Advisory Board

Sue Cross (Advisory Board Chair)
Samuel Belilty
Jane Brody
E. Richard Brown
Sandy Close
Robert J. Davis
Suzie Xuyen Dong-Matsuda
Felix Gutiérrez
Joe R. Howry
Richard J. Jackson
Francine R. Kaufman
Cynthia (Cinny) Kennard
Tim Lau
Paula Madison
Glenn Melnick, Ph.D.
Hugo Morales
Ivan Oransky
Charles Ornstein
Pedro Rojas
Brian D. Smedley

Ex-officio members: 
Geneva Overholser
Amanda Rounsaville
Ernest J. Wilson III



Program Staff

Director – Michelle Levander


Program Consultants

Jane E. Allen
Judy Christie
Martha Shirk

ADVISORY BOARD

Sue Cross (Advisory Board Chair)

Sue A. Cross is vice president of online U.S., Global Newspaper Markets at The Associated Press. Ms. Cross directs AP strategy, product development, business operations and online services for newspaper websites that collectively reach 55 million people a month. In 2004-2005, Ms. Cross served as AP’s western regional vice president and led national expansion of AP’s services for the growing ethnic media market. She was named vice president after serving for five years as AP’s bureau chief for California and Nevada. As chief, she directed AP coverage of the 2000 Alaska Airlines plane crash and the California energy crisis, led expansion of AP’s West Coast coverage of the entertainment industry and created a multimedia newsroom in AP’s Los Angeles bureau, the largest state bureau operation in the country. She previously was bureau chief in Phoenix and assistant bureau chief in Chicago. Ms. Cross also is in charge of developing AP’s national and international services to serve foreign-language and ethnic newspapers in the United States. She is active in numerous journalism organizations, including the Journalism and Women Symposium, the International Women’s Media Foundation, the Online News Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Samuel Belilty

Samuel Belilty has been news director of KWEX TV, Univision 41, in San Antonio since August 2007. Before that, he spent almost nine years at KFTV Univisión 21 in Fresno, including five as news director. Under his leadership, KFTV received five Emmy nominations and the Edward Murrow Award for Best Regional Newscast in 2007.  Before moving to Fresno in 1999, Mr. Belilty was a correspondent in Miami for one year for Radio Caracas Television (RCTV). A native of Venezuela, he held a variety of positions with RCTV in Caracas, beginning in 1990. His work for special reports show, "48 Horas," included reporting from Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Haiti, Cuba, the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East. In Fresno, he served as board governor of the Northern California chapter of the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences.

Jane Brody

Jane Brody has written the “Personal Health” column for The New York Times since 1976.  Her widely read and quoted column appears every Tuesday in the Science Times section and more than 100 other newspapers. Ms. Brody joined the Times in 1965 as a full-time specialist in medicine and biology.  She has received numerous awards for journalistic excellence, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Princeton University in 1987. Her books include the best sellers Jane Brody's Nutrition Book and Jane Brody's Good Food Book. Her newest book, Jane Brody's Guide to the Great Beyond, is scheduled for publication in January 2009.

E. Richard Brown

E. Richard Brown, Ph.D. is the founder and director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and a professor at the UCLA School of Public Health. Prof. Brown has studied and written extensively on disadvantaged populations' access to health care. His studies of health insurance coverage, the uninsured and eligibility for public programs have been used by California's governors, legislators and advocates in crafting health insurance legislation and programs. Prof. Brown is the principal investigator for the California Health Interview Survey, one of the nation's largest ongoing health surveys. He also has served as a full-time senior consultant to the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform, as health policy adviser to two members of the United States Senate and on several National Academy of Science study committees. He is a past president of the American Public Health Association.

Sandy Close

Sandy Close is the founder and executive director of New America Media, a San Francisco-based network of more than 400 ethnic news organizations that collaborate on a weekly TV show, an awards program and an inter-ethnic media exchange and website. Ms. Close received a bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley in 1964 before moving to Hong Kong, where she worked as the China editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review. In 1974, she became executive director of the Bay Area Institute/Pacific News Service, which she helped develop into one of the most diverse sources of literary voices in the U.S. news media. In 1991, she founded YO! (Youth Outlook), a collaboration of writers and young people, and in 1996 she co-founded "The Beat Within," a weekly newsletter of writing and art by incarcerated youths  Ms. Close received a MacArthur Foundation "genius award" in 1995 for her work in communications. In 1997, a film she co-produced – "Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brian" – won the Academy Award for best short documentary.

