About us – 2019

NBTB co-director Beatrice Motamedi gives the morning chalk talk before students head to classes and then afternoon activities.

Our educational philosophy is grounded in the idea that students learn best by doing, and no one knows that better than our faculty and staff, who combine real-world experience with a thorough understanding of journalism fundamentals.

Our faculty are among the best journalism educators in the country. Guest speakers contribute insights and experience from the world of professional journalism and emerging media. Our talented team leaders are available day and night to help students both inside and outside the classroom. Our 1:10 ratio of faculty/staff to students enables us to be attentive to our students’ academic and personal needs.

LEADERSHIP

Beatrice Y. Motamedi (director) is a teacher, writer and youth media advocate who turns classrooms into newsrooms. She is executive director of Global Student Square, an international student journalism network. Beatrice was a Stegner Fellow in poetry and a 2015 John S. Knight Fellow in journalism, both at Stanford. She was also a 2018 fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, developing curriculum in global studies and citizenship. A Dow Jones News Fund Distinguished Adviser and 2012 California Journalism Educator of the Year, Beatrice spent 10 years teaching in public and private high schools. She has helped students launch publications in Oakland, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Paris, Seoul and Ha Noi, Vietnam. Her students have won more than 200 awards for their work, including the Pacemaker and the Wikoff award for editorial leadership.

Before becoming a teacher, Beatrice was a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, United Press International, and WebMD. She also served as associate editor for 24 Hours in Cyberspace, the landmark book on one day in the life of the internet. Beatrice’s work has appeared in Newsweek, Wired, The New York Times, The International Herald-Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times and the Los Angeles Times in addition to two literary anthologies. “The Long Arm of Childhood,” a 2011 series Beatrice wrote on the impact of stress on teens growing up in East Oakland, is part of the Solutions Journalism Network’s Story Tracker. Beatrice served as senior project editor and curriculum designer for “Since Parkland,” the student-to-student journalism project that produced 1,200 stories about children and teens killed in gun violence in the year after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in February 2018. Contact Beatrice at beatrice@globalstudentsquare.org.

Paul B. Kandell (director emeritus), the 2009 Dow Jones News Fund National Journalism Teacher of the Year, and the 2009 California Journalism Teacher of the Year, earned a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and reported for Newsweek before becoming a high school journalism instructor in 1996. In addition to advising two award-winning journalism publications — Verde magazine and The Paly Voice — at Palo Alto High School, he serves on the board of the Journalism Education Association of Northern California and has served on the Student Press Law Center’s Advisory Council Steering Committee. The Paly Voice is a five-time winner of the National Scholastic Press Association’s Online Pacemaker Award and one of only two scholastic journalism winners of the Webby Award from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. A frequent presenter at local, state and national scholastic journalism conventions, Paul has served as co-director of Internet Youth Journalism Advising, an adviser-training program formerly headquartered at San Francisco State University’s Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism, and director of the East Palo Alto Journalism Institute, an educational/internship program designed to help youth leapfrog into scholastic journalism programs and pre-professional media opportunities. The lead writer for the University of California’s model Advanced Journalism curriculum, Paul also is one of the leading writers for 21st CenturyLit.org, an online curriculum for promoting digital, information and citizenship literacy in American high school English classes. He was one of the driving forces behind Palo Alto High School’s $10 million media arts center. Contact Paul at pkandell@gmail.com.

Jordan Tichenor (assistant program director – operations) is a journalism educator based in Eugene, Oregon. Since 2016, he has worked with the Journalistic Learning Initiative to assist teachers in deploying project-based journalism projects in English and social studies classrooms in Eugene, Oregon, Portland and Los Angeles. Through JLI, Jordan has helped support the MINE program at Springfield High School, including the magazines Sonder and Backcountry Review, which have twice won Best News Magazine from the Northwest Scholastic Press. Previously, Jordan worked on projects such as Rogue Territory, which explored a looming public safety crisis in Southern Oregon, and Not 1 More Acre!, which investigated and challenged the U.S. Army’s use and stewardship of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site in Colorado. For Eugene Weekly, Jordan covered topics such as the evolution and response to animal services in Eugene after funding was cut and management was changed, the local county commissioners race, and local events, such as the coronation of the city’s S.L.U.G. Queen. Jordan graduated from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication in 2014, where he won a Hearst award and worked for Pacemaker winners Flux and OR Magazine. As an editor at the Daily Emerald, the University of Oregon’s student newspaper, Jordan managed the breaking news desk. In addition to his journalism work, Jordan has also worked in design for both print and web. Contact Jordan at jordan.tichenor@gmail.com.

