Arles Faculty Director
Bruce Strong
Bruce Strong is The Alexia endowed chair and an associate professor of visual communications at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. As a visual storyteller, he is inspired by a desire to bridge cultural divides and focus on our shared humanity, and he welcomes opportunities to work with great people on meaningful projects because life’s too short to do anything else. He has photographed in nearly 80 countries, including Greenland, Montenegro, Chile, Oman, Mauritius, Mongolia, Armenia and South Sudan.
Strong was on staff at The Orange County Register in Southern California for 11 years and has freelanced for a variety of international publications and nonprofit organizations. His work has been published in such prestigious publications as TIME Magazine and National Geographic, and he has earned numerous awards and fellowships — serving as a 2025 Emerging Technologies Faculty Fellow at Newhouse School, a Knight-Wallace Kellogg Public Policy Fellow at the University of Michigan (focusing on the intersection of journalism and the arts to foster community leadership), a Scripps Howard Academic Leadership Academy Fellow at Louisiana State University (focused on developing leadership skills for deans, chairs, and directors in journalism education), a Kauffman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Syracuse University, and a Knight Fellow at Ohio University, where he earned a master’s degree in visual communications. He also served as an inaugural VII Foundation visiting scholar at the VII Academy in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as the first professional in residence at MediaStorm (then in New York City), after which he became chair of the Newhouse School’s Visual Communications department, a role he held for 10 years.
When he’s not in the field, Strong spends time helping others learn to tell stories that matter. At Newhouse, he teaches video, audio, photography and multimedia, and he serves as The Alexia endowed chair, presiding over its annual international grant competition and other projects. Bruce considers teaching a rewarding and enlightening journey, and he is proud of his students, many of whom have won top honors from NPPA, POY, World Press and BOP, even while still students. He also mentored back-to-back College Photographer of the Year winners Matt Eich and Travis Dove.
Strong has been honored for his teaching as well, including a Meredith Teaching Recognition Award from Syracuse University and the National Press Photographers Association’s Robin F. Garland Educator Award. Strong also has lectured and led workshops for various groups, including NPPA’s Multimedia Immersion Workshop and the Maine Media Workshops, and he has been sent by the U.S. State Department to teach visual storytelling and photography to photojournalists in Ecuador, Oman and Mauritius.
Bruce is most proud of his sons, Jack and Cole, and loves adventuring through life with Claudia, his designer/writer/curator/professor wife.
Bruce Strong is The Alexia endowed chair and an associate professor of visual communications at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. As a visual storyteller, he is inspired by a desire to bridge cultural divides and focus on our shared humanity, and he welcomes opportunities to work with great people on meaningful projects because life’s too short to do anything else. He has photographed in nearly 80 countries, including Greenland, Montenegro, Chile, Oman, Mauritius, Mongolia, Armenia and South Sudan.
Strong was on staff at The Orange County Register in Southern California for 11 years and has freelanced for a variety of international publications and nonprofit organizations. His work has been published in such prestigious publications as TIME Magazine and National Geographic, and he has earned numerous awards and fellowships — serving as a 2025 Emerging Technologies Faculty Fellow at Newhouse School, a Knight-Wallace Kellogg Public Policy Fellow at the University of Michigan (focusing on the intersection of journalism and the arts to foster community leadership), a Scripps Howard Academic Leadership Academy Fellow at Louisiana State University (focused on developing leadership skills for deans, chairs, and directors in journalism education), a Kauffman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Syracuse University, and a Knight Fellow at Ohio University, where he earned a master’s degree in visual communications. He also served as an inaugural VII Foundation visiting scholar at the VII Academy in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as the first professional in residence at MediaStorm (then in New York City), after which he became chair of the Newhouse School’s Visual Communications department, a role he held for 10 years.
When he’s not in the field, Strong spends time helping others learn to tell stories that matter. At Newhouse, he teaches video, audio, photography and multimedia, and he serves as The Alexia endowed chair, presiding over its annual international grant competition and other projects. Bruce considers teaching a rewarding and enlightening journey, and he is proud of his students, many of whom have won top honors from NPPA, POY, World Press and BOP, even while still students. He also mentored back-to-back College Photographer of the Year winners Matt Eich and Travis Dove.
