Board of Directors 2010

Karen Kring - President*
Karen is an independent photojournalist, photo editor and online content producer. She is a partner in Kring Lerner Group, an agency specializing in photography, journalism and other media projects. Previous positions include Asst. Director of Media Relations for Illinois Institute of Technology and New Media Manager at the Community Media Workshop. She co-founded PICTURE THIS Projects, a philanthropic group of photographers, journalists and community members creating and supporting photo projects that encourage creative expression, self-esteem and bridging the gap between people of different backgrounds. One of her interests is improving the connections between word-journalists and photojournalists for the purpose of richer stories and better working relationships. She's worked for the Chicago Tribune, STNG newspapers, Catalyst, the AP, Rockford Register Star and other news outlets and publishers. She lives in Skokie with her husband photojournalist Joel Lerner.  E-mail Karen or reach her via phone at (847) 869-3344.

Suzanne Hanney - Vice President for Print
Suzanne is editor of StreetWise. Suzanne's first job after graduating from Northwestern University's journalism school was editing a weekly newspaper in Marseilles, Ill. She bought the paper to keep it going, published it briefly and sold it to a shopper, for whom she continued to serve as editor. Her next move was Dixon, Ill., where she began as lifestyle editor of the daily Dixon Evening Telegraph. As "Reagan editor," she interviewed the president's grade school and high school friends, covered the president's first inauguration and compiled a 92-page special edition that won a first place from the National Federation of Press Women. National and international media also consulted her regarding the significance of the president's roots. She later served as Ogle County beat reporter, assistant news editor and editor of the Valley Sun, a new weekly paper the company started in a neighboring city. After working a year as a copy editor at the daily Quad-City Times, she returned to Chicago, where she has written for The American Banker and United Press International. She is president of the Illinois Woman's Press Association.
E-mail Suzanne or reach her via phone at (312)829-2526 (w)/(312)823-4697 (c)

Cheryl Corley - Vice President for Broadcast*
Cheryl is a reporter for National Public Radio and works out of the downtown Chicago Bureau located in the city's Loop. As a general assignment reporter, she travels throughout the Midwest--from Ohio to South Dakota-- covering trials, politics and other issues.  Housing is a particular focus of her beat and Cheryl has reported on the ups and downs of the housing market, on efforts to revamp public housing and she's produced a number of housing features. One report about extraordinarily tiny homes on wheels--some as small as 70 square feet--was one of NPR's top emailed stories. Cheryl is among the group of NPR reporters who covered Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as they tore through the Gulf Coast and she continues to report on the rebuilding process in New Orleans and surrounding neighborhoods. In addition to reporting, Cheryl also serves as a fill-in host for a number of NPR shows including Morning Edition, Weekend All Things Considered and two of NPR's newest shows---Tell Me More and News and Notes. Prior to joining NPR in late 1995, Cheryl was the news director at Chicago's public radio station, WBEZ, where she supervised an award-winning team of reporters. She also has been a frequent panelist on television news-affairs programs in Chicago. Cheryl has received awards for her work from a number of organizations including the Associated Press, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Public Radio News Directors Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists. She also has received the Studs Terkel Award for excellence in reporting on Chicago's diverse communities and a Herman Kogan Award for reporting on immigration issues. A Chicago native, Cheryl graduated cum laude from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, with a Bachelor of Arts degree and is now a Bradley University trustee. While in Peoria, she worked as a reporter and news director for public radio station WCBU and as a television director for the NBC affiliate, WEEK-TV.
E-mail Cheryl or reach her via phone at (312)948-4779 (w).

Maura Wall Hernandez - Vice President for New Media/Technology
Maura Wall Hernandez is the Assistant Managing Editor at Café Magazine and teaches journalism as an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago. Her writing, photography and research work have appeared in a number of publications and on the web, including Advertising Age, Crain's Chicago Business, the Chicago Tribune's RedEye, Hispanic Tips, Spanglish Baby and others. In 2005, as managing editor, Maura helped launch Columbia College's Reservoir Online Magazine, which won a 2006 gold medal for top internal audience publication from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. In 2009, Maura co-founded TweetCamp Chicago, an educational open-spaces style conference on the professional uses for Twitter. She is also a member of the Society for News Design. Maura holds a B.A. in English from Miami University and an M.A. in Public Affairs Journalism from Columbia College Chicago. She lives in Chicago with her husband and authors The Other Side of The Tortilla, a blog about traditional Mexican cooking and culture. You can find her tweeting about journalism, photography, food and more at @MauraHernandez.  Maura chairs the Web site/Communications committee.
E-mail Maura

