The Washington Journalism and Media Conference

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Speakers

Juliette Rouge (Shedd)

JULIETTE ROUGE

Associate Dean & Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University

Dr. Juliette Rouge (Shedd) is the Associate Dean and Associate Professor at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University. She teaches research and practice methods courses and on terrorism, peacebuilding, media and conflict, extremism, global conflicts, and ideologies. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University and a BA in Political Science and Psychology from George Washington University. Her research includes work on the relationship of media to conflict, specifically focused on media coverage of terrorism and the role of women in political violence. She is an active practitioner working internationally on peacebuilding in divided communities and developing local leadership capacity with communities in Ukraine, Serbia, Myanmar, and Central Asia. Locally, she works with communities to collaboratively address contentious local issues. These projects include media literacy and dialogue training, conflict resolution in schools, police-community engagement, and supporting community engagement processes for local government on issues like confederate legacy street names and monuments. Her projects are funded by local governments, the Virginia Department of Education, USAID, the Department of State, and nonprofit organizations. She leads the Carter Schools administrative staff, budget and administrative processes, and new program and partnership development. She has shepherded the Carter School’s efforts to respond to the Covid 19 pandemic and to build upon effective distance education offerings along with overseeing a wide range of innovations in experiential and service learning.

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Raquel DeSouza

Raquel DeSouza graduated in May from George Mason University with a BA in Communication, concentration in Journalism and minors in American Government and Global Affairs. She’s a local to the NoVA area and loved her four years at the Mason Nation. She was involved in Student Media with GMU’s Fourth Estate newspaper and had internships in Virginia and DC, including Northern Virginia Magazine. Raquel is looking forward to working in a creative field that harnesses her writing skills.

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Jennie Keohane

Dr. Jennifer Keohane teaches courses in rhetorical criticism, business communication, and public speaking at George Mason University. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her expertise lies in social movement rhetoric, labor organizing, and gender. Her current research explores how advocates for the labor movement use gendered narratives to organize workers. Dr. Keohane is also invested in using rhetorical research for civic engagement, and at UW-Madison, she served as the vice president of the Teaching Assistants’ Association, the labor union of graduate students on campus. In this role, she worked with university administrators to ensure compliance with campus labor regulations. She has also previously served on the Board of Directors for the Rhetoric Society of America.

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Speakers

Lisa Gring-Pemble

Lisa M. Gring-Pemble is an Associate Professor in the School of Integrative Studies at George Mason University. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of St. Olaf College, she received her M.A. and Ph.D. in communication from the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on political communication and social policy. She is author of Grim Fairy Tales: The Rhetorical Construction of American Welfare Policy and a co-editor of Readings on Political Communication. Her work has appeared in The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Political Communication, and Communication Quarterly.

Gring-Pemble delights in teaching undergraduates and is a George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award recipient. Recently, she served as Director and Principal Investigator for a State Department grant that brought 120 high-achieving, underserved, Afro-Latino and indigenous undergraduates from Central and South America to the United States to study U.S. History and Government and to develop long-term solutions to pressing challenges faced in their home communities.

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Richard T. Craig

Dr. Craig is an Assistant Professor of Communication at George Mason University. He has been a part of the university and the communications department since the fall of 2009. Dr. Craig received his BA in Journalism from Olivet College, his MA in Telecommunications Management from Michigan State University, and his PhD in Mass Communication/Media Studies from Howard University.

His research centers on mass media political economy; addressing the production, distribution and consumption of media content. He takes particular interest in exploring the social structure/struggle embedded in media production and interpreted in media consumption. His goal is to use research to influence the development of policy to enhance opportunities for media production and distribution by marginalized cultures.

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Hannah Menchhoff

Hannah Menchhoff is the arts and entertainment editor for the Fairfax County Times. She has worked on a variety of exciting stories, including interviewing “See You Again” singer, Charlie Puth. She graduated from George Mason University with a degree in Communication in 2015. Hannah also does freelance writing and works to do marketing research, analysis and social media with Commonwealth Joe Coffee Roasters.

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Jamie Smith

Jamie Smith is the Global Chief Communications Officer of The BitFury Group – a leading technology company in the transformational financial technology sector dedicated to the breakthrough innovation of the Blockchain. Jamie is leading global initiatives designed to fundamentally change the way the larger global community does business, transfers value, and opens up new doors to prosperity for billions of people throughout the world.

Jamie has dedicated her career to making lives better, enhancing security, and ensuring opportunity is available to all. Jamie brings nearly two decades of communications experience to her role as Global CCO, serving at the highest levels of government and the private sector. She previously served as Special Assistant to President Obama and deputy White House press secretary, Executive Vice President at Edelman Public Relations where she oversaw multi-channel media strategies, Director of Public Affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and General James Clapper, Communications Director for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation under its then Chairman John D (Jay) Rockefeller IV, Traveling Press Director for Secretary Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Presidential Campaign, Communications Director for former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and The Albright Group, LLC. and policy aide to Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey (D-NY).

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Buzz McClain

Buzz McClain took every journalism course offered by George Mason in his freshman year (there were only two, 101 and 102); he wrote press releases and sports stories for Mason’s sports information office for four years; and he wrote entertainment stories and essays for the campus newspaper for four years, in addition to being entertainment editor for his last two years. Thoroughly prepared for a career in journalism, Buzz left Mason and began digging ditches for a swimming pool company. But his freelance writing paid off and he was hired by a bi-weekly, then a weekly, then a daily before beginning a career as a magazine writer and a music critic. To complete the circle, he is back at Mason where it all began as a communications manager, writing stories about Mason’s super-smart professors, over-achieving students and global successes.

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Assad Khan

Khan is a DC radio veteran for over 15 years. Having started as an intern and eventually an on-air personality at the Legendary 99-1 HFS, Khan can currently be heard on iHeartRadio’s DC101 as a weekend/swing DJ. Focusing primarily on the alternative rock format, Khan has worked to engage the audience, build a rapport with the listeners and educate students on the industry of radio. During college, he was the promotions and public affairs director as well as a DJ of various specialty shows at WWVU-FM (U92) at West Virginia University. In his free time, he works as the Director of Undergraduate Student Affairs in the College of Science at George Mason University.

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Mallory Saleson

Mallory Saleson is a global communications and media specialist with extensive experience in international development and the private sector. She was an international broadcast journalist during the 1980s and ‘90s. Recently she tacked in a new direction, taking the position of Executive Editor of platform content on the management team of a start-up professional and social network aimed at building neighborhood workplace engagement. Saleson began her career in broadcast journalism at Voice of America and spent nearly two decades as a radio correspondent covering a range of issues in Washington, D.C., Europe and southern Africa. She earned her chops reporting first-hand some of the most compelling stories of our time: Nelson Mandela’s walk to freedom and the first post-apartheid elections in South Africa; war, conflict, humanitarian and social issues throughout southern Africa; and the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Saleson joined the World Bank Group’s office in South Africa in 2003. There she was responsible for developing and implementing high impact communication, media and outreach strategies for the Bank’s regional office. She returned to Washington, D.C. in September 2008 to head up communications for the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the political risk and credit enhancement arm of the World Bank Group. She led the agency’s communications team until her retirement from the World Bank in 2016.

Settled in northern Virginia, she has more time to devote to family, her two rambunctious ridgebacks and her friends. She has maintained her healthy addiction to news and current affairs and enjoys cooking, writing, reading and hiking outdoors. She has a Masters in Journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor’s degree in Russian Studies from University of Wisconsin.