Strong has been honored for his teaching as well, including a Meredith Teaching Recognition Award from Syracuse University and the National Press Photographers Association’s Robin F. Garland Educator Award. Strong also has lectured and led workshops for various groups, including NPPA’s Multimedia Immersion Workshop and the Maine Media Workshops, and he has been sent by the U.S. State Department to teach visual storytelling and photography to photojournalists in Ecuador, Oman and Mauritius.
Bruce is most proud of his sons, Jack and Cole, and loves adventuring through life with Claudia, his designer/writer/curator/professor wife.
Arles Faculty
Paula Nelson
Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and picture editor Paula Nelson is a 30-year-career visual journalist, serving as photographer, picture editor, manager, leader and educator.
Nelson began her career as a staff photographer at The Dallas Morning News, where she covered a variety of assignments, from breaking news to sports to features and award-winning studio work. She also traveled to India, Thailand, Mexico, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Cuba, around the country and around the state of Texas documenting long-term projects. Nelson and a small team of colleagues were awarded the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Violence Against Women: A Question of Human Rights. After 13 years, she became a picture editor, shepherding an award-winning photography staff and earning her recognition as one of the top picture editors in the country.
After leaving Dallas, Nelson became the Page One picture editor at The Boston Globe in 2002, editing tens of thousands of images to illustrate daily special sections during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. She also worked to define the visual philosophy of both print and online publications, and to improve the quality of visuals produced by the staff. Nelson quickly became director of photography, managing an award-winning staff of 31 still and video visual producers and eventually became The Globe’s first and only assistant managing editor for photography, the highest rank in the newsroom for a visual professional. In 2014, The Globe was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for its multimedia coverage of the marathon bombing, which included visuals produced under Nelson’s leadership.
Following a sabbatical, Nelson became a fellow at the S.I. Newhouse School of Visual Communications at Syracuse University and earned a Master of Science in Multimedia, Photography and Design in May of 2021. Her three-part master’s project includes a book she edited and designed, Analog: Collected Family Photographs; a 17-minute audio story, A Box of Photographs, the stories behind family photographs that can be heard on PRX; and a website: https://www.paulafnelson.com/.
With her extensive professional experience in storytelling and visuals and travel to 51 countries, as a professor of practice in the Visual Communications department at Newhouse, Nelson teaches visual storytelling, journalism, photography skills, and picture editing and sequencing for multiple outcomes.
Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and picture editor Paula Nelson is a 30-year-career visual journalist, serving as photographer, picture editor, manager, leader and educator.
Nelson began her career as a staff photographer at The Dallas Morning News, where she covered a variety of assignments, from breaking news to sports to features and award-winning studio work. She also traveled to India, Thailand, Mexico, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Cuba, around the country and around the state of Texas documenting long-term projects. Nelson and a small team of colleagues were awarded the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Violence Against Women: A Question of Human Rights. After 13 years, she became a picture editor, shepherding an award-winning photography staff and earning her recognition as one of the top picture editors in the country.
After leaving Dallas, Nelson became the Page One picture editor at The Boston Globe in 2002, editing tens of thousands of images to illustrate daily special sections during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. She also worked to define the visual philosophy of both print and online publications, and to improve the quality of visuals produced by the staff. Nelson quickly became director of photography, managing an award-winning staff of 31 still and video visual producers and eventually became The Globe’s first and only assistant managing editor for photography, the highest rank in the newsroom for a visual professional. In 2014, The Globe was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for its multimedia coverage of the marathon bombing, which included visuals produced under Nelson’s leadership.
Following a sabbatical, Nelson became a fellow at the S.I. Newhouse School of Visual Communications at Syracuse University and earned a Master of Science in Multimedia, Photography and Design in May of 2021. Her three-part master’s project includes a book she edited and designed, Analog: Collected Family Photographs; a 17-minute audio story, A Box of Photographs, the stories behind family photographs that can be heard on PRX; and a website: https://www.paulafnelson.com/.
