Media Re-engineered Retro Report Team Bios
In a time of booming innovation, new media companies appear everyday with the goal of changing industries. Retro Report is a non-profit media company which focuses on creating and publishing mini-documentaries. One of their goals is to provide easy access to footage for future news publications on varying topics. To achieve this goal, Retro Report has enlisted the help of six USC students in the Annenberg course, ASCJ 420: Media Re-engineered.


Read more about these student below:
Anika Jain:
Anika is a master’s student in her last semester studying Computer Science and specializing in data science at USC. Some of the areas she studies within data science include: data mining, machine learning, and natural language processing. Some of Anika’s past projects relating to her studies include: morphological detection for galaxy images, sentiment analysis of Amazon reviews, and generation of a movie recommendation system. While these projects are very technical, Anika has great experience in working and leading teams on data-related projects. For two years, she led a team of four in software development where she assigned tasks, skills, and guided her team to produce a final outcome. Anika then presented the outcome to her team’s client. She is unafraid of pitching different solutions if it meets the client’s needs. At her previous school, Anika also led a student-run organization aimed to bring in recruiters. She would contact and work with recruiters directly to help connect other students with them. On her off time, Anika enjoys jazz dance and used to take jazz dance classes.
Ariana Kim:
Ariana is a junior majoring in Communication with a Minor in Technology Commercialization at USC. She is from Honolulu, Hawaii and has also lived in Seoul, Rome, and Havana. She has experience in marketing and strategy consulting for clients such as Tiffany & Co, The Four Seasons, and Hakkasan Group. Currently, Ariana interns at NBCUniversal, DOAP Kitchens, and the USC Admissions Office. Her soft skills include content strategy, product thinking, and creative problem solving. Her hard skills include Google Analytics, UI/UX design, and Illustrator. In her free time, Ariana enjoys yoga, hiking, and baking.
Elle Viotto:
Elle is a junior double majoring in Communication and Political Science at USC. She is experienced in project management through her time as the president of the Unruh associates. Her soft skills include leading groups, delegating tasks, and event management/planning. Her hard skills include writing, she is fluent in Italian and Spanish. She is also proficient in Adobe and public speaking. She has strong researching skills and is also familiar with interpersonal communication. Elle aspires to be a Lawyer in the near future. She also spent the first ten years of her life in Italy.
Logan Smith:
Logan is a junior Communication Major with Theatre and Performance Science Minors at USC. A fun fact about him is that he is addicted to the television show Survivor — a show with lots of strategy and socio-politics. He has plenty of experience public speaking and presentation. Logan is good at networking with people, organizing events and optimizing the flow of work. He has extensive experience in leading teams. Logan has excellent writing and extempore speaking skills. He has worked on content creation and is pursuing shootings of videos for the content. He is strong at editing and photoshop with Adobe. Some of his amazing achievements include being the Vice President of Blue Fever Ambassadors — a female centered media start-up. Additionally, Logan is a policy coordinator on a theater board, so he works on legal contracts for the board members at the campus level.
Menghan:
Menghan currently is a graduate student in Computer Science at USC. She completed directed research for analyzing user reviews using topic modeling and text classification in Natural Language Processing during the summer this year. She was a leader and front-end developer in a 5-person group responsible for a full stack student management project during the internship. She is familiar with web technologies, database, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, Android development, and video editing. Also, she has strong interest in data analysis and visualization with journalism. Now Menghan is working on combining computer science with culture differences, human behaviors, and social problems.
Nathan Mahgerefteh:
Nathan is a junior from Los Angeles studying business administration at USC. Some of his background is in managing construction sites and job sites with Ardmore Century, as well as in social media management through his entrepreneurial efforts in grassroots social media promotion. On campus, he’s an active member of TAMID, an organization that provides students at the USC Marshall School Business real-world, hands-on experience. To this project, he brings hard skills in writing, social media management, promotion, and content creation, as well as soft skills in interpersonal communication and leadership. For fun, Nathan enjoys racing cars (on a closed track) and playing basketball, and he aims to be a property developer after graduating from USC.
Over the course of the 16-week semester, these students will be working closely with Retro Report to help achieve their goal. ASCJ 420: Media Re-engineered provides students in a variety of disciplines the chance to put their skills to test in a collaborative working environment in order to create a media product or solution.

