The Washington Journalism and Media Conference

Categories
Speakers

Alexis Johnson

ALEXIS JOHNSON

Correspondent, VICE News

Alexis Johnson is a correspondent for VICE News based in Washington D.C. A Pittsburgh native, Alexis graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania before going on to get a master’s degree in Media Studies and Production from Temple University.  Alexis started out her professional career in journalism as an on-air local TV news reporter in West Virginia before switching to digital and print news. After leaving her role as a breaking news reporter for NJ.com in New Jersey, Alexis was hired at the Post-Gazette as a Digital News Editor in 2018 before switching to a reporting role in 2020. 

Alexis joined VICE in October 2020, and has since covered the 2020 general election, the Georgia Senate Runoff, the Insurrection, the Inauguration of President Joe Biden, the Derek Chauvin verdict, plus pandemic-related stories about mental health as well as vaccinations. Alexis has also covered topics like voting rights, police accountability, what’s next for the Black Lives Matter movement, Black spirituality and systemic racism in agriculture.

Alexis is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists as well as Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

Categories
Faculty Advisor Staff

Corey Payne

COREY PAYNE

Corey earned his PhD in Science Education from the University of Florida studying issues of representation in STEM. He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at St. Mary’s College of Maryland leading a grant through the American Physics Society that targets professional identity and self-efficacy to increase the recruitment of K12 science teachers.  His primary research interests include mentoring, developmental network analysis, and inquiry-based science education. During graduate school, he worked on an NSF-funded project to redesign the chemistry laboratory curriculum for engineering majors to increase the retention and performance of underrepresented students. Outside of his educational research interests he has also worked with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in the forest ecology lab studying canopy structures and their relation to global climate change. He has also volunteered at the Whitney Labs studying climate change and the effect of the northern expansion of mangroves into Florida. In his free time, he enjoys restoring vintage mountain bikes, tubing in the Florida springs, and swimming in the ocean with his dog Maple.

Categories
Speakers

Charles Bramesco

CHARLES BRAMESCO

Freelance Film and TV Critic

Charles Bramesco is a freelance film and TV critic living in Brooklyn.  A former staff writer for Rolling Stone, he has also been featured in the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Guardian, and many other fine publications. His first book, a volume on vampire movies for the “Close-Ups” series from Little White Lies, is now on US and UK shelves, and his to-be-announced second book will be published in early 2023. His favorite movie is Boogie Nights.

Categories
Speakers

Arelis Hernandez

ARELIS HERNÁNDEZ

Reporter, The Washington Post

Arelis Hernández is a reporter covering the U.S. Southern border and immigration. She has covered hurricanes, mass shootings and the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.  She was part of the team that created the digital project “Sin Luz: Life without power,” which garnered an national Emmy nomination and international recognition. She joined the Washington Post staff in 2014 to cover Prince George’s County, a suburb of Washington D.C., where she grew up. Hernández has also spent time in Venezuela for the foreign desk and at one point lived in Puerto Rico to probe the politics, culture and social movements of the island archipelago. Before The Post, she was recognized nationally for her coverage of the racial dynamics of Trayvon Martin’s shooting death and other coverage in Central Florida. She was part of the award-winning team that assembled the “George Floyd’s America” project which won several awards including a Peabody. That reporting led to the publishing of a book about Floyd’s life. She has a BA in broadcast journalism from the University of Maryland with a minor in U.S. Latinx studies.

Categories
Speakers

Kendall Warner

KENDALL WARNER

Community Photojournalist, The News & Advance

Kendall Warner is a community photojournalist currently working for The News & Advance, a daily print newspaper, in Lynchburg, Va.  She was born and raised in Northern Virginia and studied at Western Kentucky University where she received a degree in photojournalism with a minor in political science. She has interned with Fairfax County Fire and Rescue’s Public Information Officers, with The Victoria Advocate in Victoria, Texas and with MLive Media Group in Kalamazoo, Mich. Kendall also freelances for The Associated Press which has led to photos being used by The Washington Post, New York Times, ESPN, The Guardian and other publications around the country.

Categories
Speakers

Donna Harris

DONNA HARRIS

Public Information Officer, D.C. Department of General Services

Donna L. Harris brings 24 years of communications and public affairs experience to the District of Columbia’s Department of General Services (DGS).  As the agency’s Public Information Officer, she serves as the point of contact for media representatives regarding the work of the agency and its people. In this capacity, Ms. Harris provides strategic communications by ensuring key information about the nature and impact of DGS activities is accessible, reliable, and delivered through multiple channels to agency constituents. She works with agency senior leadership to develop strategies and protocols to support specific internal and external communications goals. Donna developed the agency’s crisis communications plan and serves as the agency representative when the District’s Joint Information Center is activated for major citywide events and incidents.