With her extensive professional experience in storytelling and visuals and travel to 51 countries, as a professor of practice in the Visual Communications department at Newhouse, Nelson teaches visual storytelling, journalism, photography skills, and picture editing and sequencing for multiple outcomes.
Claudia Strong
Originally from Chile and a former journalist, Claudia Strong is now in her 20th year teaching graphic design and writing to emerging designers, photographers and filmmakers at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in New York. She also serves as curator of communications, design and exhibitions for The Alexia, a center at the Newhouse School that supports documentary visual storytellers around the world through grants, scholarships, fellowships and other programs.
In what has turned out to be a delightfully circuitous and varied communications career, Strong began as a newspaper editor after earning a Bachelor of Science degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, then moved to the visuals side of the newsroom to help launch the paper’s digital design era before eventually entering the freelance world and, later, academia.
While on sabbatical from Newhouse in 2023, she served as an inaugural visiting scholar with the VII Foundation at its photographic academy in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she unexpectedly unlocked a new level in her career: curation and exhibition design. Since then, she has produced numerous national and international exhibitions to present and promote meaningful photographic storytelling, including at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, as well as in festivals and galleries in China, Croatia, Serbia, Lithuania and the United States. The exhibits have featured topics such as migrants and fashion, the people and forgotten places along a dying Balkan river, life in a post-Soviet republic, a photographer coming to grips with her Muslim/Catholic heritage, and numerous other significant bodies of work. She is currently working on an ambitious but still-under-wraps multi-site exhibition about autism with stories and images captured by a renowned and prolific American documentary photographer.
Fluent in Spanish and adventure, she embraces all sorts of exciting exploits around the world with her husband and their trusty just-say-yes attitude.
Originally from Chile and a former journalist, Claudia Strong is now in her 20th year teaching graphic design and writing to emerging designers, photographers and filmmakers at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in New York. She also serves as curator of communications, design and exhibitions for The Alexia, a center at the Newhouse School that supports documentary visual storytellers around the world through grants, scholarships, fellowships and other programs.
In what has turned out to be a delightfully circuitous and varied communications career, Strong began as a newspaper editor after earning a Bachelor of Science degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, then moved to the visuals side of the newsroom to help launch the paper’s digital design era before eventually entering the freelance world and, later, academia.
While on sabbatical from Newhouse in 2023, she served as an inaugural visiting scholar with the VII Foundation at its photographic academy in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she unexpectedly unlocked a new level in her career: curation and exhibition design. Since then, she has produced numerous national and international exhibitions to present and promote meaningful photographic storytelling, including at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, as well as in festivals and galleries in China, Croatia, Serbia, Lithuania and the United States. The exhibits have featured topics such as migrants and fashion, the people and forgotten places along a dying Balkan river, life in a post-Soviet republic, a photographer coming to grips with her Muslim/Catholic heritage, and numerous other significant documentary projects. She is currently working on an ambitious but still-under-wraps multi-site exhibition about autism with stories and images captured by a renowned and prolific American documentary photographer.
Fluent in Spanish and adventure, she embraces all sorts of exciting exploits around the world with her husband and their trusty just-say-yes attitude.
Berlin Faculty Director
Nomi Morris
Nomi Morris was a lecturer in the Writing Program at UC Santa Barbara and director of the journalism track in the university’s professional writing minor. She covered the opening of the Berlin Wall for The Toronto Star newspaper then worked as a correspondent for five years in Berlin, including for the San Francisco Chronicle, CBC Radio and TIME.
Morris went on to become Senior Writer for international at Maclean’s, Canada’s national news magazine, and then moved to Jerusalem to become Middle East bureau chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers (now McClatchy).
Since moving to Ojai, California, Morris has written for Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books and other magazines and literary journals. She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing and previously taught at the USC Annenberg School for Journalism in Los Angeles, and Brooks Institute in Ventura.
