Marshall Allen
Health Reporter, Las Vegas Sun, Henderson, Nevada.
Marshall Allen spent five years in the ministry and earned a master's degree in theology before becoming a journalist in Los Angeles. Mr. Allen has worked at the Glendale News- Press and Pasadena Star-News, where he wrote about crime and religion - the "sin and salvation" beat. In 2006, he came to the Las Vegas Sun where he now covers health care. Allen's 2007 body of work placed second nationally in the Association of Health Care Journalists' beat reporting contest. His journalism has also been recognized by the Best of the West contest, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Press Club, the Nevada Press Association, the Religion Newswriters Association, and with a 2007 Casey Medal.
marshall.allen@lasvegassun.com

Esthus Christopher Amos
Staff Writer, Navy Times, Springfield, Virginia.
Chris Amos has been a reporter at the Navy Times in Springfield, Virginia, since May 2006. He covers criminal justice, health care, aviation, and the Navy Reserve. Prior to coming to the Navy Times, he was a reporter at the Carroll County Times in Westminster, Maryland, for two years. While there, he covered county government and courts. He is a graduate of Howard University and the University of Michigan Law School and is originally from Charlotte, North Carolina.
camos@navytimes.com

 

Kathryn Barrett
Medical Editor & Senior Reporter, WVEC-TV, Norfolk, Virginia.
Kathryn Barrett has spent the last 25 years at WVEC-TV, the ABC News affiliate in Norfolk. Kathryn's international assignments have taken her to Iraq, Germany, Croatia, Honduras, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Italy and Spain. She received an Emmy Award in 2000 for "Operation Smile: Helping Honduras," a series of reports on the Norfolk-based international medical mission. In 2006, she was embedded with the U.S. Air Force at a combat hospital north of Baghdad to produce the series, "Healing the Heroes: America's War Wounded," which received an Emmy nomination, a 2007 Clarion Award from the Association of Women in Communications, and recognition from the Association of Health Care Journalists. She holds a BA in speech communications- broadcasting from Penn State University.
kbarrett@wvec.com

Michael L. Biesecker
Staff Writer, The News & Observer, Durham, North Carolina.
Michael L. Biesecker, 35, has been a staff writer at The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, since 2003. He recently completed an investigative series on failed mental health reforms in the state that found $400 million in wasted government money and 82 questionable deaths in an overwhelmed and underfunded system of state psychiatric hospitals. A reporter for 12 years, his 2006 reports about a coverup by the City of Durham's municipal water department of widespread lead contamination was part of a series of stories named as a finalist for national prizes in investigative and environmental reporting. Biesecker also teaches courses in journalism at North Carolina State University.
michael.biesecker
@newsobserver.com

 

Elisabeth K. Bonis
Medical Reporter, WKRC-TV, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Liz Bonis is a registered dietitian, certified personal trainer, and former diabetes educator with a Masters Degree in Public Communication and Radio Television News from Syracuse University. She is currently employed as a national radio and television health and medical reporter for Clear Channel Communications and Newport Television. Liz is the former host of the weekend call-in health program, "Lighten Up with Liz" and the "Liz and Carson Morning Show." She currently publishes an on-line newsletter which can be found at www.Lightenupwithliz.com. She is also the former writer of a monthly newsletter and holds seminars across the country on weight management, women's health, diabetes management, fitness and nutrition, and foods for better health.
lizbonis@clearchannel.com

Jonathan Bor
Medical Reporter, Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, Maryland.
Jonathan Bor has covered medicine and public health for the Baltimore Sun for the past 20 years. He has a particular interest in inner-city health issues ranging from HIV and sexually transmitted diseases to drug addiction and violence. Last year, he wrote a series on the link between addiction, prostitution, and the spread of HIV in inner-city Baltimore. Jonathan previously worked for newspapers in upstate New York. He is a native of Washington, D.C.
jonathansbor@gmail.com.

