NYC 24 STAFF - click on photo to access reporter's Web sites
Khody Akhavi is a new media concentrator at Columbia J School. Next year, he'll be at Georgetown U., pursuing a master's degree in Arab Studies. He aspires to work for an international news agency covering the Middle East.
Jessica Arabski is from Westerlo, N.Y. She has worked as a reporter at several newspapers in the upstate community of Greene County. Jessica attended Fordham College at Lincoln Center, where she was actively involved with the campus newspaper. She will graduate from Columbia in May 2006.
Jill Bauerle Before signing on for J-school, Jill wrote features for The
Litchfield County Times. She currently writes about techno-related products for Technolawyer.com, an online resource for lawyers. A fiction writer in her spare time, Jill has received fellowships for her work from The MacDowell Colony, The Millay Colony for the Arts and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. When Jill graduates in May 2006 she hopes to continue working in new media.
Erin Blakeley is not yet 30 and would like to say no more on the matter. In her spare time, you can find her listening to Bruce Springsteen, beating her husband at darts, and trying to get the people at Television Without Pity to hire her to recap The O.C.
Mississippi-born Larrison Campbell is ready for the new media revolution. After working for three years at a soap opera, she figured out that writing about real-life scandals was more interesting and entered Columbia's J-School. A graduate of Wesleyan University, she was editor of the campus newspaper. She also worked as a staff writer at the Hartford Courant. She loves instant gratification, graphics and popular culture.
Dakin Campbell is an aspiring new media master. A graduate of Cornell University, he is turned on by the untapped potential for telling new and imaginative stories online. Dakin lives in Astoria, Queens, where he enjoys the relaxed pace and abundant wildlife.
Besides being an arts journalist in his native Colombia, Rodrigo Campos is a historian and a semi-retired sax player. Before taking a one-year leave to attend Columbia, he worked for three years at El Tiempo, Colombia 's leading newspaper, and started his career as content editor for STR, a local company that creates Web sites. He loves to watch movies and read fiction.
Rebecca Castillo is originally from El Paso, Texas, and is a part-time student at the Columbia School of Journalism concentrating in new media and broadcast. When she’s not chasing people with her camera, she works full time as a graphic designer and event planner for a nonprofit that educates high school student journalists. She plans to teach journalism and film documentaries.
Maria Castro earned her bachelor's in multilingual journalism at Lehman College in 2003, and as a good Bronx resident, she is a diehard Yankee fan. A native from Puebla, Mexico, Maria’s main journalistic interests are in the fields of human rights and crime. Some of her work has been published by the Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the New York Daily News and Reuters.
Sushil Cheema's interest in journalism began at a very young age. She is very happy to be at Columbia's School of Journalism. Learning about new media has been a challenge, but she enjoys the possibilities it allows. She finds living in New York City a thrill and spends her precious spare exploring unfamiliar neighborhoods and seeing live performances. She also appreciates a good book, live music, hot chocolate and gelato.
Photojournalist Julia Drapkin is concentrating in new media and broadcast at Columbia University. She has freelanced in New York, Sri Lanka and New Orleans for the AP and the World Picture News Agency. Julia began her career with the AP covering the Tamil Tiger-controlled areas of Sri Lanka and in 2005, she covered the Asian tsunami. Her photos have appeared in Time Asia, Le Monde, Frontline and the International Herald Tribune.
Alexander Eule hopes to get a job in print or new media following his graduation from the Columbia School of Journalism in May. His reporting interests are broad, but include business, technology and sports. He has lived in New York for the past eight years and also spent his undergrad days at Columbia University, where he was news editor of the Columbia Daily Spectator. Alex grew up in Bethesda, Md.
Sarah Feightner loves the radical potential of the Web to democratize media and make new voices heard. She's also fond of online porno-graphy. Sarah has worked in desktop publishing, graphic design, advertising and trade book production. She is a one-woman shop for technical skills, production savvy and well-written copy , and she was just kidding about the porn.
Cardiff de Alejo Garcia, 26, was born into a family of Cuban-immigrants in Tampa , Fla. He graduated from Georgetown University in 2002 with degrees in finance and accounting, and spent three years before graduate school in New York City as a banking analyst for JPMorgan. His hobbies include travel, film, W.H. Auden, Muay Thai kickboxing, and Tampa Bay Buccaneer football. He wants to be a business journalist.
Kylene Kiang graduated from the University of Michigan in 2004 with a B.A. in English. She has written for the Valley News Dispatch in Tarentum, Pa. and The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Abe Lebovic is a student at Columbia School of Journalism concentrating in new media. He is a graduate of Touro College with a degree in psychology. Before graduate school, he was an actor in the NYC improv comedy circuit and was the male lead in Goyta -- a short film to be released this year. Abe is interested in spending another year studying journalism before venturing out into the world.