Faculty
Barbara Demick
Barbara Demick is a prize-winning author and foreign correspondent. Her books have been translated into more than 25 languages. Her newest book, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption and Separated Twins was published by Random House May 20, 2025 and
Vanessa Guinan-Bank
Vanessa Guinan-Bank works as a freelance journalist, reporter and audio producer based in Berlin. She was lead producer of the #1 narrative podcast series “Land ohne Vater” that documents a story of far-right terror, institutional failure and police misconduct in Germany from the perspective of the bereaved. For German national
Amara Aguilar
Amara Aguilar is a professor of journalism at University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She teaches social media storytelling for Latinx audiences, visual journalism, engaging diverse communities, design, and food journalism, among other courses. At USC, she co-founded Annenberg Media’s award-winning bilingual outlet, Dímelo, focused on
Bologna Faculty Director
Kathryn Lancioni
Kathryn Lancioni is lecturer in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University. She is an award-winning, internationally recognized expert in the field of communications and was recently named as one of PR News’ “People of the Year” in 2023. Her expertise lies in the intersection of communication, technology, and society. With more than 25 years of experience, Ms. Lancioni has a unique appreciation and understanding of its dynamic landscape working as a journalist, public relations executive, communications strategist, and college professor.Ms. Lancioni has worked for some of the world’s leading PR agencies, including Edelman, Ogilvy, and Weber-Shandwick, as well as with numerous global corporations, including ADP, Creditsafe, Deloitte, IBM, Intelsat, NCR, PanAmSat, Scientific Games, Smith+Nephew, and UPS. In 2006, she launched Presenting Perfection, a communications consultancy providing customized communication coaching and training, strategic guidance, branding, and PR support to domestic and global organizations.
Ms. Lancioni has also worked as a college professor teaching the nuances of communication to students in universities across the United States. She has served on the faculty of Fairleigh Dickinson University, Montclair State University, Seton Hall University, St. John Fisher College, and William Paterson University. She has guest lectured at Columbia Business School, Cornell University, Rutgers University, and Temple University and has been the featured speaker at several international conferences.
She serves on the Advisory Council of Entrepreneurship at Cornell University, the Advisory Board of the Market Research Center at the Stillman School of Business of Seton Hall University, and is a Vice President of the Global Media Executive Council (GMEC).
Ms. Lancioni is the author of three books: Communications Research, Public Relations: The Changing Global Landscape, and The Practice of Public Relations, all published by Kendall Hunt. She hosts the podcast “Practically Speaking” and is a regular contributor to Medium. She is also a member of The Forbes Business Council.
She earned a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Cornell University and a Master of Science in Journalism from the Graduate School of Journalism of Columbia University.
Bologna Faculty
Mark Rotella
Mark Rotella is the Director of the Joseph and Elda Coccia Institute for the Italian Experience in America and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Montclair State University. In addition, Rotella also serves as thesis advisor in the MFA Program at Columbia University.
Earning his B.A. in Russian Language and Literature from Columbia University in 1992, Rotella became the Senior Editor at Publishers Weekly, where he worked for nearly twenty years. He is also a former Board Member at National Books Critics Circle from 2015 to 2018.
Rotella’s first book, Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria (2004), recounts his travels to Calabria, the region in southern Italy from which his grandparents immigrated. His second book, Amore: The Story of Italian American Song (2010), tells of the era in American popular music during the mid-20th century dominated by Italian-American singers such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, and Tony Bennett. He also wrote the introduction for the 2006 reissue of Carlo Levi’s classic 1945 memoir, Christ Stopped at Eboli.
He has published nearly four dozen articles in a wide array of outlets including The New York Times, New York Times Book Review, La Voce di New York, The L.A. Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Vanity Fair, Saveur Magazine, and NPR.org and has appeared on National Public Radio outlets across the U.S. (on flagship shows such as All Things Considered and the Leonard Lopate Show), CBS’s The Insider, Entertainment Tonight, and ABC News.
In August 2020, Rotella was appointed Director of the Coccia Institute for the Italian Experience in America.
