Journalist, Educator & Advocate for a Free Press

I am a journalism educator and press freedom advocate working at the intersection of professional newsroom practice and First Amendment rights.

As Executive Director of Student Media at Rice University, I lead a department of professional staff and student journalists, while building the Houston Newsroom to expand professional-quality multimedia reporting.

Previously, I was a tenure-track professor at Howard University and the founder of the Illinois Student Newsroom at Illinois Public Media, a sustainable ‘teaching hospital’ model that transformed student production and earned a wide array of national honors.

My leadership in the College Media Association and my research with the AAUP focus on defending the independence of student media and drafting legislative protections for the next generation of journalists.