Susan Lee is pursuing a master's degree at the Columbia School of Journalism. In her spare time, she likes biking around town and knitting scarfs. Previously, she was a researcher at Air America Radio, the liberal talk radio network. She was born on Staten Island and raised in Queens, N.Y., where she continues to reside.
Anne Machalinski, a Chicago native and graduate of Vanderbilt University, is pursuing a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University. Her work has appeared in The Arizona Republic, Orlando Sentinel, San Diego Union-Tribune and other newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. She loves electronic music, nutella and exploring, and hopes to work in new media and travel the world.
Mariana Martinez Estens is a Mexican journalist and poet based in the Tijuana/San Diego border region. For the past three years, she was a reporter for La Prensa, a bilingual weekly newspaper, and Diario Latino, the first daily in Spanish in the area. She covered border issues, including smuggling, drug dealing, environmental and immigration news.
Courtney McLeod grew up in Connecticut and attended Wellesley College, where she majored in English. After graduating in 2003, she worked at a law firm and then interned in the editorial department of The Atlantic Monthly. She'll graduate from Columbia in May 2006.
Tripp Mickle arrived at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in August of 2005. He spent the fall doing general assignment work in the South Bronx. He's currently interning at the SportsBusiness Journal. Prior to Columbia, he worked as the sports editor at the Tahoe World, a community weekly on the shores of Lake Tahoe. He earned his bachelor's degree in English at Wake Forest University.
Matt Reed grew up in California and moved to Washington, D.C. , after college, where he wrote about congressional campaigns. He then spent four years in Cambodia as a copy editor, reporter and then editor-in-chief of The Cambodia Daily. After graduation, he will be a reporter for The Associated Press in Ohio.
"Cherry" Heamakarn Sricharatchanya worked as a reporter/writer for an English newspaper in Bangkok, Thailand, for more than four years before coming to study at Columbia University. Having written for print, she wanted to explore other media and now she is learning the skills to become a new media journalist. She used to be a ballerina and loves to see ballet. The bright sun, hot sand and sea breeze make her happy.
Alissa Swango is an East Coast girl in spirit, but Midwestern at heart. Her favorite day -- where ever in the world she may be-- is drinking coffee in a café while talking to a good friend and dreaming together about life's next adventure (made even better if it's raining outside). She is driven by her mentors, made adventurous by her friends and grounded by her family. Alissa appreciates the simple and lives for spontaneity.
Cara Tabachnick is a freelance writer and a student at the Columbia Journalism School. Before living the life of a free-wheeling wordsmith, she worked in workforce development. Cara got her start writing after traveling the world for three years. She has lived in India, Guatemala and Israel and subsequently published her travel essays in book anthologies, such as "Central American Stories". She writes for Newsday and United Press International.
Erik Wander is a fine art photographer and filmmaker originally from Rochester, N.Y. He has a B.A. in English from SUNY at Buffalo and an MFA in Visual Studies from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester. He has lived in Korea, China and Singapore, where he recently taught photography and film at Ngee Ann Polytechnic School of Film and Media Studies.
Aili McConnon, was born in Toronto, Canada. Estonian was her first language followed by English, French and Spanish. A graduate of Princeton University and Cambridge University, her work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Guardian Review (U.K.), The Chicago Tribune, The Providence Journal and the Montreal Gazette. She is currently a senior editor for Topic Magazine, www.topicmag.com.
ADVISERS
Duy Linh Tu is our Tech Master. He teaches us the ins and outs of such fascinating things as making rollover buttons in Dreamweaver and white-balancing cameras. Duy is a founder of Resolution Seven, a Web site design and distribution company for documentaries. Duy is a 1999 graduate of Columbia's School of Journalism.
This is Jennifer Johnson's second year as an adjunct for the new media workshop, of which she is a graduate, and our copy would not have been the same without her. She is a 2003 graduate of Columbia's School of Journalism. Currently, she is an interactive news editor at the Wall Street Journal Online.
Jeff Gralnick is NYC24's in-house voice of online reason. He critiqued each one of our issues and made all of our work stronger for it. Previously executive producer on NBC Nightly News, Jeff made the switch from broadcast to new media many moons ago and currently serves as Internet and Technology Consultant to NBC News.
Jen Brown is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism Program and this is her first year as an adjunct for the new media workshop. She is an editorial producer with ABCNews.com, responsible for producing and maintaining the Good Morning America Web site, as well as writing original features stories for abcnews.com. Previously, she worked as a sports writer for the Asbury Park Press and the San Diego Union-Tribune.