Cagli Faculty Director
John Caputo
John Caputo is Professor Emeritus in the Master’s Program in Communication and Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University and the Walter Ong S.J. Scholar. He founded the MA Program in 2004. Dr. Caputo earned his Ph.D. from the Claremont Graduate School and University Center. He has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Italy. He has been teaching communication courses for more than 35 years and has appeared on radio and television news and discussion programs. His areas of expertise include communication theory, intercultural and interpersonal communication, and media and social values. He is the author of seven books: Effective Communication Handbook; Communicating Effectively: Linking Thought with Expression; Dimensions of Communication; Interpersonal Communication: Competency Through Critical Reasoning, which was co- authored with Bud Hazel and Colleen McMahon; Public Speaking Handbook: A Liberal Arts Perspective with Bud Hazel; McDonaldization Revisited: Critical Essays on Consumer Culture which he co-edited with Mark Alfino and Robin Wynyard for Praeger Press and his newest book, Effective Communication. John Caputo has written more than 35 articles in professional journals, has been honored as a Visiting Scholar In-Residence at the University of Kent at Canterbury, England, La Sapienza University of Rome and the Master’s Program in Media and Communication at the Universita de Firenze, Italy. He has been honored with Master Teacher Awards by the Western States Communication Association and the University of Texas at Austin and has received an Exemplary Faculty Award from Gonzaga University. He has been taking student groups to Italy for many years and has been part of the Cagli Project since 2002. In 2016 he helped create a Sister City between Spokane, Washington and Cagli, Italy. He was made an Honorary Citizen of the city of the City of Cagli, Italy, and is the President of the Sister Cities Association of Spokane, Washington.
Cagli Faculty
Kristine Crane
Kristine Crane is a post-doctoral associate in the University Writing Program at The University of Florida, where she teaches various writing courses. She holds a doctorate in communications from The University of Florida, where she taught and created several journalism courses at the College of Journalism and Communications. She was
Giovanni Caputo
Giovanni has dual Italian and American citizenship and speaks half a dozen languages. Aside from teaching in Italy, Giovanni has spent time teaching at various levels in the French public school system. Back in the U.S., he works as a French translator and graphic designer. Giovanni’s academic interests include journalism,
Kyoto Faculty Director
Rachele Kanigel
Rachele Kanigel is a journalist and educator who taught journalism at San Francisco State University for more than 20 years, including three as department chair. Before moving into journalism education, she was a daily newspaper reporter and worked as a freelance correspondent for TIME Magazine. Her writing has appeared in U.S. News & World Report, Health, Reader’s Digest, San Francisco Magazine and other publications.
She is the author of The Student Newspaper Survival Guide and The Diversity Style Guide. A Fulbright Specialist, she spent 10 weeks in Bhutan in 2019 teaching students and training faculty at Royal Thimphu College.
She has directed ieiMedia programs in Urbino, Perpignan, Arles, Jerusalem and Kyoto and enjoys helping students discover new places and cultures through journalism.
Kyoto Faculty
To be announced
Additional faculty for this project will be announced soon. Check back for updates and Get Started with ieiMedia to stay informed about this program and other opportunities.
Laird Harrison
Laird Harrison, MFA, (he/him) (Reporting/Writing Professor) is an award-winning journalist, author and educator whose work has appeared in TIME, Audubon, Reader’s Digest, People, Health, the San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Reuters, Salon, MSNBC and CNN.com. He has also produced video for Smithsonian Magazine and WebMD and audio for KQED and WUNC public media.
Laird has taught journalism and creative writing at San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley Extension. His award-winning novel, Fallen Lake, was published by Verdant Books in 2012.
A former study abroad student in Bordeaux, Laird knows firsthand the value of living and learning in another culture. He first taught with ieiMedia in Perpignan, France, 2011 and later joined the faculty of the Arles Project. He taught in the inaugural Kyoto Project in 2026 and returns to Kyoto in 2027, when he’ll help students develop their reporting, interviewing and storytelling skills while exploring Japan.
