The Washington Journalism and Media Conference

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Youth Advisory Board

Alexandra Henriques

ALEXANDRA HENRIQUES

Alexandra Henriques is a graduating senior at Mahwah High School in New Jersey. She’s had a passion for writing and a niche for journalism since she was young but became interested in journalism as a career after a sophomore year class. In the summer of 2022, she attended the Washington Journalism and Media Conference, where she learned about the importance of local media and made many new friends. When Alexandra has free time, she often writes poetry or goes on long walks around her town.

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Youth Advisory Board

Alyssa Trahan

ALYSSA TRAHAN

Alyssa Trahan is from Lafayette, Louisiana and a junior in Southside High School where she broadcast’s for her school’s football team. She is also in art club and the president of her school’s embroidery club. Outside of school, she’s interested in photography and art. She hopes to have a career involved with photography in the future.

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Youth Advisory Board

Alex Gribb

ALEX GRIBB

Alex Gribb is currently a junior at Cherry Creek Highschool in Colorado. She’s the current Opinions editor for her school’s magazine and he really enjoys writing reviews. If she’s not studying or writing, you will probably find her at Taekwondo working towards her third degree black belt. There are few things she enjoys more than music, with her favorite band being Weston Estate.

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Youth Advisory Board

Abigail Cabrera

ABIGAIL CABRERA

Abby Cabrera is currently a junior at Saint Anthony’s high school. This year she was on her school’s Varsity A tennis team, took five ap courses and all honors, and participated in numerous clubs, including her school’s newspaper, the Paduan. In addition, she has taken AP Seminar, AP Research, and Saint Anthony’s Independent Science Research course, where she wrote eight research papers and learned many presentation skills and how to write academic research papers. She loves reading fantasy novels and her favorite authors are Rick Riordan and Victoria Aveyard. WJMC was a life-changing experience for her. The connections she made are still strong today, it’s made her look at life through a whole new lens, and she is so happy she gets to come back for the next group to experience what she did. 

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Speakers

Adeline Mishler

ADELINE MISHLER

Staff Business Transformation Consultant, Ernst & Young

Adeline Mishler currently works at Ernst & Young (EY) as a staff business transformation consultant in their Government and Public Sector consulting practice.  In her current role, she specializes in using communications and change management strategies to empower federal, state, and local governments to solve their most complex challenges.

Before starting her career at EY, Adeline graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with degree in Business Management and minors Corporate Communications, Civic and Community Engagement, and the Legal Environment of Business.

Her background, interests, and passions are rooted in driving change to create a better world with a focus on communications, media, and change management. Her pervious experiences have included interning at entities and organizations including The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, Penn State’s Office of Government and Community Relations, The Cambria Region Chamber of Commerce, and The Community Foundation for the Alleghenies.

Outside of her current role, Adeline has a never-fading passion for community revitalization, social entrepreneurship, economic development, and youth civic engagement; she hopes to use communications as a mechanism to power lasting change in our world.

Adeline is a proud 2015 alumnus of WJMC and enthusiastic to be back. Adeline would like to thank WJMC for propelling the trajectory of her early education and professional interests.

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Speakers

Buzz McClain

BUZZ McCLAIN

Director of Communications, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University

Veteran columnist, critic, reporter, and editor Buzz McClain covered movies and pop culture for 20 years at major magazines and wrote about music and musicians for a decade at the Washington Post before NBC Sports lured him away to cover rugby football.  He now is director of communications for the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, which is also his alma mater and the school that taught him everything he needed to know about surviving a career in journalism.

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Speakers

George Charles Kueppers

GEORGE CHARLES KUEPPERS

Adjunct Faculty, Communication, George Mason University

George Kueppers is a full time Account Executive in the civic communication tech industry in Washington, D.C., and an adjunct faculty member of the Communication Department at George Mason University, where he also received his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Communication.  George is originally from Minnesota, and obtained Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and Global Studies from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. When he’s not teaching or working on his doctoral studies and research, George enjoys playing music, video games, binging TV shows, watching sports, playing hockey, tennis, and basketball, and snowboarding. George’s research interests have spanned many sub-disciplines of communication, from political to strategic to environmental and risk communication and most recently health communication. Overall, George is interested in studying the dynamic relationships between communication, learning, and behavior, and his dissertation research explored this intersection in the context of interpersonal mental health communication and help-seeking. George has been a student of communication since the 7th grade when he joined his high school’s Speech & Debate (aka “competitive forensics”) Team, and is proud to be a graduate assistant here in the Communication Department at George Mason University.

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Eric Lee

ERIC LEE

Freelance Photojournalist

Eric Lee is a freelance photojournalist based in Washington, D.C. He photographs stories about identity, community, and resilience.  His work has been featured in The Atlantic, Bloomberg, National Geographic, New York Magazine, New Yorker, NPR, Reuters, Texas Tribune, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and others. A native New Yorker, Lee earned his B.A. in film studies at Gettysburg College in 2015 and graduated with a M.A. in new media photojournalism at the Corcoran School of Arts and Design in 2020.

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Faculty Advisor Staff

Camden Layton

CAMDEN LAYTON

Camden Layton is a WJMC and George Mason University alum who now works as a Union Organizer with the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers.  He graduated from Mason with his BS in Public Administration and a Master of Public Policy, specializing in Education Policy. During his time on campus, Camden worked in the Washington Scholars Program office and held many leadership roles, including Student Body President. At his current job, he helps lead digital organizing efforts for FCFT and educates members on how to effectively use social media and their networks to move their campaigns forward. Camden is very excited to be back with WJMC for his sixth summer!

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Speakers

Michael D. Shear

MICHAEL D. SHEAR

White House Correspondent, The New York Times

Michael D. Shear is a White House correspondent and two-time Pulitzer Prize winning reporter in the Washington bureau, where he covers President Biden, with a focus on domestic policy, the regulatory state and life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  A veteran political correspondent, he has covered the White House for 13 years, including the Trump and Obama presidencies.

Mr. Shear joined The Times in 2010, and has written extensively about national politics and policy-making in Washington. He documented Mr. Obama’s history-making presidency, including extensive reporting on passage of the Affordable Care Act and unsuccessful efforts at comprehensive immigration reform. He covered all four years of Mr. Trump’s chaotic presidency, and is the co-author of “BORDER WARS: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration,” published in 2019 by Simon & Schuster. Mr. Shear reported from Capitol Hill during the first Trump impeachment, documenting the attempt by Democrats to oust him from office over his effort to strong-arm Ukraine’s government for dirt on a political opponent.

During 2020, Mr. Shear worked with investigative teams at The Times to document the Trump administration’s response to the Covid crisis. He was a leading member of the team that won the Pulitzer Public Service prize for the paper’s coverage of the pandemic and its health and economic consequences. As he did during each of the prior two administrations, Mr. Shear travels the world with Mr. Biden, including a recent trip to Europe for a high-stakes meeting with President Putin of Russia.

Before coming to The Times in 2010, Mr. Shear spent 18 years at The Washington Post, writing about local communities, school districts, state politics, the 2008 presidential campaign and the White House. A member of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that covered the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007, Mr. Shear is a 1990 graduate of Claremont McKenna College and has a masters in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He has two college-age children and lives in Washington with his wife.