Category: Featured Class Notes

Kristin Thorne (MSJ05) won an Emmy Award for her True-crime series, Missing, which airs on Hulu and across all ABC7NY platforms. Kristin is an investigative reporter with WABC Channel 7 Eyewitness News in New York.

Marissa Mitchell won the regional Emmy for “Best Host” from the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Mitchell is an anchor/host for FOX 5 Morning and “Good Day DC.” This Fall, Mitchell was also selected to launch and serve as the lead host of the station’s new daytime talk and lifestyle show, “LION Lunch Hour.”

After leading marketing functions in several global consumer electronics companies for the past few years, Danny co-founded Nisplay, a portable tennis ball machine, aiming to lower the barrier for people to learn how to play tennis.

James and the team behind FRONTLINE’s Un(re)solved won a 2022 News and Documentary Emmy Award for Best Interactive Media: Innovation. The multiplatform investigation also earned a National Edward R. Murrow Award and two Online Journalism Awards, including one for Excellence in Audio Digital Storytelling, Limited Series. The project examines the U.S. government’s efforts to investigate dozens of cold case murders that date back to the civil rights era.

Seth Bernstein (BSJ 13, MS IMC 20) is a two-time Northwestern and Medill alum with marketing and communications experience across a variety of industries, including financial services, health care, academia and Major League Baseball. He recently began a new role as a Second Vice President and Client Communications Manager at Northern Trust after managing corporate and executive social media channels for 14 months at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Outside of work, Seth runs his own growing social media brand, @EatWithSeth, creating content that showcases local restaurants – and those he visits while traveling – on both Instagram and TikTok.

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.

Sara was recently promoted to Associate Editor at The New York Times, where she edits stories and recipes for the Food section and New York Times Cooking. She’s been an editor at The Times since 2014.

Amy E. Serino opened Serino Law LLC, an employment law firm focusing on independent investigations of workplace complaints, such as claims of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and other wrongful conduct. Serino is regularly engaged by leadership or counsel for businesses across the country to interview employees and make objective findings of fact regarding workplace complaints. Serino has been a practicing attorney for 23 years.

David Plazas leads The Tennessean’s Opinion and Engagement team, which won the Online News Association’s international award for Excellence in Newsletters Portfolio for the Black Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters. Plazas also curates the Latino TN Voices newsletter. According to the announcement on Sept. 23: “The judges were thrilled to see the winning organization launch newsletters to cover and engage with critical communities in the area.” This is part of an effort that began in 2020 to change the way The Tennessean covers communities of color from telling stories about them to telling stories for, with and by them. This has resulted in a substantial increase of guest opinion columns and podcast interviews as well as a closed Facebook group and live Storytellers events at noted venues, the National Museum of African American Music and Plaza Mariachi.

Craig Nakano was named the Los Angeles Times’ assistant managing editor for arts and entertainment. Previously he was deputy entertainment editor and, before that, arts editor. He lives in Long Beach, CA, with his husband, Todd Henneman (Medill ’93), and their son, Gus.