Prior to joining DGS in 2017, Ms. Harris served on the ABC7 News (WJLA) news team in Washington, D.C. from 2012 to 2016 where she provided daily logistics and field production in a fast-paced news environment. She is the recipient of three National Capital Chesapeake Bay Regional Emmy Awards and an Edward R. Murrow Award – all focused on team coverage – while at WJLA. From 2008 to 2010 she was a news director at WVVI (93.5FM) in the U.S. Virgin Islands and reported live from Capitol Hill on the inauguration of President Barack Obama. From 1998 to 2010 she worked at ABC13 News (WSET) in Lynchburg, Virginia where she was a news anchor, reporter, and producer. Before her second career in news and public affairs, Ms. Harris served 12 years in the Executive Office at the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO).

Donna is a native Washingtonian, was educated at the University of the District of Columbia in Journalism and was recruited by WUSA9 to begin her career in television news. She is active with the Public Relations Society of America and in her spare time enjoys mentoring others and exuberant runs with her Weimaraner.

Categories
Photographer

Rafael Suanes

RAFAEL SUANES

Photographer

A professional photographer with over 25 years of experience, Rafael has covered a huge gamut of events in the DC area.  Ranging from private events of all sizes to Supreme Court nomination hearings, Rafael has covered it all. Specializing in college and professional sports, Rafael is currently the staff athletics photographer for both George Mason and Georgetown universities and has worked directly with every professional sports team in Washington, DC.

Categories
Photographer

Kasi Bumgarner

KASI BUMGARNER

Videographer

Kasi Bumgarner is a video producer and content creator based in the Washington DC area.  Prior to starting her business, she worked as a Digital Producer at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). At NED, she created a variety of digital content to highlight events and capture stories of the organization’s grantees and fellows who advocate for democracy and human rights around the world.

Kasi’s love for storytelling and digital media began at a young age, but it wasn’t until she attended the Washington Journalism and Media Conference (WJMC) that she realized she could turn her passion into a career. She has loved being a part of the WJMC family ever since, returning as a junior faculty advisor, speaker, and videographer.

Kasi received her bachelor’s degree in Film and Video Studies from George Mason University. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, exploring new spots in the DC area, and producing content for her lifestyle YouTube channel, Curlyhairlove, and her podcast, Side Hustle Generation.

Categories
Speakers

Doni Holloway

DONI HOLLOWAY

Producer, "Why Is This Happening?" Podcast, NBC/MSNBC

Doni Holloway is an award-winning multimedia journalist with an affinity for telling meaningful and impactful stories.  His interest in journalism began when he was six. At that age, he fell in love with and realized the power of words. He’s a speaker, producer and frequent host.

The Laurinburg, NC native has won over 25 national, state and local awards for his journalistic and leadership endeavors. He has been featured in U.S. News & World Report, Electronic Urban Report, Talking Biz News, the National Association of Black Journalists Journal and numerous other publications.

He has served as an ambassador for the Disney Dreamers Academy with Steve Harvey & ESSENCE Magazine (DDA), returning to the program as an alumnus and guest speaker, entertainment host and mentor. He’s also an alumni board member of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) JCamp.

Holloway has reported around the country, studied media markets on the ground in China, and has spoken at a myriad of venues, including the National Press Club, where he auditioned and was selected to introduce NBC TODAY show anchor Hoda Kotb, WJMC’s keynote speaker in 2014. He’s a frequent moderator of events and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in broadcast journalism, where he was named as the National Association of Black Journalists Student Journalist of the Year. Holloway is now producer of NBC/MSNBC’s #1 original “Why Is This Happening?” podcast with Chris Hayes. He previously worked at Bloomberg News in NYC, where he created content for television, radio, podcasts and grew the Bloomberg Businessweek podcast to be the company’s highest grossing one.

Before working at Bloomberg, he was an Emma Bowen fellow in the NBC Washington network newsroom from 2015-2017.

Categories
Speakers

Kevin Douglas Grant

KEVIN DOUGLAS GRANT

Chief Content Officer, The GroundTruth Project & Vice President, Report for America and Report for the World

Kevin Douglas Grant is The GroundTruth Project’s Co-founder and Chief Content Officer, as well as Vice President, Strategic Initiatives of Report for America and Report for the World.

Previously Senior Editor of Special Reports at GlobalPost, he has led reporting projects around the world and his work has been recognized by the Edward R. Murrow, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University and Online Journalism Awards among others.  Over the last 10 years, he has helped to support more than 300 reporting fellows producing in-depth work on social justice issues in more than 50 countries.

Grant is a recent graduate of the Media Transformation Challenge at Poynter, and is presently working on a project about religious leaders worldwide as a journalism fellow at USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture.

He holds an M.A. in Digital Journalism from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School, where he was a Dean’s Scholar and the founding Executive Editor of Annenberg’s pioneering news organization Neon Tommy. Grant is also the former Operations Director of semantic news aggregator Inform.com.

Grant is currently based in Washington, D.C., where he serves as a capstone adviser and adjunct professor of journalism at Georgetown University.