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2010s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Marissa Mitchell (MSJ10)

Marissa Mitchell moves to the nation’s capital as an anchor/host for “FOX 5 Morning” and “Good Day DC” at WTTG-TV. Most recently, Mitchell worked as an anchor/reporter at WAGA-TV in Atlanta where she received a 2020 Emmy nomination for specialty reporting.

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1970s Class Notes

Barry Petersen (BSJ70, MSJ72)

Barry Petersen was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the St. Louis Press Club, presented by Club President William Greenblatt. The award recognized Petersen’s more than four decades of work as a CBS News Correspondent, especially his story about his wife, Jan Petersen, and her struggle with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease that aired on the program CBS Sunday Morning. Petersen also wrote “Jan’s Story: Love Lost to the Long Goodbye of Alzheimer’s”. Jan succumbed to the disease in 2013.

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2000s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Dani Friedland (MSJ10)

Dani Friedland is the new Director of Marketing Communications for The American Institute of Steel Construction.

She and her team are responsible for telling the story of America’s remarkable structural steel industry and the passionate people who work in the fields of architecture, engineering, steel fabrication, and construction. Although their expertise varies, these people have one thing in common: They will leave a legacy in steel.

AISC is a nonpartisan not-for-profit trade institute and industry association, founded in 1921, that strives to increase the market share of domestically fabricated structural steel.

Friedland joined AISC last year after nine years in B2B magazine publishing, where she held editorial, new media, and editorial tech roles. She briefly returned to Medill as an adjunct lecturer in 2018 and had an absolute blast working with the next generation of dedicated journalists.

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1990s Class Notes

Leonard Greenberger (MSJ90)

Leonard joined Glassboro, N.J.-based AKCG Public Relations Partners as Senior Counselor and head of the firm’s new Washington, D.C. office.

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2020s Class Notes Featured Class Notes Uncategorized

Colin Boyle (BSJ20, MSJ20)

After freelancing for Block Club Chicago while completing his Master’s Degree at Medill, Colin Boyle accepted a full-time position with the non-profit, subscription-based news outlet at the end of November 2020.

“I can’t wait to get back to serving my hometown through visual reporting and connecting with my neighbors across Chicago,” Boyle said. Boyle, a life-long Chicagoan, completed his undergraduate studies in journalism and Spanish at Medill and received an MSJ in video & broadcast journalism.

Throughout his time at Northwestern, Boyle served as photo editor for The Daily Northwestern for six consecutive quarters, co-writing a months-long investigative piece about educational and racial disparities in Evanston’s Fifth Ward. He has interned with The Chicago Sun-Times, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and most recently at IndyStar as a Pulliam Fellow. In 2019, Boyle completed his journalism residency at Infobae in Buenos Aires, Argentina, covering social unrest and daily news as a photojournalist.

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2010s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Gillian White (MSJ12)

Gillian B. White, a Managing Editor of The Atlantic, will join The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Board of Directors, Inquirer Publisher and CEO Elizabeth H. Hughes announced Tuesday. White will join The Inquirer Board effective immediately.

White started at The Atlantic in 2014, where she served in various roles including reporter, senior associate editor, senior editor, and deputy editor. As a current Managing Editor, White leads the Special Projects division, which pursues the publication’s most ambitious journalism across a range of platforms, including print, digital, audio, live events, and product. The Special Projects division also works across the company to identify opportunities to maximize financial support for The Atlantic’s journalism and to grow the publication’s audience and reach.

Prior to joining The Atlantic, White was an editor at the personal finance magazine Kiplinger and an analyst in the financial sector. White’s work has also appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Bloomberg, and MarketWatch.

“We are thrilled to welcome Gillian to The Philadelphia Inquirer Board of Directors. Among her many skills as a journalist, she understands the importance of reaching expanded audiences with news in ways they want it —  on their phones and through live experiences, for example,” said Josh Kopelman, Chairman of The Inquirer’s Board of Directors.

“The Inquirer was one of my daily sources of news growing up, and it helped inspire me to pursue a career in journalism. That is why I am particularly proud to join the board of one of the most important news organizations in a city I love,” White said.

White holds a BA in economics and political science from Columbia University and a Medill MSJ.

On the Board, White will join Hughes along with Josh Kopelman (Chairman), Lisa Kabnick (Vice Chair), Stephen J. Harmelin, S. Mitra Kalita, Keith Leaphart, Sunny Rao, Brian Tierney, Neil Vogel, and Richard Worley.

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2010s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Jenna Bourne (BSJ11)

Jenna Bourne won two 2020 Suncoast Regional Emmy Awards, in the categories of “Talent – News – Specialty Assignment” and “Politics/Government – News.” This marks the second year in a row she’s won an Emmy in the “Politics/Government – News” category. Jenna is an investigative reporter at 10 Tampa Bay. She hosts, produces, shoots and edits investigative series “What’s Brewing?” on YouTube channel The Deeper Dive.

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1990s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Clara Morris (MSJ94)

The coronavirus crisis gets personal with the recently completed COVID-19 Writers Project (C19WP), a multimedia archive by Medill graduate Clara Zawadi Morris.

The COVID-19 Writers Project is a nod to the Federal Writers Project (FWP) conceived by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) that produced the Slave Narrative Collection. These first-person narratives are archived in the U.S. Library of Congress and are considered some of the most important historical records to date.

Similarly, C19WP is a hyperlocal examination of the pandemic through first-person narratives (10 videos, and 10 written and photos essays) from inside one of the virus’s early hotspots – Brooklyn, NYC. The COVID-19 Writers project was supported by The National Geographic Society’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists, ThePulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and The American Medical Association. From the formerly incarcerated, to the struggling college student to the emergency room doctor, these first-person narratives offer an inside view of the pandemic’s diverse impact on America’s everyday citizens, ultimately helping to answer: What is the crisis telling us about who we are as a society today?

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1990s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Gina Mehmert (BSJ93)

A career marketing leader, Gina Mehmert recently joined the team at Kheiron Medical – a tech startup committed to transforming cancer diagnostics through the power of deep learning – as Vice President of Global Commercial Marketing.

Gina will lead the global launch of the company’s first commercially available product, Mia – a breakthrough AI-enabled solution for breast screening that gives every woman, everywhere a better fighting chance against breast cancer.

“The Kheiron team is filled with incredibly smart, talented, driven people,” Gina said. “The culture here is one of passion and collaboration – and I’m thrilled to bring my marketing superpowers to the team.”

Prior to joining Kheiron, Gina held a variety of senior marketing positions with brand leaders such as GE Healthcare, HP, and Poly. After Medill she received her MBA from the University of Bristol in the U.K.

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1990s Class Notes

Jennifer Mathieu Blessington (BSJ98)

Jennifer Mathieu Blessington writing under the name Jennifer Mathieu, recently visited the set of the MOXIE movie, directed for Netflix by Amy Poehler. The movie is based on Mathieu’s 2017 young adult novel of the same name, published by Roaring Brook Press. Moxie is the fourth of Mathieu’s five young adult novels. Her most recent book, The Liars of Mariposa Island, published in September 2019. Mathieu lives in Houston with her husband and son and continues to work as a high school English teacher in addition to writing novels. The film’s release date is not yet known. Photo: Blessington with Amy Poehler.