Summer 2019 staff

Aaron Diggdon (Y1 teaching assistant, photojournalism) is a recent graduate of Winston Churchill High School in San Antonio. Born in San Francisco and raised in the Bay Area, he developed a passion for photography at an early age, focusing on landscapes, people and urban life. After moving to Texas he discovered his school’s journalism program. He served as the lead photographer for his school’s newspaper, The Pride, and was a lead photographer for his school’s yearbook, helping to shape his school’s public image in sports, clubs and extracurriculars. His photos have earned him a variety of awards, including a “Tops in Texas” gold medal for best sports photo, and most recently, seven gold keys at the Scholastic Art and Writing state competition with a silver medal at the national level. This fall, Aaron plans to attend the Journalism + Design program at The New School’s Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts in New York.  You can follow Aaron on Instagram @aarondiggdon or contact him at aarondiggdon@gmail.com.

Augusta Saraiva (Year 1 team leader) is a rising junior majoring in journalism and international studies at Northwestern University. Originally from Brazil, she is passionate about international affairs, culture and education, having published on those topics in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Besides running a YouTube channel focused on helping Brazilian students apply to American universities, at NU she has served as assistant managing editor, opinion editor and identities editor for North by Northwestern, taught Chicago high schoolers about journalism and written global stories for Northwestern’s Office of International Relations. Through Northwestern’s Buffett Institute, she was able to visit and explore the culture of five South American countries while working as a communications and culture intern for the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) this past summer. Find her complaining about Chicago’s weather or ranting on soccer on Twitter @gutavsaraiva and Instagram @gutasaraiva.

Bruce Koon (Y1 guest teacher and afternoon speaker) is a pioneering journalist and media manager who was at ground zero for many of the news industry’s milestone forays into digital news. As news director for both KQED News and KQED Radio in San Francisco, Koon led award-winning news teams, developed strategies and structures for digital news operations, and mentored and inspired a new generation of writers, editors, educators and students. He continues to explore the evolution of news reporting and newsroom structures, diversity in news and strategies for strengthening local news reporting. Bruce teaches the Social Impact of Journalism class at San Francisco State University. He will teach a Year 1 class on the language of news and opinion.

Caroline Kusin Pritchard (“Perspectives” workshop guest teacher) is a writer and educator who has spent her career working across the education field. Caroline joined Teach For America out of college and became a third-grade teacher in San Jose, California. Subsequently she spent two years working on the Leading Education by Advancing Digital Commission, a public-private partnership, where she helped develop and present public policy recommendations to the Department of Education and Federal Communications Commission. In 2015, Caroline joined Khan Academy as a senior marketing manager where she spearheaded the inaugural Khan Academy Ambassador Program of more than 500 teacher leaders across the country. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in policy and organizational leadership studies from Stanford University. Caroline lives with her husband, two sons and a 120-pound dog named Misha in Palo Alto, where she’s pursuing her dream of writing for children.

Dan Dellechiaie (Year 1 team leader) is a recent graduate of Boston University’s College of Communication, where he received a B.S. in journalism and a minor in philosophy. During his sophomore year, he started writing for a variety of sources such as The Odyssey Online, the Daily Free Press Blog, The Rival @ BU, and Verge Campus @ BU. During his junior year he wrote a politics column, The New Rambler, for The Daily Free Press. During his junior year he switched from writing about politics to art. He was also an intern at New Hampshire Magazine. Before his graduation, he was a regular arts critic at Boston University News Service. He runs a blog Dispatches From The Lions’ Den, where he writes about books, music, and whatever else he finds interesting that week. When he is not writing, Dan can be found reading; his friends say he reads too much. Dan has read almost 400 books in four years, so his friends may have a point. Find Dan on Twitter @dadell17.  

Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff (Year 1 team leader) is in his sophomore year in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where he is double majoring in journalism and international studies. Dan is a features editor for North by Northwestern, a 64-page print magazine that comes out each quarter. “Tinted Windows,” a  June 2018 feature story he wrote about NU’s campus police, won multiple regional journalism awards. Dan also interns for Northwestern Magazine, the official publication of Northwestern University, writing profiles and helping his editor redesign the news site. This past winter, Dan took part in Medill on the Hill, a 10-week intensive political journalism program in Washington, D.C. On the program, Dan got to attend the State of the Union and video interview several members of Congress for his write up of the event, in addition to attending numerous Congressional hearings, a Supreme Court hearing and other events in the Capitol. One of Dan’s favorite courses he takes each quarter is his Arabic class, which he started freshman year. He loves learning the language and hopes that one day he can become proficient enough in Arabic to do some reporting in the Middle East. You can find him on Twitter @Danrz1697 and on Facebook at Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff.

Irene Chang (Year 1 team leader) is a rising junior studying journalism and psychology at Northwestern University. She has dedicated herself to storytelling since her discovery of journalism as a freshman at Dougherty Valley High School in San Ramon, California. As editor-in-chief of The Wildcat Tribune, Irene wrote stories about teacher-district negotiations and senior class funds, and spoke about her experiences as a student journalist in her graduation speech. Now at Northwestern, she works as a student ambassador for the Medill School and is a leader for the Asian-American Student Journalists club, the Northwestern chapter of the national Asian-American Journalists Association (AAJA). In the summer of 2018, she represented Medill at the AAJA convention in Houston, TX, where she attended NBC University and developed an interest in broadcast journalism. Previously, she worked as the assistant news editor of North by Northwestern and has written for The Daily Northwestern. She currently works as China News Editor for Global Student Square. In her free time, Irene can be found watching Netflix and drinking milk tea.

Kasey Carlson (Y1 team leader and wellness director) will graduate from the University of Missouri Columbia in June with a bachelor’s degree in journalism including an emphasis in print and digital reporting, plus a minor in atmospheric science. Most recently, she was a copy editing teaching assistant and news editor on the interactive copy desk at the Columbia Missourian. She has also reported on education, public life and business for the Missourian. Other parts of her journalistic history include being an editorial intern at Cars.com, a news intern at WFLD Chicago, an opinion editor at The Maneater and a writer for The Mash. She also loves cooking, dogs and the city of Chicago, her hometown. This will be Kasey’s second year as a team leader at NBTB.

Kat Rowlands (Y2 guest teacher) is owner of Bay City News, an Oakland-based subscription service providing 24/7 coverage of the nine Bay Area counties. A 2017 John S. Knight Fellow, Rowlands has been an editor at Bay Area News group and most recently was editor in chief at Diablo Magazine in Walnut Creek. Rowlands began her career as a BCN intern and went back to buy the company. She has also founded Local News Matters, a nonprofit aimed at serving local news deserts, collaborating with other journalism organizations, mentoring a new generation of journalists, and experimenting with technology. Rowlands will teach a Y2 class on entrepreneurship in journalism.

Kim Vinh (faculty/news reporting and writing) has 14 years of experience teaching at the high school and graduate school levels. She teaches journalism at Sequoia High School in Redwood City, California, where she advises the student newsmagazine, the Raven Report. She was a JEA Rising Star in 2014 and an ASNE-Reynolds Fellow in 2010. The Raven Report has been named a Pacemaker finalist and been awarded Best of Show at national JEA/NSPA conventions. Kim has also worked as a lecturer and supervisor for preservice English Language Arts teachers with the Stanford Teacher Education Program, a design thinking coach with The Teachers Guild out of IDEO, and as an advisory board member for Teaching Tolerance. She earned a B.A. in English and urban studies and a M.A. in education at Stanford University. Kim lives in San Francisco. Find Kim on Twitter @kimvinh.