Robert J. Davis

Robert J. Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H., has 20 years’ experience as a health and medical journalist. Currently, he serves as president and editor-in-chief of Everwell, a company that creates and distributes consumer health video content. Previously, he was executive producer of the award-winning PBS series "HealthWeek," executive editor for Time Life Medical, and a producer for CNN medical news. He has also served as public editor for WebMD and as a contributing columnist for The Wall Street Journal, where his regular feature, called “Aches & Claims,” dissected the science behind claims for various health-related products and services. Professor Davis teaches at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and is the author of a book, The Healthy Skeptic: Cutting Through the Hype About Your Health, which will be published by the University of California Press in spring 2008.  He earned a doctorate in health policy from Brandeis University, where he was a Pew Foundation Fellow. He also holds a master’s degree in public health from Emory and an undergraduate degree in politics from Princeton University.

Suzie Xuyen Dong-Matsuda

Suzie Xuyen Dong-Matsuda, M.S.W., is mental health services chief for the Orange County Health Care Agency, where she has worked for 13 years. She also has a private psychotherapy practice. In 2004, she was selected as one of the top 30 Vietnamese Americans to Watch by the Orange County Register. She has spoken on mental health issues as a talk show host and guest on Vietnamese radio and TV and writes occasionally for Vietnamese newspapers and magazines. She has served as a consultant for Orange County Asian Pacific Islanders Community Alliance, Southeast Asian Education Foundation, Children’s Home Society, the Little Tokyo Service Center and Nhan Hoa Medical Clinic. A former president of the Vietnamese Professional Society, she now serves on its advisory board. Ms. Dong-Matsuda holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in clinical social work and administration and is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at The California Graduate Institute.

Felix Gutiérrez

Felix Gutiérrez is a professor of journalism and communication at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and affiliate professor at the Program in American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. An advocate for diversity and inclusiveness, he was the first executive director of the California Chicano News Media Association. Prof. Gutiérrez, who has a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a doctorate in communication from Stanford University, is author or co-author of five books and numerous scholarly articles, most of them on racial diversity and the media. He is co-author of Racism, Sexism, and the Media: The Rise of Class Communication in Multicultural America, which won the 2003 Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Medallion for Excellence in Research about Journalism. He has also been honored by the Asian American Journalists Association, the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the Black College Communication Association, the California Chicano News Media Association, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.

Joe R. Howry

Joe R. Howry is editor and vice president of the Ventura County Star. Before becoming editor in 2004, he was managing editor for 11 years. Under Howry's leadership, the Star won the general excellence award in its circulation category in 2006 and 2007 in the annual California Newspaper Publishers Association competition. The Star also won the general excellence award for its website in the Online Newspaper Association's annual competitions in 2004 and 2007, the only organization to win twice.  Mr. Howry previously served as the managing editor of the Salem, Ore., Statesman-Journal. He worked at the Reno, Nev., Gazette for ten years after getting his start in journalism at the Havre, Mont., Daily News. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Montana.

Richard J. Jackson

Richard J. Jackson, M.D., M.P.H., is the first director of the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan on Feb. 1, 2008. He is an internationally recognized environmental health expert who in recent years has focused his research and advocacy on the links between urban sprawl and human health, An adjunct professor in the Division of Environmental Health Services at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, Dr. Jackson served in 2004 and 2005 as state public health officer at the California Department of Health Services. As director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for nine years, beginning in 1994, Dr. Jackson addressed issues such as cancer, asthma, radiation, pesticide exposure and toxicology, especially lead poisoning in children. From August 2003 to March 2004, Dr. Jackson was senior adviser to CDC Director Julie Gerberding. A pediatrician, Dr. Jackson is a graduate of UC San Francisco’s School of Medicine and has a master’s degree in public health from UC Berkeley. He began his public health career at the CDC as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service.

Francine R. Kaufman

Francine R. Kaufman, M.D., has appointments at the Keck School of Medicine and the Annenberg School of Communications of USC as Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Communications. In addition, she is director of the Comprehensive Childhood Diabetes Center and head of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. She is the author of more than 150 medical articles, as well as Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America – And What We Must Do to Stop It, and collaborated with Discovery Health on a documentary, Diabetes: A Global Epidemic, that premiered in November 2007. A public health advocate who was instrumental in banning the on-campus sale of soda within the Los Angeles Unified School District, Dr. Kaufman is past president of the American Diabetes Association and a recipient of the 2003 Woman of Valor award from the American Diabetes Association for her lifetime achievement in pediatric endocrinology and research.  Dr. Kaufman was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2005.

