Leslie Krohn was named Executive Vice President and Chief Brand and Communications Officer at The Joint Commission Enterprise, a global driver of quality improvement and patient safety in healthcare, in Oakbrook Terrace, IL. She was previously Chief Communications Officer at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, IL.
Alf Siewers (now Father Paul), MSJ ’82, was ordained to the priesthood in August 2023, in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. He also continues to be Associate Professor of English Literary Studies at Bucknell University in Lewisburg PA, where he lives with his family. He formerly was Urban Affairs Writer at the Chicago Sun-Times.
WWL-TV Evening Anchor & Investigative Reporter Katie Moore was honored with a crystal pillar at the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences national News & Documentary Awards in September 2023 in the Outstanding Regional Report: Investigative Reporting category. Moore’s national honor was for a series of investigative reports she did on the horrific conditions more than 800 nursing home residents endured during Hurricane Ida and the business dealings of the nursing homes’ owner. Moore has received 8 regional Emmy Awards throughout her TV News career.
Benoit Denizet-Lewis, an associate professor at Emerson College and a longtime writer with The New York Times Magazine, received a Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The award will allow Denizet-Lewis to take a one-year leave from Emerson to complete his fourth book, “We Don’t Know You Anymore,” about transformation and identity change in turbulent times. The book will be published by William Morrow in the USA and Penguin Press in the UK.
Brett Kurland was named an assistant dean at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication in December 2021.
As assistant dean, Kurland oversees the school’s 11 capstone professional immersion programs, Cronkite’s signature faculty-led, student-powered experiences in which students learn by doing. These hands-on experiences include daily news and sports operations, a strategic communications agency, a content creation studio, and an innovation and entrepreneurship lab. Kurland also leads training and onboarding for faculty associates, helping them learn everything from school policies to best practices in teaching.
He also helps lead the Cronkite School’s bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in sports journalism, including oversight and management of sports journalism curriculum, course design, hiring, training, and supervising faculty, and managing student award submissions.
Kurland, a professor of practice at Cronkite since 2014, is the lead instructor for Multimedia Journalism Skills, a foundational, intensive first-semester class for all Cronkite graduate students pursuing master’s degrees in mass communication, master’s degrees in investigative journalism and master’s degrees in sports journalism in which students learn how to write, capture and produce photo, video, audio, social, and web content.
Vidya Krishnamurthy was named Chief Communications Officer and Senior Adviser to the President at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a private charitable foundation in Menlo Park, CA. She was previously Director of Communications at the same organization, and before that, was the first-ever Communications Director at the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, where she served for nearly a decade.
Renee Cordes, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, received a first place award in the 2022 New England Better Newspaper Competition for racial, ethnic or gender issue coverage by a specialty publication. The award, from the New England Newspaper & Press Association, was for a feature article about female entrepreneurs overcoming obstacles to raise capital. Cordes is a senior writer at Mainebiz.
Linda (Lachin) Saltzman is President of Beth El Synagogue in Omaha, NE. She is an award-winning baker and advocate for homeless animals. Linda and her husband of 24 years, Kevin, have two college-aged children.
Marc Schreiber was named president of the St. Louis Sports Commission. Schreiber has been with the organization since 1998. He also serves as the executive producer and co-creator of the Musial Awards, which celebrate the year’s greatest moments of sportsmanship and those in sports who embody class and character. The Musial Awards are televised nationally on CBS.
Chris Gray Faust has been promoted to Executive Editor, US of Cruise Critic. The website, part of TripAdvisor, remains the world’s largest cruise news and information site, even after the pandemic shut down the cruise industry for 15 months, Gray Faust, an award-winning travel writer and speaker, has been working at Cruise Critic for nine years. She lives in Yardley, PA with her husband, Don Faust. Follow her on social media @ChrisGrayFaust.