Perpignan Faculty

Michael Dorsher Ph.D. (Reporting) is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and president of the Fulbright Association-Minnesota Chapter. He was a Fulbright Scholar at McGill University in Montréal in 2008-09. Conversant in French and Spanish, he’s leading a team of journalism students on a multimedia, bilingual reporting trip to Peru in January 2012, and he taught Web design at Harlaxton College in the U.K. in 2008. Before earning a doctorate from the University of Maryland in 1999 and joining the UW-Eau Claire faculty in 2000, he was an award-winning journalist for 20 years, capped by four years as a founding editor of washingtonpost.com. He is the co-author of “Controversies in Media Ethics” (2011, Routledge), its website, “The Encyclopedia of Journalism” (2009, Sage) and dozens of websites with his students. He will teach in Perpignan in 2012.

Ron Hollander (Reporting) has a career divided between teaching and practicing journalism. He has directed and is a professor in the journalism program at Montclair State University (NJ) where he twice won best newspaper adviser from College Media Advisers. Ron had a Fulbright for two years in Beijing where he taught, and wrote for China Daily. He also directs Jewish American Studies, and teaches on the Holocaust and the Press. He won awards reporting for Cablevision TV, and wrote for “CBS This Morning” news anchors including Charles Osgood, Charlie Rose, Bob Schieffer, and Diane Sawyer. He’s been staff reporter on papers from Alaska to Mississippi, including Newsday and NY Post, and had a Knight Fellowship at the Baltimore Sun. Ron was contributing editor at Town & Country, and a travel writer for the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times and SF Chronicle, among others. His book, “All Aboard!” (Workman) was #61 on Amazon, and he’s appeared with Oprah and Tom Snyder. He will direct the Perpignan Program in 2012.

Kacey Morrow (Video) is a tenure-track assistant professor of new media design at Western Washington University, teaching in the Design Department with a focus on motion graphics, digital video, web and interaction design. Prior to WWU, she was a full-time lecturer at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL, teaching in the Graphic and Interactive Communications Department. Attending and speaking at conferences such as, Design Principles and Practices and Massaging Media 2: Graphic Design Education in the Age of Dynamic Media, she stays involved in discussions about the design field and lectures about her work in experimental video. Her award-winning videos have appeared in several film festivals and exhibitions nation-wide. She is currently co-writing a new edition of Producing for TV and New Media with Prof. Dustin Morrow to be published in early 2013. She has works in the nationally published literary journal, Ninth Letter, featured in Print Magazine Regional Design Annual and How Design in 2006, and SXSW Interactive Web Awards Competition in 2005. Prior to teaching, she also has years of professional experience in Chicago as a motion, print, and multimedia designer at various production houses. She will teach in Perpignan in 2012.

Rachele Kanigel (Executive Director/Reporting) is executive director of ieiMedia and an associate professor of journalism at San Francisco State University. She was a newspaper reporter for 15 years, working for The News & Observer, The Oakland Tribune and the Contra Costa Times. After getting the teaching bug, she went to Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism to earn her master’s degree. She freelances for magazines and websites, including U.S. News & World Report, TIME, Yoga Journal, Prevention, and Lime.com. At SFSU she advises the award-winning Golden Gate [X]press newspaper and teaches multimedia, magazine, media ethics and reporting courses. In 2010 she was awarded the Beverly Kees Educator of the Year Award by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists and in 2006 she was named Journalism Educator of the Year by the California Journalism Education Coalition. She is the author of The Student Newspaper Survival Guide (WIley-Blackwell); the second edition of the book will be published in 2011. She taught reporting with ieiMedia in Cagli (2007) and directed the programs in Urbino (2009) and Perpignan (2010).

Sharon Kessler MPA (Reporting) was a slot editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune from 2000 to 2010, which followed five years as a copy editor on the Metro and National desks at The Washington Post, two years as the proof desk deputy chief at U.S. News & World Report and two years as a copy editor at the Wisconsin State Journal. Before that, she was a television and radio reporter for a dozen years. She has won SPJ and AP awards for headline writing, projects editing, investigative reporting and radio documentary. Recently, she has been using social media, blogging and multimedia to publicize and direct a nonprofit project preserving a 19th century stone building on the Main Street of her hometown, Bottineau, N.D. She will be a visiting journalist in Perpignan in 2012.

Courtney O’Brien-Brown (Video) has been working in the film/video industry for the past six years. She has worked across genres, from feature films to animation, in a variety of editing, production and post production positions. She recently edited a short film, which won the “Today Award” at the Berlin International Film Festival. Born in Australia, she migrates for six months every year to Perpignan, in time for the European summer. During her stays, she has immersed herself in the culture & history of the region. She worked with The Perpignan Project in 2010 and returned in 2011.