly Jackson

Molly Jackson

Religion and Ethics Editor

Molly comes to The Conversation after editing international news at The Christian Science Monitor. Previously, she worked in education, including several years as a literature and writing teacher in Hong Kong. She holds a BA in sociology and English from Williams College and an Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Kalpana Jain

Kalpana Jain

Senior Religion + Ethics Editor/ Director of the Global Religion Journalism Initiative

Kalpana has worked as an editor, writer and researcher at Harvard University. A 2009 Nieman Fellow at Harvard, she pursued many social justice issues as a journalist at The Times of India. Her case study on modern-day slavery is part of a Harvard course, and her book on the AIDS epidemic in India is taught at many Indian universities. She holds a Master in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.

Vivian Lam

Vivian Lam

Associate Health and Biomedicine Editor

Vivian previously worked as a clinical researcher at UCSF and currently serves on the editorial board for narrative medicine journal Intima. They earned their BA in human biology and comparative literature from Stanford, where they wrote and edited for a number of campus and medical publications.

Nick Lehr

Nick Lehr

Arts + Culture Editor

Nick Lehr has been The Conversation's Arts + Culture editor since 2014. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, the Cut, the Christian Science Monitor and Salon.

Amy Lieberman

Amy Lieberman

Politics + Society Editor

Amy Lieberman is the Politics and Society Editor of The Conversation US. Previously, Amy worked as a U.N. reporter and opinions editor for Devex. She also worked as a freelance reporter covering politics, human rights, and climate change for various news sites, including The Guardian and The Atlantic. Amy earned her master's degree in politics and government from Columbia Journalism School in 2014 and received her bachelor's degree in English literature from Macalester College.

Mary Magnuson

Mary Magnuson

Assistant Science Editor

Mary Magnuson completed an AAAS Mass Media Fellowship with The Conversation U.S. in 2022 before joining the team as an Assistant Science Editor in 2023. Magnuson holds a master's degree in Environment & Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied community coexistence with urban wildlife, as well as a BS degree in Conservation Biology and Life Sciences Communication from the same institution.

Howard Manly

Howard Manly

Race + Equity Editor

A veteran journalist, Howard has spent most of his print and television career focused on the intersection of race, politics, and society. He has written for numerous publications, including Newsweek, the Boston Globe, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, and was executive editor of the Bay State Banner, one of the leading black newspapers in America. He is a graduate of Bucknell University with a degree in International Relations.

Amanda Mascarelli

Amanda Mascarelli

Senior Health and Medicine Editor

Amanda Mascarelli comes to The Conversation US having just completed a 2020-2021 Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, where she spent the academic year studying health disparities. From 2015 to 2020, she was the founding managing editor of Sapiens, an award-winning digital magazine focused on anthropology. Her writing has been published in National Geographic, Nature, Science, Science News for Students, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Stacy Morford

Stacy Morford

Environment + Climate Editor

Stacy Morford was an Associated Press national editor and state government reporter for over a decade. She also covered science, climate change and sustainable development as an editor at InsideClimate News and as a communications officer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and at the World Bank. She has a master's degree in education psychology focused on cognition and learning.

Naomi Schalit

Naomi Schalit

Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy

A graduate of Princeton University with a degree in religion and Near Eastern studies, Schalit began her career at the San Jose Mercury News. She has worked as a reporter and producer at Maine Public Radio, edited the opinion pages for two Maine newspapers and, with her husband, John Christie, founded the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, a non-profit news outlet that produces investigative and accountability reporting at the website Mainemonitor.org about Maine government and publi...

Emily Schwartz Greco

Emily Schwartz Greco

Philanthropy + Nonprofits Editor

Emily Schwartz Greco is the Philanthropy + Nonprofits Editor at The Conversation U.S. She helps scholars make articles regarding donors large and small, nonprofit management and organizations of all kinds accessible to the public. Previously, she ran the OtherWords editorial service and reported for Dow Jones and Bloomberg in Washington, D.C., Rio de Janeiro and New York City. She earned an MS from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a BA from the University of Texas at...

Eric Smalley

Eric Smalley

Science + Technology Editor

Eric has over 30 years of experience as a science and technology reporter and editor. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, CNet, Discover, Nature, Science, Scientific American, and Wired. Eric co-founded and edited Technology Research News, a weekly online news publication that covered university research in emerging technology and applied science. He is a graduate of Oberlin College.

