Engagement Journalism Final Presentations 2022
Celebrating all our students learned over the course of the program
On December 14 at 5:30pm, please join engagement journalism students as they share the results from the last year and a half of work listening to communities and coming up with creative ways to meet their information needs. The class of 2022 has worked with Afghan immigrants, people suffering from long Covid, and New York City runners, among others. Let’s celebrate their hard work and get some great ideas on how to make journalism more equitable and inclusive!
PLEASE RSVP at this link to join us at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in room 308 so we will know how many people to expect. We will also be streaming!
Meet the class, in the order they will present!
Angrej Singh: Afghan refugees who came to the U.S. after Aug. 15, 2021
Angrej hopes to create a chatbot that helps the refugees with translation needs, find nearby food places, and curate relevant articles from free news organizations.
Angrej recently joined the audience team at Axios. He has previously worked on the editorial team at Tech Policy Press, an audience producer at Hearst, and as a reporter for the New York Daily News. Singh has also assisted THE CITY with its Open Newsroom project. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College in media studies with a concentration in journalism.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/angrejjj E: angrejs444@gmail.com
Aina Izham: Two Bridges Neighborhood in New York City
Aina has uncovered information gaps within the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. She is currently working on making a postcard guide for the neighborhood, helping people navigate the increasingly costly grocery stores that have been on the rise.
Aina is an engagement and multimedia journalist who strives to find new and creative ways to work with communities, especially on the Internet. She has worked as an online engagement intern at the Solutions Journalism Network, where she produced a Twitter Newsletter called the Snack Table. She hopes to take these skills to the next level by working in audience roles at an innovative newsroom.
Email: ainasarafina@gmail.com
Twitter: @ainaateyou
LinkedIn: Aina Izham
Sarah Luft: New Yorkers living with long COVID
As an engagement journalist, Sarah’s goal is to provide vetted, accessible information that centers the voices, needs, and experiences of people living with long COVID.
Sarah is a digital media and community engagement strategist. She manages brand voice at the global nonprofit SeriousFun Children’s Network. Sarah is currently helping build a database of science writers at The Open Notebook and engaging New Yorkers with long COVID through THE CITY’s Missing Them project. Ever curious about the stories that shape us, Sarah loves working at the intersections of language, culture, ecology, and health.
@sarahaluft on Twitter and Instagram
Julia Capizzi: Purity Culture Deconstruction Community
With her practicum newsletter Unpure, Julia hopes to help deconstructors find and connect with one another through in-person and online events, support groups, and more.
As an engagement journalist, Julia is passionate about collaborating with communities to tailor news resources and products directly to their information needs. She has extensive marketing and social media management experience, and plans to use her engagement, social media and audience development skills to help make news and media more accessible.
@julia_capizzi on Twitter and Instagram
Hafeezat Bishi: Street Vendors in New York City
By using her multimedia skills as a journalist, Hafeezat has been amplifying street vendors’ voices and the issues that matter to them.
Hafeezat is a social media and audience engagement professional with an extensive background in content creation and social media management for non-profit organizations. Her goal is to use her creativity and media to amplify marginalized voices.
You can reach out to her via email hafeezatb@gmail.com or via social media @_hafeezat on Instagram and Twitter.
Amanda Kari McHugh: Adoptees and birth mothers looking to shift the public narrative around adoption.
Through her work as an engagement journalist, Amanda hopes to help complicate the narrative around adoption by providing platforms where more adoptees and birth mothers can have their voices heard in a way that feels safe and authentic.
Amanda is a multimedia reporter with a background in theater, documentary filmmaking and photography. Her documentary work has been recognized by Sundance, Canon and Female Filmmakers, and she’s been published in The Hollywood Reporter, Vice, Time Out New York, Dancing Astronaut and more. During her time at Newmark, she has expanded into the world of audio, interning at StoryCorps and reporting on stories such as post-lockdown dating in NYC and a Hasidic Brooklyn tour through Airbnb Experiences.
amanda.mchugh38@journalism.cuny.edu
Izania Gonzalez: Community Supported Agriculture/Food Deserts in Harlem
A New York native, Izania has her bachelor’s degree from RPI in sustainability studies. She was an Audience Engagement Intern at Adirondack Explorer this summer.
izania.gonzalez43@journalism.cuny.edu
Julian Roberts-Grmela: NYC students in K-12 public schools
With his new student-powered newsletter and journalism club called Report Card, Julian aims to help equip students with the training, resources and guidance they need to hold their school system accountable with the power of journalism.
Julian is an independent reporter and a former middle school educator. During his time at the Newmark J-School, Julian covered New York City’s education system with an underlying goal of uplifting student voices. His reporting has been published in City Limits, Hell Gate, Gothamist, The74 and more. Julian started Report Card because he realized the best way to get more student perspectives in the news is to allow students to make the news.
Email: juliangrmela@gmail.com
Twitter: @GrmelaJulian
Kellen Bulger: The New York City Running Community
In hosting his second community run this year, Kellen is building upon published articles, community callouts and personal experience with New York runners by asking tough questions around accessibility, safety, diversity and more.
Kellen Bulger is an engagement journalist, reporter and running expert originally from the Pacific Northwest. His work has appeared in LIVESTRONG.com and Brooklyn Magazine, among others. Kellen’s reporting and engagement work centers on collaborating with the communities he writes about. His reporting on Amazon’s negative environmental impact in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, and how it impacts the local runners shows his desire to stretch the limits of topics he’s covering. Kellen graduates with his Master’s in Engagement Journalism this December and will embark on a new position as an Audience Journalist at The Dallas Morning News, and hopes to connect with the local community and continue publishing work that impacts and improves their quality of life.
LinkedIn, @spopadraic on Instagram and Twitter
Christine Zirneklis: New Yorkers Impacted By Flooding
With NYC Flood Guide: A Scavenger Hunt, Christine’s aim is to work with the community to compile disparate resources and projects into an approachable guide to help more New Yorkers understand their changing flood risk and what they can do about it.
Christine is an engagement journalist who believes in people-powered journalism to move towards information equity. She currently leads collaborations and engagement with PBS Newshour Student Reporting Labs, a nationwide youth journalism program. Christine previously worked with the National Geographic Society and PBS SoCal, and spent six months on the road with Roadtrip Nation.
CAZZIRNEKLIS@gmail.com or @CAZZIRNEKLIS on Twitter.