Cinny (Cinny) Kennard

Cynthia (Cinny) Kennard is managing director and managing editor of NPR West, National Public Radio’s West coast production center.  She is responsible for editorial and operational oversight of NPR West, which has a staff of more than 80 and produces three national radio broadcasts. Ms. Kennard was an assistant professor of journalism at the USC Annenberg School in the late 90s, where she also served as the executive director of Reliable Resources, a $1.5 million Pew Charitable Trust/USC Annenberg project to improve radio and television political coverage.  From 1992 to 1996, she won numerous awards as a CBS News correspondent based in Los Angeles, London and Moscow. She is a co-founder and executive board member of the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Television Journalism and a member of the jury for the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, which recognize excellence in broadcast journalism. Ms Kennard was a member of the reporting team at WFAA-TV in Dallas that received a duPont-Columbia Award in 1992 for coverage of the Persian Gulf War.

Tim Lau

Tim Lau is chief executive officer of Sing Tao Daily on the West Coast, which gives him oversight over the Northern and Southern California editions of the Hong Kong-based newspaper. Under his direction, Sing Tao Daily has become the best selling Chinese-language newspaper in the Bay Area. In April 1996, he spearheaded the company's expansion into radio. Today, its Cantonese and Mandarin programs are rated by Arbitron as the most popular Chinese radio shows in the United States. In October 2003, Mr. Lau was appointed director of Sing Tao Newspapers (Canada 1988) Ltd. Mr. Lau previously was a television producer. He has served on several local boards, including the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco SAFE, Inc., and the Bay Area Chapter of the American Red Cross. He has a master's degree from Ohio University.

Paula Madison

Paula Madison is the executive vice president of diversity for NBC Universal and a company officer for GE.  Ms. Madison, an 18-year NBC veteran, was previously president and general manager of NBC4 (KNBC) in Los Angeles and regional general manager for the NBC/Telemundo television stations in Los )  Angeles (KVEA and KWHY). She was the first African American woman to become general manager at a network-owned station in a major market. Under her watch, KNBC earned numerous industry awards, including local area Emmys and Golden Mike and Regional Edward R. Murrow awards for "Best Newscast" and "Best Investigative Reporting." Before coming to KNBC, Ms. Madison served as station vice president of WNBC, NBC's station in New York. Under her direction, in May 1999, it became the No. 1 television station in New York. Previously, Ms. Madison was the executive news director at KHOU-TV in Houston and the news director at KOTV-TV in Tulsa, Okla. Ms. Madison has received many honors for corporate leadership and community outreach. In 2005, she was named one of the 75 Most Powerful African Americans in Corporate America by Black Enterprise Magazine. After graduating from Vassar College, Ms. Madison began her career as reporter and editor at newspapers in New York and Dallas/Fort Worth.

Glenn Melnick

Glenn Melnick, Ph.D., is a world-renowned expert in health economics and finance. Prof. Melnick joined the faculty of the University of Southern California’s School of Public Administration in 1996. Previously, he served as a faculty member of the UCLA School of Public Health, a consultant at RAND, and an expert witness to the Federal Trade Commission. He has been published in the American Journal of Public Health; Health Affairs; Medical Care; Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law; Health Policy Reform: Competition and Controls; and Journal of Ambulatory Care Management. He has also been principal investigator for a number of funded projects in Jakarta, Indonesia, and in Taiwan.

Hugo Morales

Hugo Morales is the founder and executive director of Radio Bilingüe, the Latino public radio network. Headquartered in Fresno, the network provides a national satellite service in English, Spanish, Mixteco and Hmong. It serves over half a million listeners with its pioneering daily Spanish-language national talk show, Linea Abierta, its independently produced news service, Noticiero Latino, and its offerings of Spanish-language folk music. In 1994, Mr. Morales received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and in 1999, he received an Edward R. Murrow Award, the broadcast industry’s highest honor. He was also awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from California State University Fresno. Considered a visionary in expanding public radio’s reach to diverse audiences, he is committed to community service and creating and nurturing strategic alliances within the local and national Latino and public broadcasting communities.