Suzanne Cosgrove - Treasurer
Suzanne was the Sunday real estate editor for the Chicago Tribune until April 2009, a post she assumed in July 2007. She was also a back-up editor of the Tribune’s online daily business page and daily e-mail service, BizWrap. She joined the Tribune in August 2000 as a business copy editor/assistant financial editor, and later was the assistant editor for the Tribune’s Sunday personal finance section, Your Money. Previously, she worked as a wire service reporter for Knight-Ridder Financial News for more than a dozen years, where she covered the Chicago financial markets, banking and regional economics. From there, she opened the Chicago bureau for Market News International, and served as their bureau chief for several years before moving to the Tribune.  She finds her experience as a wire service reporter has been very relevant to today’s Web news reporting and posting initiatives and strives to keep current with the challenges of New Media. For Web historians, it is worth noting that she was one of the early editors of Keycom, a Chicago Sun-Times-owned 24-hour teletext news operation broadcast on cable television in the 1980s – which is considered an early forerunner of online newspapers. Suzanne also has taught journalism at several colleges locally: first at Mundelein/Loyola, then at Columbia College, and more recently as an adjunct professor in the Medill School of Journalism’s undergraduate program at Northwestern University. She is a Medill alumna, having received her MSJ from the school in 1981. Her undergraduate degree is from Mundelein/Loyola, Chicago. A Chicago native, she lives in Evanston with husband, Tom, a special-education teacher, and her children, Christopher and Kevin, who are college students. Her oldest son, Brendan, is a crisis therapist with the social-service agency Pillars.
E-mail Suzanne

Amy Bernstein - Co-Secretary
Amy Bernstein is a senior editor at a healthcare custom publishing company, functioning as editor-in-chief of a number of consumer health publications. She also pursues freelance travel/arts/lifestyle writing. Prior to her move to healthcare, she was editor-in-chief and features editor for regional travel and lifestyle magazines covering the Southwest and Southeast. Amy chairs AWJ's program committee and also volunteers as a mentor in the Young Critics Circle program. Amy chairs the Program committee.
E-mail Amy






Tina Sfondeles - Co-Secretary
Tina is a full-time reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times Media Wire, but her work also appears in print for the Sun-Times. She is a former newswriter at WBBM-AM, where she brushed up on her breaking news skills in preparation for the work she's now doing at the Sun-Times. She is currently working on a collection of short stories, David Sedaris-style, about her family and fairly ethnic upbringing. She got sucked into journalism in the sixth grade and continued that passion into college, where she was the features editor of her college paper. She holds a B.A. in Communication and International Studies from Loyola University Chicago and an M.A. in Public Affairs Journalism from Columbia College Chicago. She is also an avid Twitter and social media fan and has way too much knowledge of which Chicago Police District to call when bad things happen. Not only does she work closely with Amy Bernstein as co-secretary, but Tina also serves as the program committee vice-chair.
E-mail Tina

Kim Mance - Member-at-Large
Kim is a travel writer, editor and new media broadcast personality based in Chicago. Kim hosts the lively web travel series Galavanting, is editor-in-chief of the online women's travel magazine, GoGalavanting.com, and writes about travel for outlets like Marie Claire's Travel Diaries, Indie Travel Podcast magazine and the Huffington Post. She is currently writing the first Insiders' Guide to Chicago for Globe Pequot Press. Her writing has also been featured in other places including AlterNet, Babble and the Women's Policy Journal of Harvard. She has appeared as a panelist on PBS' The McLaughlin Group and is founder of TBEX, a worldwide community of travel bloggers, journalists, writers and travel professionals who meet annually. Kim serves on the AWJ-TV steering committee.
E-mail Kim


Ruhan Memishi - Member-at-Large
Ruhan is a journalist with more than 20 years of experience as a reporter and editor. Ruhan is associate director of university communications at DePaul University, where she writes and edits alumni publications for six different colleges within DePaul. She started her career here in Chicago, working as a staff reporter for the Daily Southtown for several years after graduating from Illinois Wesleyan University with a B.A. in English. Ruhan moved to Washington, D.C., in 1990 to accept a position with Business Publishers where she reported on environmental issues and later became managing editor of all of the company's environmental publications. In 1995, she moved to Akron, Ohio, to become managing editor of Waste News, Crain Communications' newest publication at the time. After covering environmental issues for more than a decade, Ruhan decided to move back home to Chicago and started reporting on the then-booming e-commerce field–first as managing editor of Electronic Commerce World magazine and then as senior editor for Internet World, a 250,000-circulation semi-monthly magazine published by Penton Media. When she's not writing, reading or tweeting, she's probably knitting. She also enjoys blogging, photography and travel. Ruhan serves on the Board Development and Career Development committees.
E-mail Ruhan