Maggie Villiger

Maggie Villiger

Senior Science + Technology Editor

Maggie studied neuroscience as an undergraduate because it was the most interdisciplinary science major. Confident she didn't want to be a bench scientist or a physician, she luckily realized that a career in science communication was possible. She earned a master's degree in science journalism and has since worked in public radio, public television, museum exhibit creation, educational video production and more. Maggie strives to translate science concepts so they're accurate and accessible.

Tracy Walsh

Tracy Walsh

Economy + Business Editor

Tracy Walsh joined The Conversation in 2023. She previously spent more than eight years at Bloomberg, where she served as a member of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board. Before that she edited for a range of businesses and nonprofits, including Euromoney Institutional Investor and Teach For America, as well as individual academics and authors. She has a master’s degree from Columbia Journalism School and a bachelor’s degree in English from Clark University.

Jennifer Weeks

Jennifer Weeks

Senior Environment + Cities Editor

Jennifer Weeks covered environment, science and health for a decade as a freelance journalist before joining The Conversation in 2015. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Boston Globe Magazine, Popular Mechanics, Audubon, Discover and Slate. Previously she was a Congressional aide, public-interest lobbyist and policy analyst. Weeks holds a BA in history from Williams College, an MA in political science from the University of North Carolina and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Matt Williams

Matt Williams

Senior International Editor

Matt Williams is an editor with more than two decades’ journalistic experience. A former breaking news reporter for the U.K.’s Press Association, he moved to New York in 2009 as the agency’s North America Correspondent. After a stint as weekend editor for the Guardian, Matt joined Al Jazeera America as senior editor, later taking on a similar role at ABC News. He also worked as a reporter for the HBO show "Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas."

Investigations   Back to Top

Kurt Eichenwald

Kurt Eichenwald

Senior Investigative Editor

Kurt is the New York Times bestselling author of six non-fiction books. In addition to his distinguished work as a senior writer at Newsweek and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, he spent two decades as a senior writer at The New York Times, where he was a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is also a two-time winner of the George Polk Award, and a winner of the Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism, the SABEW Award for business enterprise reporting, and an Emmy Award nominee.

Kim Patch

Kim Patch

Investigations Project Manager

Kimberly Patch is a writer, editor, interface expert, and musician. As lead researcher for Duke University’s Rutherfurd Living History program, Kim architected a system for interactive transcripts. As a consultant, she helped PBS Frontline build a similar system for their Transparency Project. Kim got her start as a metro reporter in Washington D.C. for UPI, and later founded the internet beat as a senior editor at PC Week. She co-founded Technology Research News.

University Relations   Back to Top

Hannah Sussman

Hannah Sussman

Editorial Membership Coordinator

Before joining The Conversation, Hannah provided development support to nonprofits such as Ceres and GrubStreet, as well as Harvard University Planned Giving. She is a graduate of Brandeis University where she holds a BA in creative writing and international studies.

Chris Calimlim

Chris Calimlim

University Relations and Editorial Associate

Chris Calimlim is a graduate of Brandeis University where she holds a BA in English. Prior to earning this position at The Conversation, she was an intern here and earlier worked as a freelance creative writer.

Brittney Price

Brittney Price

Data Specialist

Brittney Price is a graduate of New Jersey Institute of Technology Data Science and Analytics program as well as holds a BA in Sociology and LGBTQIA Studies from Montclair State University. Prior to joining The Conversation, she has worked with multiple companies to help them analyze and understand their data.

Nancy Jensen

Nancy Jensen

University Relationship Manager

Prior to joining The Conversation, Nancy worked as Director of Recruitment and Admissions for graduate programs at UCLA and led programs administratively there as well as small nonprofits. She holds a master's in Counseling and Higher Ed Administration from UCLA.

Media Outreach   Back to Top

Joel Abrams

Joel Abrams

Director of Digital Strategy and Outreach

Joel ran social media strategy and launched vertical sites on Catholicism and technology for The Boston Globe. He has also worked in product management and editorial positions at The Christian Science Monitor, Lycos, and CNN International.

Katrina Aman

Katrina Aman

Journalism Evangelist

Katrina has worked as a writer and editor for nearly a decade for newspapers, nonprofits, and universities. She also has experience in social media marketing, magazine production and public relations. She earned a master’s in journalism from the University of Oregon.

Beatriz Sanchez Pacios

Beatriz Sanchez Pacios

Audience Development Assistant

Beatriz Sánchez Pacios has gathered experience in marketing and communications at MultiMedia Channels, Make-A-Wish Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Carlton PR & Marketing, and Lioness Magazine. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in Journalism at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain.

