Category: Speakers

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.