Bio

I’ll try anything once. I’ve run a marathon, flown in a stunt plane, scuba dived in a shark tank, taken lessons in surfing, trapeze and rock climbing, tried glassblowing and boxing and jumped out of a helicopter over the Alps. Most, but not all, of these activities were done in the name of a good story.

These stories have all been part of my work at Newsday, where I started in December 2006 as an Assistant News Manager covering entertainment. After about a year I was promoted to Online Editor of exploreLI.com, a partner site that covers, well, exploring Long Island. I currently oversee the entertainment and lifestyle sections for Newsday, contribute to Pet Rock, the pop culture blog, act as one of three on-camera hosts of ExploreTV, a weekly Web video series, and generally do a lot of other Web stuff.

I put these Web skills to good use as an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, where I’m in my third semester of teaching Promise and Perils of Online Journalism, an intro to digital journalism class where undergrads are instructed in blogging, shooting and editing photos and video and generally creating multimedia stories.

But what about my background? I’m a Chicago native and still think my hometown has the best pizza and hot dogs.

Before my entree into journalism, I headed south to Nashville, where I graduated from Vanderbilt University. As both an English major and scholarship athlete, I divided my time between studying contemporary lit and competing in track & field races.

After college I worked as a Media Buyer at Starcom Worldwide in Chi-town. My ad savvy paid off — I was transferred to the Manhattan office in 2004 to work on the Coca-Cola business.

Not long after moving to New York I was accepted to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, from which I graduated in October 2006. Along the way I worked at Court TV in media, at XLR8R, a music and culture magazine, as an intern, and at Barron’s as an Online News Assistant.

While at Columbia I worked on the “Science of Sex,” a new media master’s thesis that won two Webby Awards and was a finalist at the Online Journalism Awards.

I’m a member of the Online News Association and the Newswomen’s Club of New York.

I also freelance. My print articles, covering topics ranging from paparazzi-for-hire to online anonymous confessions, have appeared in Newsday, The Arizona Republic, The Toronto Star, the San Diego Union-Tribune and other newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.

On my down time you might catch me noshing at a hip Brooklyn joint, tracking down off-beat music, or brainstorming the next Web revolution.