London Faculty Director
Ilene Prusher
Ilene Prusher is the Director of the MA program in Journalism at the University of Miami and Assistant Professor of Practice. Prusher also spearheads news-academic partnerships in the School of Communication, including CommunityWire.Miami.
Before coming to the University of Miami, Prusher spent 10 years teaching journalism at Florida Atlantic University, where she was the founder and digital director of MediaLab@FAU. This news-academic partnership has led to dozens of journalism students having their work published by new partners across Florida. Under Prusher’s leadership, MediaLab won a $100,000 grant from Press Forward, a nationwide philanthropic initiative to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news.
Prusher is an award-winning journalist and author who spent two decades abroad as a foreign correspondent. After completing her first master’s degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she chose to focus on international affairs, specifically the Middle East and Asia. As a staff writer for The Christian Science Monitor from 1996-2010, she covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Prusher served as Monitor’s bureau chief in Jerusalem, Istanbul and Tokyo. She was Jerusalem correspondent for TIME (2013-2015), a columnist and feature writer for Haaretz, and a podcast host on TLV1 Radio. Her work has also been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Ms., CNN, NBC NewsThink, FiveThirtyEight, The Forward and Moment. She has served as a guest commentator on international affairs on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, NPR, C-SPAN and Fox News.
Prusher is the author of the novel Baghdad Fixer (Halban Publishers, London, 2012; Trafalgar Square Publishing, Chicago, 2014) and in May 2025 earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida Atlantic University.
In addition to launching ieiMedia’s newest journalism program in London, Prusher has led study abroad programs in Israel, Germany and Poland.
London Faculty
Sara Ganim
Sara Ganim is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and former CNN correspondent. Ganim is a multi-platform reporter who regularly publishes in print and broadcast. She has written for newspapers, cable television, audio, and documentaries, edited newsletters and magazine pieces, and has won several of the industry’s top awards.
At age 24, she won a Pulitzer Prize for the Harrisburg Patriot-News for breaking and covering the investigation into former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of young boys. Ganim then spent seven years at CNN, covering multiple beats, including federal government agencies, the rise of the anti-fascist movement in the U.S., the NCAA, and contaminated American drinking water. In 2015, she won a Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her investigative report exposing the low reading levels of some college athletes.
Since leaving CNN, Ganim has mostly worked in audio, developing, reporting and hosting several award-winning podcasts. Her most recent project was Believable: The Coco Berthmann Story, produced by Dear Media. Believable was named one of The Atlantic’s top 25 podcasts of 2023.
In 2021, she launched a podcast with Advance Local and Meadowlark Media called The Mayor of Maple Avenue, about the intersection of trauma and addiction and societal failures in the wake of the #meToo movement. The podcast won the Keystone Award for best podcast of 2024.
Ganim also created the podcast Why Don’t We Know, which won the EWA’s public service award in 2020. In 2020, she also made her first independent film, No Defense, which garnered film festival recognition. She has consulted or reported for several other films, including the Emmy-nominated films, Deadly Haze and Paterno.
Ganim is a prior recipient of Hearst, Loyola Law School and Columbia Spencer Education fellowships. Other recognitions include the the 2020 Education Writers Association public service award, 2012 National Sexual Violence Resource Center Visionary Voice Award, 2012 APME President’s Award, 2011 George Polk award, the 2011 Scripps-Howard award, 2012 American Society of News Editors for distinguished writing, 2011 Sidney Hillman’s Sidney Award, a 2010 Golden Quill and the 2010 Bar Association journalism award, 2008 Gannet Media Foundation multimedia award.
She is currently the journalist-in-residence at the University of Florida’s Consortium on Trust in Media and Technology. She also serves as a member of the board of trustees at Lebanese American University. She is a 2008 graduate of Penn State University.