Dawn Raftery - Member-at-Large
Dawn works as a copywriter/editor for Fibre-Craft Materials Corp. At the Niles-based kids' arts and crafts company, she proofreads, fact-checks and writes content for instructions and consumer packaging for mass-market retail; maintains and updates company website blogs, news and events using WordPress; researches packaging regulations in the U.S. and Canada for branded and private label packaging; and creates and distributes press and other promotional materials for trade and consumer media outlets as well as the public. She also blogs and freelances as an editor/writer. Previously, Dawn worked for 10 years for a division of the Sun-Times News Group as group editor in the Hinsdale office, where she directed coverage for multiple print and web publications, launched a Twitter outreach campaign with reporters, led the Editorial Board, supervised up to 13 newsroom employees and wrote a shopping/fashion blog. During her career, Dawn has received many first-place awards on a regional, state and national level for a variety of initiatives, including editorials, reviews, magazine-style features and in-depth news packages. Dawn graduated with a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in Women's Studies from Northern Illinois University. She belongs to the Asian American Journalists Association and Chicago Women in Publishing. In her leisure time, Dawn enjoys watching her latest Netflix rental or old "Xena" episodes, writing poetry and fiction, discussing pop culture and playing with her Blackberry. Dawn serves as AWJ's Career Development Committee chair and Web/Communications Committee vice chair, as well as a mentor for Young Critics Circle program, the collaboration between AWJ and Goodman Theatre.
E-mail Dawn

*These board members' terms continue through the end of 2010.
The other board members' terms continue through the end of 2011.
AWJ-Chicago's board members are elected to two-year terms.

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Key Volunteers

Keidra Chaney
Keidra is Emerging Media Specialist at DePaul University. After a brief stint in trade magazine publishing at Midwest Real Estate News and Fire Chief magazines, she moved into independent and online media and hasn't looked back. She was an editor at award-winning Clamor, which ceased publication in 2006 and is a former columnist and editor at Chicago-based progressive publication Third Coast Press, which was reborn as web-based publication Chicago 6 Corners in 2007, Her music, film and book reviews frequently appear in ALARM Magazine and Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, among other publications. She has spoken about issues of blogging, social networking, user-generated content and fan culture at MIT and University of Michigan and for Publicity Club of Chicago, Girl Scouts of Chicago and other organizations. She is the co-moderator of the AWJ listserv and the moderatior of the AWJ's Facebook group. www.thelearnedfangirl.com is but one of her online homes. When she's not writing, she's playing bass guitar.
E-mail Keidra

Dr. Barbara K. Iverson
Barbara has been blogging since 1999. She teaches, writes and speaks about blogging, digital technology, and online media publication at Columbia College Chicago and around the world. In addition to AWJ, Barbara belongs to the Media Bloggers Association (MBA,) the Online News Association (ONA,) investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and is an advisor to Student Satellite Chapter of Chicago Headline Club and member of CHC and SPJ. Iverson has written for magazines and been a reporter for Ohmynews.com. Iverson's innovative use of electronic technology in teaching has been recognized by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS,) the Lilly Endowment, Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) and J-Lab & John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. She and Suzanne McBride currently have a J-Lab grant to develop an online community around citizen journalism in Chicago. Barbara returned recently from teaching at DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology) in Ireland where she was part of an academic exchange program. Before arriving in Journalism, Iverson produced the first webcast from an American museum in 1998, featuring an interactive exhibit at the MCA by Miroslaw Rogala and an interactive CD-ROM about the Tuskegee Airmen in 1994. In her formative years, Barb was a teacher for the Chicago Public Schools and subsequently elected to serve as a community member of the John Palmer LSC. She received her B.Ed. in English, M.Ed. in Evaluation Research and Program Design and Ph.D. in Public Policy Analysis from University of Illinois-Chicago.
E-mail Barbara

Meg Tebo
Margaret Graham Tebo (“Meg”) teaches media ethics and law and other journalism courses at Columbia College Chicago. She is also a practicing attorney and freelance journalist. Until August 2007 she was a senior writer at the ABA Journal, the flagship magazine of the American Bar Association. She has written for the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Parade magazine, among other publications. She is a past president of the Chicago Headline Club and an advisor to the Columbia student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. She is currently under contract for a book on understanding the legal system for journalists, which will be published by Marion Street Press.

