Kathleen is a professor in the School of Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. from the School of Journalism in December 2014, after nearly 30 years as a professional journalist. At The New York Times, she held various management positions, including associate managing editor, dining editor, deputy sports editor and deputy editor of the website. Her research interests include racial discourse, collective memory, sports media and obituaries.

Charles Davis is the Dean of the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. Davis previously taught at the Missouri School of Journalism and spent five years at Mizzou as Executive Director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition.

Christopher Drew leads the Lousiana State University Manship School's experiential journalism curriculum, including its Statehouse Bureau and its racial and criminal-justice reporting programs. Drew was an investigative reporter and editor for The New York Times for 22 years in Washington and New York. Before that, he was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal and The Times-Picayune.

Lane works with SUNY as Chief Communications Officer from Newsday. Prior to his 13 years with Newsday as a columnist and editorial board member, Lane was a reporter, columnist, and assistant city editor at the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In his career he has covered numerous topics, including politics, sports, food, and government. In 2004 he covered the war in Iraq as an embedded reporter with the 109th Field Artillery unit of the Pennsylvania National Guard. Filler has been the recipient of several journalistic honors, and two of the projects his work was central to have been named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

Sarah Gamard is the communications manager at the Signals Network, a U.S.-based, internationally operating whistleblower support nonprofit. A former student reporter at LSU, Gamard has worked for seven national and local news organizations, covered two statehouses and reported in three states. While working with the Center for Community News, Gamard led research on university-led student statehouse reporting bureaus.

Andrea Hickerson, Ph.D., is dean and professor in the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi. Previously she was an associate dean in the College of Information and Communications and the director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina, as well as director of the School of Communication at Rochester Institute of Technology. Hickerson conducts research on journalism routines with an emphasis on technology use.

Rafael Lorente is dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Previously, he was the associate dean for academic affairs, director of the master’s program, and director of the Capital News Service Washington, D.C., and Annapolis bureaus. Lorente, a 1998 Merrill master's alum, is a former reporter with the South Florida Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

Dean Mira Lowe is the chief academic and administrative officer of the School of Journalism & Graphic Communication (SJGC) at Florida A&M University. She previously served as assistant dean for student experiences at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. As director of the Innovation News Center, she led a team of industry professionals and student journalists who provide local news coverage for 19 North Central Florida counties. Lowe has previously served as a senior editor at CNN Digital and editor-in-chief of JET magazine.

Duc is the Director of Sustainability Initiatives/ Journalism at the Knight Foundation. Duc is a business development and operational leader with more than a decade of experience across media and research organizations. Prior to joining Knight, he was publisher and chief revenue officer for Washington City Paper, a local news leader for the Washington, D.C. area. He has also served in business development and new product innovation roles at The Economist and Foreign Policy magazine.

Stefanie Murray is the Director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. A Michigan native, Stefanie previously worked in Michigan and Tennessee as a reporter, editor, digital media manager and news executive. Before joining Montclair State, she worked for Gannett Co. as vice president and executive editor of The Tennessean in Nashville, and was with the Detroit Free Press before that.

Patricia Prelock, Ph.D., is Provost and Senior Vice-President, University of Vermont. Formerly, she was the Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Vermont for 10 years. She is also a Professor of Communication Sciences & Disorders, and Professor of Pediatrics in the College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. Dr. Prelock received her Ph.D. in speech-language pathology from the University of Pittsburgh.