Development and Finance   Back to Top

Ernest Crowder

Ernest Crowder

Chief Financial Officer

Ernest is an experienced financial and operations executive. He came to The Conversation from the Better Government Association (BGA), a nonprofit investigative reporting and policy advocacy organization based in Chicago. While at the BGA, he managed operations and engagement in addition to finance and HR, and streamlined all financial and operational procedures. He also oversaw a significant increase in audience growth through marketing and social media platforms.

Priyanka Sharma-Sindhar

Priyanka Sharma-Sindhar

Director of Development and Donor Engagement

Priyanka is a fundraiser & an advocate for journalism. Previously, she was at CalMatters, where she worked on developing diverse revenue streams, eventually focusing on major gifts. Early in her career, she co-founded one of the first local news sites in California, garnering the attention of news observers nationally. Her approach to fundraising has been shaped by Jenn McCrea, who ran the Exponential Fundraising program at Harvard University. She serves on the advisory board of the Pivot Fund.

Sumalita Bhuyan

Sumalita Bhuyan

Human Resources Manager

Sumalita is an experienced people and culture professional. Throughout her career, spanning over a decade, she has helped startups to scale up their teams and designed policies to align organizational culture with business strategy. She has experience in retail, e-commerce and health care industries in India and the U.S. Sumalita has a master's in clinical psychology from SNDT University, Mumbai, India.

Damian Thompson

Damian Thompson

Chief Operating Officer, TC International

Damian is Chief Operating Officer of The Conversation International. He's previously worked in government on programs and as a ministerial policy adviser. Damian works with The Conversation teams across our global network to coordinate global strategies and secure funding from philanthropic foundations.

Board of Trustees   Back to Top

Benjamin B. Taylor

Benjamin B. Taylor

Board Chair

Ben is a former executive editor and publisher of the Boston Globe where he worked for 28 years, including four years in the Washington Bureau. He is chairman of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a non-profit organization that advocates for Boston's park system. He also chairs the board of Living on Earth, an environmental news program on National Public Radio, and serves on the board of Discovering Justice, a non-profit organization that focuses on civic education and its role in democracy.

Tina Cassidy

Tina Cassidy

TCUS Board Clerk

Tina Cassidy is GBH’s Chief Marketing Officer, leading GBH’s marketing, communications and public relations efforts. Before joining GBH in 2019, Cassidy was the executive vice president and chief content officer at InkHouse, and earlier, vice president at Solomon McCown for five years. She began her career as a journalist at the Boston Business Journal and then at the Boston Globe. Cassidy is the author of several nonfiction books. She holds a BA in journalism from Northeastern University.

Charles Cuneo

Charles Cuneo

Charlie was Director of Finance and Administration for The Conversation prior to joining the Board. He has had extensive experience managing international commercial and tech enterprises. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Yale University, where he was managing editor of the Yale Daily News.

Margaret Drain

Margaret Drain

Margaret Drain is a TV executive, producer and journalist and the former vice president of national programs for WGBH/Boston. She served as an executive producer in public broadcasting and a producer at CBS News, NY. Prior to that she worked at Bill Moyers’ Journal and ran the News and Law program at the Ford Foundation. Her awards include the Peabodys, primetime Emmys, the duPont-Columbia awards, and the Writers’ Guild. She is a graduate of Columbia University School of Journalism.

Alvin Hall

Alvin Hall

Alvin Hall is president of Cooperhall Press, Inc., a company that designs and conducts training programs and produces videos about investment markets for financial services companies, regulatory organizations, and technology vendors worldwide. He is an award-winning television and radio broadcaster, best-selling author, and a respected financial educator. He is Trustee Emeritus of Bowdoin College, his alma mater. He is now completing a memoir and developing television, radio and podcast series.

Thomas Fiedler

Thomas Fiedler

Thomas E. (Tom) Fiedler is a professor of the practice of journalism and the former Dean of the Boston University College of Communication, which he joined in 2008 following a distinguished career as an investigative reporter, a political columnist, the editorial page editor, and finally, the executive editor of The Miami Herald. He has earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University.

Alexia Hudson-Ward

Alexia Hudson-Ward

Alexia Hudson-Ward is Associate Director of Research and Learning, MIT Libraries. Her past roles include: the Azariah Smith Root Director of Libraries for Oberlin College, a Penn State tenured librarian, an award-winning entertainment editor, public radio promotions coordinator, and Coca-Cola Company marketing manager. Alexia holds degrees from the University of Pittsburgh & Temple University and is currently a Simmons University doctoral candidate.