Rene Edde
Rene is an award-winning photojournalist currently shooting for The Doings, a weekly newspaper chain owned by the Sun-Times News Group. Rene found photojournalism when studying commercial photography at the Art Institute of Atlanta. Her desire for a more elaborate education in photojournalism led her to Columbia College Chicago where she followed a self-designed course of study that allowed her to especially concentrate on the journalism part of photojournalism. She has worked on stories when in India and Nepal and looks forward to getting back. Rene was named one of the 2006 AWJ-Chicago Scholars. She recently joined PICTURE THIS Projects to explore using the power of photography to promote social change and understanding. She is also working on finding new ways to use audio, video and the web to present strong community-focused stories.

Mary Galligan - Scholars Program
Mary is a freelance writer and editor. She also works part-time as a journalism instructor in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She is a former editorial writer for the Chicago Sun-Times and a former reporter for U.S. News & World Report magazine. Mary worked in public relations for state government and the University of Illinois. Mary is one of the founding members of AWJ-Chicago. She has a master's degree from Sangamon State University (now the University of Illinois at Springfield) in public affairs reporting.
E-mail Mary or reach her via phone at (773)929-6655 (h)/(773) 213-9343 (c)






Natalie Y. Moore
Natalie is a reporter for Chicago Public Radio’s south-side bureau. Prior to joining the Chicago Public Radio staff in May 2007, Natalie was a city hall reporter for the Detroit News. She has also been an education reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and a reporter for the Associated Press in Jerusalem. She is an adjunct instructor at Columbia College. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Chicago Reporter, Bitch, HOUR Detroit, Black Enterprise, npr.org and In These Times. She is a graduate of Howard University and has a master’s from Northwestern University ’s Medill School of Journalism. She is co-author of "Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation."

Anitra Rowe Schulte
Anitra Rowe Schulte joined Chicago area public relations boutique Henson Consulting in fall 2009. Previously, Anitra was a public relations specialist at Chicago Public Schools. From 2007 to 2009, Anitra booked interviews, wrote speeches and managed press conferences for then-CEO and now U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Anitra also developed media plans for CPS and its corporate and nonprofit partners, responded to daily media queries and crisis situations, and pitched and placed stories with top national and local television, print, radio and online media. From 2004 to 2007, Anitra was a reporter for the Sun-Times News Group and Pioneer Press, covering crime, politics, development and features, and contributing magazine-style pieces for company-wide publication. As a reporter for The Kansas City Star from 2002 to 2004, Anitra won two first-place Heart of America Awards (SPJ) for feature and profile writing. She also served as an editorial intern for Wedding and Home Magazine in London, England, in 2001. Anitra graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2002.


Past Officers and Board Members

2009
Karen Kring - President
Suzanne Hanney - Vice President for Print
Cheryl Corley - Vice President for Broadcast
Dr. Barbara K. Iverson - Vice President for New Media
Mindy Arbaugh - Treasurer
Amy Bernstein - Secretary
Suzanne Cosgrove - Member-at-Large
Keidra Chaney - Member-at-Large
Rene Edde - Member-at-Large
Natalie Y. Moore - Member-at-Large
Meg Tebo - Member-at-Large

2008
Karen Kring - President
Suzanne Hanney - Vice President for Print
Cheryl Corley - Vice President for Broadcast
Dr. Barbara K. Iverson - Vice President for New Media
Mindy Arbaugh - Treasurer
Anitra Rowe - Secretary
Suzanne Cosgrove - Member-at-Large
Sylvia Ewing/Amy Bernstein - Member-at-Large
Keidra Chaney - Member-at-Large
Dee Daniels - Member-at-Large
Rene Edde - Member-at-Large
Natalie Y. Moore - Member-at-Large
Meg Tebo - Member-at-Large

2007
Mary Galligan - President
Suzanne Hanney - Vice President for Print
Cheryl Corley - Vice President for Broadcast
Dr. Barbara K. Iverson - Vice President for New Media
Mindy Arbaugh - Co-Secretary
Anitra Rowe - Co-Secretary
Kelly Kleiman - Treasurer
Michael Deas - Member-at-Large
Sylvia Ewing - Member-at-Large
Cristi Kempf - Member-at-Large
Karen Kring - Member-at-Large
Natalie Y. Moore - Member-at-Large
Diantha Parker - Member-at-Large

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This page is edited by Karen Kring.