Ivan Oransky

Ivan Oransky, M.D., is the online managing editor at Scientific American, and served previously as deputy editor of The Scientist and as editor-in-chief of “Pulse,” the medical student section of the Journal of American Medical Association. Under his leadership, the editorial team of The Scientist earned the 2006 and 2007 Gold Eddie Awards for science magazines from FOLIO and finalist (top 10) status in its circulation division in the 2007 American Society of Business Publication Editors’ Magazine of the Year contest. He was also the founding editor of Praxis Post, an online magazine of medicine and culture. He has written for the Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, Fitness, The Lancet, Salon, and Slate and teaches medical journalism in NYU’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting program and at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.  Dr. Oransky is a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, from which he received his M.D. He completed his internship at Yale University and has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard. He serves on the board of directors of the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Charles Ornstein

Charles Ornstein is a metro investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times and a senior reporter at ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom producing journalism in the public interest. In 2004, he co-authored an investigative series on Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, a troubled hospital in South Los Angeles, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for public service in 2005. The Pulitzer board praised the team "for its courageous, exhaustively researched series exposing deadly medical problems and racial injustice at a major public hospital." In 2006, Ornstein chronicled lapses in the nation's organ transplant system, which triggered a congressional investigation and changes in federal regulations, besides garnering several journalism awards. Prior to joining the Times in July 2001, Mr. Ornstein covered health for The Dallas Morning News, initially in Dallas and later in its Washington, D.C. bureau. Mr. Ornstein is vice president of the Association of Health Care Journalists. He was also a media fellow with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in 1999-2000, and spent the fellowship year examining the future of the employer-sponsored health insurance system. Born in Detroit, he has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in history and psychology.

Pedro Rojas

Pedro Rojas has been executive editor of La Opinión, the largest-circulation Spanish-language newspaper in the U.S., since 2005. He is also a member of the Los Angeles-based company’s executive committee. He has more than 30 years of experience in the newspaper business, the last ten in management positions. He served eight months as the executive editor for El Diario La Prensa, the nation’s oldest Spanish-language daily. He worked for 27 years for El Nuevo Día in Puerto Rico, six of them as the managing editor. A native of the Dominican Republic, Mr. Rojas holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Puerto Rico. He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Brian D. Smedley

Brian D. Smedley, Ph.D, is research director for The Opportunity Agenda, a communication, research and advocacy organization.  Mr. Smedley previously served as a senior program officer in the Division of Health Sciences Policy of the Institute of Medicine, where he was study director for the report, Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care, and three other reports.  Before that, he was director for public interest policy for the American Psychological Association. He has been a Congressional Science Fellow in the office of Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-VA), and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Educational Testing Service.  Among his awards and distinctions: the National Academy of Sciences’ Individual Staff Award for Distinguished Service in 2003 and 2000; the Congressional Black Caucus “Healthcare Hero” award in April 2002, and the Early Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest from the American Psychological Association in 2002.

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

Geneva Overholser 

Geneva Overholser is director of the School of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. Previously, she held the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting for the Missouri School of Journalism, where she was based in the school’s Washington bureau. She was editor of The Des Moines Register from 1988 to 1995, where she led the paper to a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. While at the Register, she also earned recognition as Editor of the Year by the National Press Foundation and was named “The Best in the Business” by American Journalism Review. Ms. Overholser has been ombudsman of The Washington Post, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times, a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group, and a reporter for the Colorado Springs Sun. She has been a columnist for the Columbia Journalism Review and frequent contributor to Poynter.org. She also spent five years overseas, working and writing in Paris and Kinshasa. She chairs the board of the Center for Public Integrity. In addition, she serves on the Journalism Advisory Committee of the Knight Foundation and on the boards of the John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford University, the Committee of Concerned Journalists, the Fund for Independence in Journalism and the Academy of American Poets. She was for nine years a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, the final year as chair, and is a former officer of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Ms.Overholser holds a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and a bachelor’s degree in history from Wellesley College.

Amanda Rounsaville

Amanda Rounsaville has been the communications and public affairs grants officer for The California Endowment for two years, where she oversees a grants program that focuses on media and other information systems; health journalism; public affairs activities such as coalition building, stakeholder education, and civic engagement; capacity building for nonprofit organizations, and research. She previously held positions at The Endowment in media relations and public Affairs, as well as providing research support for the department of public policy. Ms. Rounsaville has a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ernest J. Wilson III

Ernest James Wilson III, Ph.D., is Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication and dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He is also a senior fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, a joint project of USC Annenberg and the USC College’s School of International Relations and an adjunct fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy. Dean Wilson’s scholarship focuses on the convergence of communication and information technology, public policy and the public interest. He is also a student of the “information champions,” who are leaders of the information revolution around the world. His current work concentrates on the politics of global sustainable innovation in high-technology industries; on China-Africa relations; and the role of culture in U.S. national security policy. In addition to his most recent books – The Information Revolution in Developing Countries and Negotiating the Net in Africa – Dean Wilson co-edits the MIT Press series, The Information Revolution and Global Politics, and an MIT journal, Information Technologies and International Development.  Dean Wilson is the ranking senior member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board. He earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. from Harvard College.