Julia Satterthwaite (faculty/digital storytelling) advises the El Estoque newspaper and website at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, California. She is a certified journalism educator and was recently elected as director-at-large to the board of the Journalism Education Association. Before moving to California last year, Satterthwaite advised The Talon newspaper and website in Rochester Hills, Michigan for 11 years, and also served as Michigan’s state director. Her students’ publications consistently earn top state and national honors. She was awarded Michigan’s Adviser of the Year in 2014. Satterthwaite earned her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from Michigan State University. She loves spending time with her family, reading, singing, being outdoors and traveling. Her love for travel developed when she attended 10th-12th grade at Canadian Academy in Kobe, Japan.

Macy Quinn-Sears (program assistant) is a first-year Journalism, Communications and Politics student at Cardiff University in Cardiff, Wales. She began her life in journalism at the age of 12, writing and editing for her middle school’s newspaper. Macy quickly developed that passion into a career goal, focusing on opinion pieces and human interest stories for her high school’s newspaper, The Wa-Hi Journal, ending her senior year as editor-in-chief. At Cardiff, Macy has been maintaining her personal blog as a look into her life living abroad, and she’s also looking into some radio work for Cardiff’s Xpress Radio in between grueling first-year lectures. When she’s not binge-reading Aristotle for her Political Thought modules, you can find Macy at training with Cardiff’s ultimate Frisbee club, de-stressing by practicing her side-arm throws and getting in some cardio. Find Macy at @opinionatedqs on Twitter or @macyqs on Instagram.

Maggie Galloway (Year 1 team leader) is a rising sophomore at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where she is studying journalism and international studies. Originally from the Bay Area, Maggie got her start in journalism as a writer and editor at the Berkeley High Jacket. During her gap year she worked as a stringer for several newspapers in Massachusetts owned by GateHouse Media. At NU she loves exploring the intersection between journalism and comedy as an editor at the satirical newspaper, The Northwestern Flipside, and as a Story Head at The Deep End, a quarterly pre-taped show akin to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver that takes a deep dive into the most pressing issues on campus. She is also a writer at North by Northwestern and works on the podcast Nine Lives. This summer she’s excited to see her cat, work as an intern at the KQED podcast Bay Curious, and be a part of the NBTB team! Find Maggie on Twitter @yourgalgalloway.

Matthew Asuncion (program assistant) is a rising second-year student in the Media Studies program at the University of British Columbia. Inspired by the greats (Jon) Stewart and (Stephen) Colbert and the boredom that comes the summer after one’s freshman year of high school, he hosted the Simplify Podcast, a satirical news podcast focused on global events. He later took his talents to student journalism, serving as sports editor and staff writer for The Lancer, his high school student newspaper, and as a contributing writer for Prep2Prep, a high school sports newswire service. Most recently, Matthew has written and copy-edited for The Ubyssey, UBC’s student newspaper, and served as a senior project reporter for “Since Parkland.” He also serves as senior editor for Global Student Square. When not writing for an organization, Matthew can be found writing essays for fun (?) on his blog. Find Matthew at @mattjasuncion on Twitter @matt.j.asuncion on Instagram.

Max Goodman (Year 1 team leader) is in his fourth year in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. While finalizing his B.A. in broadcast journalism Max is spending his senior year taking graduate school classes as part of the Accelerated Master’s Program, where he will earn an M.A. in sports media. Max has worked as an anchor, reporter and executive producer for SportsNight, a student-run sports broadcast production that airs on a weekly basis. He has experience in floor directing, operating cameras, producing, lining and teleprompting, editing packages and graphics, and of course, broadcasting on screen. Max was an associate beat writer last summer with the Miami Marlins for MLB.com and an associate producer with ESPN’s ‘Get Up!’ When he’s not in class, working on a video package or wrapping up a reporting assignment, Max is a right fielder and first baseman on the Northwestern club baseball team and an avid Fortnite player. Although he’s born and raised in Manhattan, Max supports Miami sports teams because of family ties to South Florida. Find Max on Twitter @Max_Goodman97 and on Instagram @buenhombre97.

Mia Mamone (Year 1 team leader) is a rising junior studying journalism and gender studies at Northwestern University. She is currently editor-in-chief at North by Northwestern, where she previously worked as entertainment editor, managing editor and social media manager. She has interned at KGOU, Norman, Oklahoma’s NPR affiliate station, and currently works in Northwestern’s Global Marketing Communications office as a public relations aide. She is interested in multimedia journalism, with a focus on online magazine writing and audio storytelling. In her free time she can be found reading YA novels and drinking bubble tea. Find Mia at @miacantdraw on Twitter or @miamamone on Instagram.

