Amara Aguilar is an associate professor of professional practice in digital journalism at USC Annenberg. She previously was the journalism department chair and an assistant professor of journalism at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif., where she advised student news publications and led the journalism program’s mobile and tablet initiatives. She was honored by the California Journalism Education Coalition as “Journalism Educator of the Year” in the two-year college division in 2014. Previously Amara taught multimedia as an assistant professor at Pierce College in Los Angeles, where she taught multimedia storytelling, podcasting, online journalism, media design and development. There she launched a student-run internet radio station, KPCRadio.com, and developed curriculum for a new mobile application design program. Before teaching at Pierce, she taught photojournalism, online journalism and design classes at Cal State Long Beach. In addition, she continues to freelance as a writer, designer and visual journalist (for print and web) and is currently working on independent consulting projects. She has written for the Los Angeles Times and was previously a designer and sports reporter for the Daily Pilot in Costa Mesa. Amara has her master’s degree in communications from Cal State Fullerton. Her research in graduate school focused on blogging in journalism. She is also an Apple Certified Trainer for Final Cut Pro and loves all things tech. Amara is a member of the Society of Newspaper Design, Online News Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and Society of Professional Journalists. She has done media consulting and training for various professional media organizations, universities, colleges and high schools.