Urbino Faculty

Our faculty bring a blend of study abroad teaching experience and superb professional credentials. Two of our Urbino instructors are Pulitzer Prize winning journalists.

Steven D. Anderson, Ph.D. (Multimedia/Video) is a professor of converged media and the director of the School of Media Arts & Design at James Madison University. Prior to entering academe, Anderson was the environmental reporter and weekend weathercaster for KCNC television, a network O&O station in Denver, Colorado. He also worked as a news photographer, weathercaster and news reporter at stations in Fresno, California and Fargo, North Dakota. He is an author of a textbook entitled “Exploring Electronic Media: Chronicles & Challenges” (Wiley-Blackwell Publishing). His websites have won top awards from the Broadcast Education Association (BEA Best of Festival) and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC Best of the Web Competition). Anderson is a former President of the Broadcast Education Association (BEA), the association for electronic media professors and industry professionals. He taught video in Urbino in 2011 and 2012 and created the Eppy Award-winning website for presentation of student work. He returns to Urbino in 2013.

Susan Biddle was a Washington Post staff photographer for thirteen years and now freelances for the Post as well as other publications and organizations. She began her career photographing for the Peace Corps and later worked as a staff photographer for the Topeka Capital-Journal and the Denver Post. After five years at the Denver Post she left to become a White House photographer documenting the Presidency for the last year of the Reagan administration and all four years of the George H.W. Bush administration. She began working for the Washington Post in 1996. Prior to that she freelanced and her work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, Life, National Geographic and other publications worldwide. She has participated in various book projects including Day in the Life of America, Day in the Life of Thailand, Hong Kong – Here Be Dragons, Day in the Life of the American Woman and America at Home. She has won awards with White House News Photographers Association and National Press Photographers Association.

Francesca Carducci (Italian Language/Interpreter Supervisor) received her degree in Pharmacy at the University of Urbino. She teaches English and is a lecturer (CEL) in the Department of Modern Literature and Philological-Linguistic Sciences at the University of Urbino. She is a member of the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) staff of the faculty of Computer Science and teaches in the English master’s program for Italian primary school teachers offered by the Department of Foreign Languages. Fran is originally from Buffalo, New York, and became interested in content-based teaching methodology as a consequence of her scientific background. She has revised and edited scientific articles to be published in English for years, and has created science and math courses in English for Italian students at almost every level. Francesca truly enjoys teaching both on-line and in the classroom and, after more than 20 years of living and working in Urbino, considers herself a bona fide “Urbinate.” She taught Italian language and supervised interpreters in Urbino in 2009 through 2012 and returns again in 2013.

Dennis Chamberlin (Photography) is an assistant professor of journalism at Iowa State University and a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist. He has more than 20 years experience as a newspaper and magazine photojournalist and has worked for publications such as TIME, The New York Times Sunday Magazine and National Geographic. Most of his professional career was spent living in Eastern Europe, where he covered the fall of communism and reintegration of Europe for various publications over a 15-year period. He has spent most of his life shooting slide film but is now a strong advocate of the power of multimedia as a storytelling tool and focuses his own work and teaching on multimedia. He taught photography in Urbino in 2009, and directed the Urbino program in 2011 and 2012. He will return as director and photography instructor in 2013.

Bob Ciano has been Art Director or Creative Director of many publications, including Esquire, Redbook, Life Magazine, The New York Times, Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Industry Standard, ForbesASAP and Wired Magazine. Along the way he has worked with prominent illustrators, photographers, and writers and has won over 200 design awards. Bob is currently the Creative Director at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, CA. He teaches at CCA (California College of the Arts) in San Francisco. He has also taught at SVA (School of Visual Arts) in NYC, Kansas University, The Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley and the Stanford Professional Publishing Course. Bob taught magazine layout in Urbino in 2012.

Andrew Ciofalo (ieiMedia Founder and President) is professor emeritus of communication/ journalism at Loyola College Maryland, where he arrived in 1983 to found what is now The Communication Department. In 2002, he founded the Cagli Program in International Reporting, a multimedia study-abroad program in Cagli, Italy, which laid the foundations for the Institute for Education in International Media. In keeping with his interest in experiential learning, he is the founder of Apprentice House Press, a student-run book publishing company at Loyola University. Prof. Ciofalo, who earned a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, has taught courses in Travel Writing, Book Publishing, Magazine Publishing, Magazine Writing, and Opinion Writing. He has taught in Cagli (2002-2006, 2008), Armagh (2007) and Urbino (2010 & 2011).