 

José de la Isla
Columnist, Scripps Howard News Service, Houston, Texas.
José de la Isla’s columns appear in about 142 newspapers around the United States, and in print and Websites in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Ecuador, United Kingdom, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay. His features, columns, and op-ed pieces have appeared in publications serviced by Los Angeles Times Syndicate and the Chicago Tribune Media Group. His work has also appeared in the Houston Chronicle, The Houston Post, Texas Magazine, ArtLies, and the e-zine Tertulia. He wrote The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (Archer Books, 2003), a book that has become a classic in its field about the Latino role in national politics, dating back to the 1960s. He holds two master’s degrees—one from the University of Oregon and the other from the University of California at Berkeley.
jdelaisla@comcast.net

Penelope Douglas
Senior Producer, Information Television Network, Boca Raton, Florida.
Penelope Douglas has been with Information Television Network since 1995. In that time she’s produced many award-winning documentaries that have aired on Discovery Health Channel, PBS stations, and in syndication in 48 countries around the world. The programs included a parenting series on Discovery Health Channel that addressed the health issues of children in the United States that won a Freddie Award for Children’s Health. Her woman’s health series on PBS won an American Women in Radio and Television Gracie Allen award (the Gracie) for best National Network documentary series. An hour-long special shot in Tokyo and Shanghai on building the world’s tallest skyscraper won a New York Festivals gold award. Before joining ITN, she was a local television reporter and line producer in markets as diverse as Anchorage, Alaska, and West Palm Beach.
Penelope@itvisus.com

 

Anthony J. Gottschlich
Reporter, Dayton Daily News, Dayton, Ohio.
Anthony J. Gottschlich is a health care and general assignment reporter for the Dayton Daily News. Prior to joining the Daily News in late 2002, Gottschlich worked for the Springfield News-Sun, where he won several awards for his investigative reporting on local charities. A Dayton native, he holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Ohio State University. The 10-year reporting veteran also teaches media writing at the University of Dayton.
agottschlich@daytondailynews.com

Joyce Gramza
Producer, ScienCentral News, Fulton, New York.
In her nearly two decades as a science journalist, Joyce Gramza’s stories have been seen by many millions of local and network TV news viewers nationwide, as well as Web, national magazine, and local newspaper audiences. Over the past ten years she has written, produced, assigned, edited, and shot science news for the Manhattan-based ScienCentral News, a public service company dedicated to providing news and education about science research to regular folks. She has considerable experience covering the neuroscience and genetics beats, and has also blogged about mentalhealth issues as they affect her community and family. Joyce has a BS in chemistry as well as an MA in journalism from New York University’s science, health and environmental reporting program.

 

Aina Hunter
Associate Producer, ABC News Medical Unit, ABCNEWS.com, New York, New York.
Aina Hunter is an associate producer for ABC’s Medical Unit. A former Village Voice staff writer and health columnist, Ms. Hunter is a contributor to Multiculturalism in the New Japan: Crossing the Boundaries Within (Berghahn Books, 2008); Transculturalism: How the World is Coming Together (True Publications 2004); and was a Livingston Award finalist for an investigative feature published by Village Voice Media's Cleveland Scene Magazine in 2004. She has received several national journalism awards since taking an MS from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in 2003. She did her undergraduate work in Japanese at U.C. Berkeley.
ainahunt@gmail.com
aina.x.hunter-nd@abc.com

Brendan Kirby
Reporter, Press-Register, Mobile, Alabama.
Brendan Kirby has worked as a reporter for daily newspapers for more than a decade. For the last eight years, he has served in a variety of capacities as a reporter for the Press -Register in Mobile, including the last three covering federal courts and corrections issues. His work has been recognized by the Alabama Press Association, the Associated Press Managing Editors competition, and the Press Club of Mobile. He was a 2004 fellow at the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California, for which he produced a series of stories exploring the impact of increased paroles on Alabama and its prisons.
Kirby@press-register.com

 