Stanley S. Litow

Stanley S. Litow

Visting Professor of the Pratice, Public Policy

Stanley S. Litow serves as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and as a Visiting Professor of the Practice at Duke University. In addition, he serves as a Trustee of the State University of New York where he chairs the Academic Affairs Committee. He writes a regular column on education and other issues for Barron's and recently wrote the book "The Challenge for Business and Society: From Risk to Reward." He has taught as an Adjunct Professor at the New School University and LIU.

Patrick Louchouarn

Patrick Louchouarn

Professor of Earth Sciences

Dr. Louchouarn joined The Ohio State University in 2022 as the senior vice provost for faculty. In this position, he leads the inaugural Office of Faculty Affairs at Ohio State. He is also a professor at the School of Earth Sciences. His multidisciplinary research focuses on understanding the impacts of environmental perturbations on biogeochemical cycling at ecosystem interfaces and addressing capacity building in earth and environmental education in diverse communities. The orientation of h...

Mike McKenna

Mike McKenna

Mike McKenna heads James Farm Creative, a strategic communications firm headquartered in Weybridge, Vermont. Prior to founding James Farm, Mike was Middlebury College's first Vice President for Communications and Marketing. Earlier, McKenna was President, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of Marsteller, in New York City and Creative Director at Young & Rubicam. He holds a MS in Journalism from Boston University where he was an Abbott Scholar, and a BA from Wesleyan University.

Michele Ozumba

Michele Ozumba

Michele Ozumba leads the Women’s College Coalition, a membership association of women’s colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada. Previous positions include President and CEO of Women’s Funding Network (WFN), CEO of the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential (GCAPP) and Senior Lecturer at the University of Nigeria. One of Fast Company's Extraordinary Women of 2012, she has BA from Douglass College and an MS from Rutgers University in City and Regional Planning.

Elizabeth Ritvo

Elizabeth Ritvo

Elizabeth Ritvo, Of Counsel at Brown Rudnick LLP, served as counsel for numerous media organizations. She served on the boards of the Media Law Resource Center and the New England First Amendment Coalition, and the Advisory Board of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting. She served on the Governing Council of the Boston Bar Association and as president of the Women’s Bar Foundation of Massachusetts. Liz is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Virginia School of Law.

Gerson Smoger

Gerson Smoger

Dr. Smoger, a lawyer, serves on the boards of Physicians for Human Rights, Public Citizen, Public Justice, the Civil Justice Research Initiative, and on the advisory board of the Human Rights Center at U.C. Berkeley. He has won many awards for his work, ranging from the Public Justice Foundation’s national Trial Lawyer of the Year Award to the Harry Philo Award from the American Association for Justice. He is a member of the bars of Texas and California.

Sam Thompson

Sam Thompson

TCUS Board Treasurer

Sam is a Senior Managing Director at investment bank, Progress Partners.  He is also a Founding Partner at Progress Ventures, a venture fund that invests in media and marketing technology companies. Prior to joining Progress Partners, he held positions at Pod Consulting and Procter & Gamble, the Phoenix Media/Communications Group, and IGN Entertainment, Inc., and Snowball.com. Sam earned an MBA from F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College and a BA from Lewis & Clark College.

Ernest J. Wilson III

Ernest J. Wilson III

Ernest J. Wilson III, Ph.D., is former Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He is also a professor of political science, a faculty fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School, a member of the board of the Pacific Council on International Policy and the National Academies' Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Founder and Former Board Chair   Back to Top

Andrew Jaspan

Andrew Jaspan

Founder

Andrew Jaspan is the creator and co-founder of The Conversation. He launched the project in Australia in 2011 and was instrumental in seeing it established in the UK and the US. The project was born out of concerns Andrew had about public access to reliable information amid a dramatic shift in the production and consumption of journalism internationally. Andrew has been Editor of The Observer, The Age (Melbourne), The Scotsman and the Sunday Herald (Glasgow).

Joseph Rosenbloom

Joseph Rosenbloom

Former Chair of TCUS

Joe was the Chair of the TCUS Board from its founding in 2014 until 2018 and played a crucial role in its development. He holds a BA from Stanford University and a JD from Columbia Law School. He is an award-winning journalist with 40 years experience. He is a former senior editor at Inc. Magazine; investigative reporter for PBS' Frontline; and a reporter and editorial writer for The Boston Globe. He is author of "Redemption, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Last 31 Hours."