Oslo Faculty Director
Steven Listopad
Steven Listopad is a Ph.D. candidate at North Dakota State University and has been an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication and student media director at the University of Jamestown and Valley City State University in Norwegian-rich North Dakota. He has taught journalism and media in China (2013); Nice, France (2014); Florence, Italy (2015); and Oslo (2016). Listopad has been honored with the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation’s First Amendment Award for Education, AEJMC’s Innovative Outreach to Scholastic Journalism Award, the Friend of Journalism Education Association award and the Distinguished Multimedia Adviser award from College Media Association. His converged student media center at UJ was a finalist in North Dakota’s annual professional entrepreneurial competition, InnovateND, and he was a 2015 Scripps Howard Fellow for Entrepreneurial Journalism. Before teaching, Listopad reported for a daily newspaper, an alternative weekly newspaper and a military newspaper. He also worked as a talent agency assistant and in post-production and international distribution and publicity at New Line Cinema in Los Angeles. Listopad is a music and culture enthusiast and lists Jonny Lang, Jesse Ventura, Gear Daddies and Skid Row as some of his favorite interviews.
Faculty
Robert A. Reeder
Robert A. Reeder is an accomplished photojournalist and educator with a distinguished career spanning several decades. He has taught and mentored graduate photojournalism students at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C., sharing his expertise with the next generation of visual storytellers.
Reeder lived and worked in Chișinău, Moldova, where he documented political struggles in the post-Soviet era while teaching at the Independent Journalism Center. He retired from The Washington Post in 2006 after 16 years as a staff photographer, then played a key role in launching the groundbreaking political news outlet Politico as its photo editor and photographer before moving abroad.
His teaching experience extends internationally, including programs in Urbino and Florence, Italy, as well as Oslo, Norway. Throughout his career, Reeder has combined a commitment to powerful visual journalism with a passion for teaching and mentoring emerging photographers.
Lori Listopad
Lori Listopad is currently the director of residence life at the University of Jamestown. Her graduate and undergraduate degrees are in mass communication. Prior to working in higher education, Listopad was a reporter and morning anchor at KSAX in Alexandria, Minn. Listopad teaches public speaking and professional communication both online and in the classroom, as well as operating a successful blog. Her specialty is on air delivery and field reporting. She taught in Nice, France in 2014.
Siena Faculty Director
Angela Bradbery
Angela Bradbery is a longtime public interest communicator and university professor. She is co-author of “Public Interest Communications: Strategy for Changemakers,” published in May 2025. She practiced public interest communications for two decades in Washington, D.C. at Public Citizen. While in Washington, she also co-founded the all-volunteer organization Smokefree DC, which pushed successfully for a smokefree workplace law in the District. Prior to moving to Washington, D.C., she worked as a newspaper reporter for 10 years, covering primarily government at The Palm Beach Post, the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and the Chicago Tribune. Learn more about her here.
Siena Faculty
Gina Baleria
Gina Baleria, a longtime broadcast and digital journalist and Sonoma State University professor, teaching Journalism, Media Writing, Radio & Podcasting, & Digital Media. She is also host and producer of the News in Context podcast, which airs on 102.5 KSFP in San Francisco and online. Gina is focused on cultivating intangible skills in budding journalists and professional communicators, including curiosity, empathy, tenacity, engaging with communities, and recognizing our unconscious biases. This focus led her to author The Journalism Behind Journalism: Going Beyond the Basics to Train Effective Journalists in a Shifting Landscape (Routledge 2021), a book about ethical storytelling, community engagement, and developing foundational intangible communication and journalism skills. In addition, Gina co-authored Writing & Reporting News for the 21st Century (Cognella, 2018), winner of the 2020 Textbook Award from the Broadcast Education Association (BEA). Her research and creative interests revolve around news and digital media literacy, podcasting, and digital engagement and communication across socially salient differences. Prior to becoming a professor, Gina was an award-winning broadcast and digital journalist at stations including KCBS Radio, KGO TV and KGO Radio in San Francisco; KXTV and KFBK in Sacramento; and KCAL in Los Angeles. She also helped create and manage a digital newsroom at the nonpartisan nonprofit governance organization, California Forward. As an American with Italian heritage, Gina speaks Italian and lives in San Francisco.