Michael Gold (Reporting/Writing) has been a writer, editor, and manager at award-winning publications, in print and online. He started his career as a reporter at the Bergen County (NJ) Record and the Boston Herald American. He was a founding writer and editor for Science 80, which won three National Magazine Awards while he was there. In 1986, Gold co-founded Hippocrates, now called Health, where he served as managing editor and executive editor. As a consultant for West Gold Editorial, he helped conceive and launch University Business and Dwell magazines as well as Thrive, an online health network produced by Time, Inc. and AOL. Gold has consulted for Inc, PC World, Consumer Reports, Executive Travel, and others, offering management advice, guiding major renovations, and coaching editorial staff. He has served as the editor of Strings magazine, edited several jazz arranging books for Berklee Press, and helped lead the magazine launch projects and online track for the Stanford Professional Publishing Courses. He is the author of A Conspiracy of Cells, a popular, nonfiction account of a scandal in cancer research. He taught in the 2011 and 2012 magazine program in Urbino and will return in 2013.

Rustin Greene (Video) spent his first career as a television writer/producer/director, earning two Los Angeles Area EMMY awards and three Cable ACE awards. Rusty is now in his second career, teaching in James Madison University’s School of Media Arts and Design. Rusty continues to write and produce, and his programs have earned several awards, including a third EMMY for a NASA education program. Rusty has been a Bridgeforth Endowed Professor, and received the JMU Alumni Association 2006 Distinguished Faculty Award. Rusty has been immersed in international education for many years, directing JMU’s London Study Abroad programs for nine years, and teaching and directing programs in Florence, Montreux, Cairo, and London.

Greg Luft (Video) is chair of the Journalism and Technical Communication department at Colorado State University. He has a diverse career as a television news reporter and anchor; documentary, educational, and corporate video producer; freelance video journalist; teacher, and academic administrator. Luft began his career in local TV news as a general assignment and investigative reporter, and news anchor while working at television stations in Wyoming, Florida, Oklahoma and Colorado. He also became an independent producer and freelance photojournalist. Luft has worked for ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, and Discovery networks, among others. His documentaries, and educational programs focusing on television writing, editing and photography, as well as journalistic behavior, have earned top awards from the Associated Press, Broadcast Education Association, National Council on Christians and Jews, and the Florida Bar Association, among others. These programs are used in classrooms at hundreds of colleges and universities worldwide. Luft also has served in leadership roles for the Broadcast Education Association, College Media Advisors, and the Colorado Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Greg will taught video in Urbino in 2012 and will return in 2013.

Bob Marshall (Reporting) is the veteran reporter, feature writer and columnist whose work at The Times-Picayune has earned two Pulitzer Prizes. He was co-author of the series “Oceans of Trouble: Are the World’s Fisheries Doomed?” which won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service from the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2006 Marshall’s investigations into the engineering missteps that led to the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina were among the stories for which the newspaper was honored with The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In 2007 Marshall was co-author of the series “Last Chance: The Fight to Save a Disappearing Coast,” about Louisiana’s coastal erosion problems, which won the 2007 John H. Oakes Prize for Environmental Reporting from Columbia University, and The National Academies of Sciences Communications Award for newspaper and magazine reporting. Marshall’s wide-ranging career has included covering professional and college sports, Olympics, and the outdoors beat, as well as working on special environmental projects. In addition to his newspaper work, Marshall’s professional credits include writing for Field&Stream Magazine,Men’s Journal, National Geographic Adventure. He taught reporting in Cagli in 2008 and in Urbino 2009, 2011 and 2012. He will return to Urbino in 2013.

Susan West (Reporting/Writing) is an award-winning writer and editor who launches and advises magazines and websites. With an M.S. in science journalism from the University of Missouri at Columbia, West started her career as a staff writer at Science News and Science 80. In 1986, she co-founded a popular health magazine called Hippocrates (now known as Health and owned by Time Inc.), which won four National Magazine Awards during her tenure. As a principal at West Gold Editorial consulting, she has launched magazines such as Dwell, trained online editors at websites such as BabyCenter, provided strategic guidance to publications from the New England Journal of Medicine to Acoustic Guitar, and conducted workshops for Cooking Light, Southern Accents, and many others. In 2009, she served as the founding editor of the travel magazine Afar, which last fall was named Best Travel Magazine in North America by the Society of American Travel Writers. She has also been the executive editor of Smithsonian magazine and for many years oversaw the magazine launch projects at the Stanford Professional Publishing Course. She directed the 2011 and 2012 magazine program in Urbino and will return in 2013.

Pawel Wyszomirski (Photography) is a freelance photographer from Gdansk, Poland, and cofounder of the photo community Testigo, a collective of photographers and videographers focusing on visual journalism. He participated in the international documentary photo project that dealt with complex Polish-German relations “Wie du es siehst?” and has exhibited his work in Poland and Germany. Over the past few years he has coordinated and taught at several photography workshops and courses for students from Poland, the United States and Scandinavia. Pawel interned at Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s premier national newspaper, and currently teaches photojournalism and documentary photography at the Sopot School of Photography. He taught photography in Urbino in 2011 and 2012. He will return to Urbino in 2013. Check out professor Wyszomirski’s photo blog at: http://www.pawelwyszomirski.blogspot.com