Michal Shvimer (Year 1 team leader) is a rising junior at Boston University, majoring in journalism and minoring in international relations. Her sophomore year, she began a column for The Daily Free Press called FemiTwist, which originated as a blog series. Michal has worked as a news reporter and blogger for The Daily Free Press and currently edits The Daily Free Now. Michal has interned at WTBU and is passionate about features writing and audio storytelling, because she finds them to be the best platforms for sharing humanizing narratives. When she’s not editing blogs, you can find her watching the Great British Baking Show or being hilarious on Twitter @MichalShvimer.

Nebe Betre (faculty/video) serves as the Press/Digital Assistant for U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.). She is excited to return for a second year as NBTB’s video instructor. Prior to her current position, Nebe interned for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in Washington, D.C., and for WorldBytes, a political news program in London, England. While in school, Nebe served as the lead News Producer for BUTV10’s daily news program, The Wire, and served as associate producer for BUTV10’s live 2016 election night special, The Vote 2016. Originally from Texas, Nebe was a Newsroom by the Bay Scholar in 2013, where her story on the television series Star Trek as a multicultural watershed in American television reflected her sense of humor as well as her serious approach to journalism; her efforts prompted staff to give her a “Sharkie” award, which goes to students who go above and beyond expectations during the course of camp. Nebe graduated from Boston University in 2018 with a degree in journalism. Find Nebe on Twitter @nebetre and Instagram as @nebebetre.

Riley Villiers (Year 1 team leader) is a rising junior at Boston University, majoring in broadcast journalism and minoring in political science. She started her journalism career in seventh grade as the opinion editor of her junior high school’s newspaper, Hoofbeats. After her first byline, she was hooked and continued pursuing this path through high school and now into college. At Boston University, Riley has been a news editor for The Daily Free Press, a radio host for WTBU and a production manager on a three-hour live election show. Currently, she is the director for On That Point, a long-form interview show, and a producer of Good Morning BU, the only live news show on campus. To her, nothing beats the rush of producing live content. When she’s not in the studio, she can be found at a comic book store catching up on the newest Batman issue or dancing to Arlie in elevators. Find Riley on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @rileyvilliers.

Rod Satterthwaite (faculty/photojournalism) co-advises The Campanile newspaper and website at Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto, California. Before moving West last July, Satterthwaite taught and advised students in Illinois and Michigan for 28 years. His students’ publications have won Pacemakers from the National Scholastic Press Association and Gold Crowns from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. In addition, he has been named Michigan’s journalism adviser of the year and a Dow Jones News Fund Distinguished Adviser. Rod serves on the board of the Journalism Education Association of Northern California, the JEA Certification Commission and the Student Press Law Center’s Advisory Council Steering Committee. In addition to NBTB, he teaches at summer workshops in Nebraska, Indiana and Michigan.

Ryan Nguyen (Year 1 team leader) is a sophomore at the University of Oregon. He’s the podcast editor at the Daily Emerald, the independent, student-run newspaper at UO, and a news producer at KWVA Eugene, the campus radio station. He also interns at Eugene Weekly. His reporting has suspended fraternities from campus, revealed high dropout rates and illuminated possible solutions for getting more low-income and first-generation students into college. Ryan’s studying journalism and computer information technology, also known as coding pretty websites. He, friends and sources have described him as “that tough reporter,” “a big fan of the truth” and “a big fan of Naruto.” You can send angry messages and memes to him on Twitter @ryanjjnguyen and via his portfolio.

Steve O’Donoghue (faculty emeritus) taught journalism for 27 years in Oakland, California. He founded The Media Academy, a school-within-a-school program built around journalism. Long involved with scholastic journalism issues, he was the 1990 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year, California State High School Journalism Teacher of the Year, and the recipient of the Medal of Merit for the Journalism Education Association, the Pioneer Award from the National Scholastic Press Association, and the James F. Paschal Award and Gold Key from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. In 2011, Steve received the Carl Towley Award, JEA’s highest honor. He is director of the California Scholastic Journalism Initiative, a non-profit program to improve journalism in California schools.