Wendy Harris Magas
Reporter, The Post-Crescent, Appleton, Wisconsin.
Wendy Harris Magas is a reporter for The Post-Crescent newspaper in Appleton, Wisconsin, where she specializes in computer-assisted reporting and also writes about health and social issues. Prior to moving to Wisconsin four years ago, Wendy spent 10 years of her journalism career in Washington state, where she worked for the Yakima Herald-Republic and then The Spokesman-Review in Spokane. Harris, a 1990 graduate of the University of Michigan, is now pursuing an associate’s degree in information technology at Fox Valley Technical College.
wharris@postcrescent.com

Prashant Nair
Graduate Student, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Carrboro, North Carolina.
Prashant Nair is the fourth recipient of the Pfizer minority medical journalism scholarship in the Medical Journalism Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A native of India, Prashant earned an integrated master’s degree in life sciences from Bharathidasan University, India, in 2000. He went on to do a PhD in biochemistry at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland before obtaining his doctorate from the University of Basel in 2004. Following a two-year post-doctoral stint in cell biology at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, Prashant decided to pursue his foremost passion: science writing, with a specific focus on health and medical issues. Prashant has a basic research background and an indepth understanding of the scientific enterprise. He hopes to bring this edge to his science journalism.
nair@email.unc.edu

 

M. Alexander (Alex) Otto
Medical Reporter, Tacoma News Tribune, Tacoma, Washington.
Alexander Otto began his career with a journalism degree from Syracuse University but then trained as a physician assistant at George Washington University before returning to journalism as a medical reporter. While working for a pharmacists’ magazine, Otto became “alarmed” by drug industry practices and began freelancing investigative pieces to The Washington Post and other outlets. Most recently he has been the staff medical reporter for the News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington, covering drug addiction, among other topics. His work has won several awards, including recognition from the Society of Professional Journalists. Alex recently won a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship, and will be spending the 2008- 09 academic year studying at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Alex_otto@hotmail.com

Elizabeth M. Piazza
Master’s Degree Candidate, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, New Market, Maryland.
epiazza@mail.umd.edu

 

 

Kate Elizabeth Queram
Graduate Student, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, Middleton, Wisconsin.
kate.elizabeth.queram@gmail.com

Elena Ramirez
Producer, KLRU-TV, Austin, Texas.
M. Elena Ramirez is an Emmy nominated producer and director for KLRU, the PBS Station in Austin Texas. She has more than 12 years of experience directing promotional spots, handling live television events, and producing weekly public affairs programs such as Austin at Issue, Austin Now, town hall meetings, political debates, and a live production of The Point with Greta Van Susteren for CNN. She holds two Bachelor Degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, one in radio, television, and film, and the other in advertising.
eramirez@klru.org

Sabriya Rice
Associate Producer, House Call w/ Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta, Georgia.
Sabriya Rice is associate producer for medical news at CNN where she writes and produces a weekly oneminute segment of medical news headlines called The Pulse for air on Weekend House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Fluent in Spanish and conversational in French, she has a background in both broadcast and online story telling. Before her work with Dr. Gupta, she researched and pitched medical stories for air on Anderson Cooper 360 and Paula Zahn. She oversees the production and editing of medical news packages and writes articles and blogs for
www.CNN.com/health.
sabriya.rice@turner.com

Mosi Secret
Staff Writer, The Independent Weekly, Durham, North Carolina.
Mosi Secret graduated from Harvard University in 2002 and learned narrative journalism at the academy for alternative journalism at Northwestern University. After brief stops at the Village Voice and the Houston Press, he joined the staff of the Independent, a weekly newspapercovering Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 2005. He covers criminal justice and local politics, and any other good stories he can find. He is a finalist in the Society of Professional Journalists' Green Eyeshade Award contest this year and won the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism last year. The North Carolina Press Association awarded him first place for news feature writing in 2006 and first place for investigative reporting in 2007.

Agenda