PROGRAM STAFF

Director – Michelle Levander

Michelle Levander is the founding director of The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships at the Annenberg School for Communication. A veteran editor and writer, Ms. Levander has worked in Asia, Latin America and the U.S. for Time Magazine Asia, The Asian Wall Street Journal and The San Jose Mercury News. At Annenberg, Ms. Levander has built an education program that trains up to 100 professional journalists a year, coming from print, broadcast and ethnic media. The Fellowships provide California journalists with the tools to find public records on local hospitals and to understand complex medical studies. But what makes the program unique is its focus on multicultural health, health disparities and health care justice. During her journalism career in California, Ms. Levander wrote on business health policy issues, worker health and safety, and the workplace culture of Silicon Valley. She also co-authored an award-winning series on how mail theft and profiteering cut into the earnings Mexican immigrants send home. In Asia, she reported from China, India, South Korea and Vietnam on the region’s fast-changing technology scene. She was the founding editor of The Technology Journal at The Asian Wall Street Journal and Technology Editor at Time Asia. She has received journalism awards from the Overseas Press Club of America (Best Reporting in Latin America), the Inter American Press Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists. A former Inter American Press Association fellow, she spent a year in Mexico, studying at Mexico City’s prestigious El Colegio de Mexico and writing and researching immigrant culture from rural Mexico. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UC Berkeley and has a Masters degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

PROGRAM CONSULTANTS

Jane E. Allen

Jane E. Allen is a Los Angeles-based health and medical writer. Her work focuses on aging, Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease, nutrition, obesity, women's health and access to health care. She covered the health beat as a staff writer for The Los Angeles Times from 1998 to 2004. Before that, she spent 15 years reporting for The Associated Press on both coasts, including five years as the wire service's Los Angeles-based science and medical writer. While at the Times, she received the 2003 Alzheimer's Association Media Award for her ongoing coverage of Alzheimer's disease. In 2002, she won the American Heart Association's C. Everett Koop Award for reporting on how the roots of cardiovascular disease can be traced to earliest childhood, and in 2004, she won the association's Certificate of Merit. Since leaving the Times in the summer of 2004, she has written for "O, The Oprah Magazine," and "MAMM," a cancer survivors' magazine. She received a bachelor's degree from Yale University.



Judy Christie

Judy Christie is a veteran journalist who owns a consulting business in Shreveport, La. Ms. Christie spent 25 years in the newsroom in roles from summer intern to political reporter to editor. She has been the top editor of The Times in Shreveport and newspapers in Melbourne, Florida; Jackson, Tennessee; and Richmond, Indiana. In addition to her editing roles, she has been involved in a national project on improving the credibility of newspapers and has performed consulting work for the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida; the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and Gannett Inc. She has been the Chairman of the Ethics & Values Committee for ASNE and speaks frequently around the country on credibility and ethics issues. Ms. Christie serves as chairman of ASNE's High School Journalism Committee. She also consults with clients on balancing meaningful life and work. Ms. Christie received a Bachelor of arts degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, in 1978 and a master’s degree from Louisiana State University in Shreveport.

Martha Shirk

Martha Shirk spent 23 years as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where she covered social welfare and public health issues. Over the years, her investigative pieces for the Post-Dispatch were credited with changing Missouri laws or regulations on day care centers, juvenile justice practices, access to maternal and child health services, child death investigations and child support collections. Since 1996, she has lived in Palo Alto , where she works as a free-lance writer and communication consultant. Ms. Shirk is the co-author of three books: Lives on the Line: American Families and the Struggle to Make Ends Meet; Kitchen Table Entrepreneurs: How Eleven Women Escaped Poverty and Became Their Own Bosses; and On Their Own:  What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System.  On Their Own won the 2005 Pro Humanitate Book Award, given annually by the North American Resource Center for Child Welfare to honor the best child welfare book published in the previous year. In 2004, Ms. Shirk was a fellow at the Knight-CDC Journalism Boot Camp. She has also received fellowships from the Center for International Journalists, the Knight International Fellowship, the Casey Center for Reporting on Children and Families and the Knight Center for Specialized Reporting. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Swarthmore College and a master’s degree in urban studies from the University of Chicago .