Faculty Biographies

Craig M. Allen, Associate Professor
Ph.D., Ohio University
Craig Allen joined the Cronkite faculty after 14 years in broadcast and print journalism and seven years teaching college journalism. He is active in international mass communication and has led delegations to Indonesia and Mexico. A broadcast historian, Allen has written extensively on political media, presidential communication and the international mass media, and teaches courses in international communication and broadcast journalism. Allen’s books include “News Is People: The Rise of Local TV News.” He currently is writing a history of U.S. Spanish-language television.

Linda Austin, Executive Director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, Professor of Practice
B.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Linda Austin joined the Cronkite School in 2009 as executive director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. She has been editor of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader; executive editor of The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Ind.; and managing editor of the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C. She also served as assistant managing editor/finance for The Philadelphia Inquirer and as editor/publisher of the monthly PhillyTech magazine. She is a 2009 fellow in the Punch Sulzberger Executive News Media Leadership Program at Columbia University’s Journalism School.

Marianne Barrett, Senior Associate Dean, Solheim Professor, Associate Professor
Ph.D., Michigan State University
Marianne Barrett brought her experiences as an ESPN programming executive to the Cronkite School when she joined the faculty in 1994. Barrett, whose research focuses on media management, economics and policy, was named a Frank Stanton Fellow by the International Radio and Television Society in 2002 for her “outstanding contributions to electronic media education.” She became associate dean in 2005 and the following year was named the Louise Solheim Professor of Journalism.

Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, Associate Professor
Ph.D., Indiana University
Sharon Bramlett-Solomon is a winner of the Barry Bingham Fellowship for advancing diversity in college journalism education. She also is a recipient of the Woman of the Year award from the Arizona Black Women’s Task Force. Prior to joining the Cronkite faculty in 1986, she spent seven years in newspapers, public relations and radio, including reporting for the Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Louisville Courier Journal. Her research focuses on mass communication theory, media construction and the depiction of race images.

Jody Brannon, National Director News21, Professor of Practice
Ph.D., University of Maryland
Jody Brannon directs the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education, which helps graduate students from 12 allied schools, including ASU, do inventive forms of storytelling. A former newspaper and magazine writer and editor, she began her digital journalism career in April 1995 for washingtonpost.com, then becoming executive producer at USATODAY.com and ombudsman and director of experimental programming at MSN.com. Brannon’s 1999 dissertation, “Maximizing the Medium,” examined online journalism at ABC, NPR and USA TODAY.

Aaron Brown, Walter Cronkite Professor of Journalism, Professor of Practice
Aaron Brown is the inaugural Walter Cronkite Professor of Journalism. The former lead anchor for CNN joined the Cronkite School in January 2008 and teaches a seminar “Turning Points in Television News History.” Brown was news anchor of CNN’s flagship show “NewsNight” from 2001 to 2005, covering stories from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to the 2004 presidential elections and the Iraq War. He is a winner of the prestigious Edward R. Murrow award. Brown recently returned to television to host “Wide Angle,” a PBS weekly global public affairs series.

Christopher Callahan, Dean, Professor
M.P.A., Harvard University
Christopher Callahan is the founding dean of the Walter Cronkite School. He is responsible for leading a 75-member faculty and staff and 1,300 students. Prior to joining ASU, Callahan was associate dean at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland and senior editor of American Journalism Review. Before entering journalism education, Callahan was a Washington correspondent for The Associated Press. He is a graduate of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the author of "A Journalist’s Guide to the Internet."

Serena Carpenter, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Michigan State University
Serena Carpenter joined the faculty in 2007 after finishing her Ph.D. at Michigan State University. Her teaching and research interest areas include online journalism, news quality, citizen journalism, blogs, military-press relations and the sociology of news production. Carpenter teaches JMC 425 Online Media, a course required of all Cronkite School students. Her research has been published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Mass Communication and Society and Telecommunications Policy.

Michael Casavantes, Lecturer
Ph.D., Arizona State University
Michael Casavantes joined the Cronkite faculty in 1990 and has taught at the university level for 25 years. He has 15 years of experience in broadcast news, with five years as a television reporter, anchor, and producer for ABC and NBC affiliates in El Paso, Texas, and 10 years as news director of a 100,000-watt public radio affiliate in Las Cruces, N.M. Casavantes has been honored with teaching awards at New Mexico State and the Cronkite School. He teaches JMC 315 Intermediate Reporting and Writing for broadcast students.

CJ Cornell, Entrepreneur in Residence, Professor of Practice
Ph.D., Columbus University
CJ Cornell is a media executive, entrepreneur and venture adviser who joined the Cronkite faculty in the summer of 2008. He brings two decades of experience developing ventures in video, cable television and online media in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. Cornell works with students in the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, helping them plan, develop and launch new media products. Cornell is the first person in the United States to earn a master’s degree in Energy Management & Policy from the New York Institute of Technology.

John E. Craft, Curator of Marguerite and Jack Clifford Gallery, Professor
Ph.D., Ohio University
A national expert in television media, John Craft has taught broadcasting at the Cronkite School since 1973. His award-winning documentary programs on Route 66 have been distributed around the world and have been broadcast on public television stations in nearly 80 of the top television markets in the United States. Craft’s research interests are in media management, media and society and the philosophy of mass communication. As an Arizona Humanities Scholar, Craft often speaks to civic, educational and professional organizations. He is a winner of the Silver Circle Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Amanda J. Crawford, Lecturer
B.A., University of Maryland
Amanda Crawford is an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in newspapers and magazines nationwide. Crawford most recently worked as a political reporter for The Arizona Republic, where she covered state agencies, the state legislature and several political campaigns and wrote a political column and blog. She has won several major state journalism awards and in 2007 was a finalist for the prestigious Livingston award, which recognizes the best journalism in the nation by reporters under 35. She teaches news writing and reporting.

Steve Doig, Knight Chair in Journalism, Professor
B.A., Dartmouth College
Steve Doig joined the Cronkite faculty in 1996 as the school’s first Knight Chair in Journalism following a 23-year career in newspaper journalism. An expert in computer-assisted reporting, Doig was part of an investigative team at The Miami Herald that won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for an analysis on how weakened building codes and poor construction contributed to the devastation of Hurricane Andrew. He conducts an annual Knight Foundation study analyzing newsroom diversity.

Leonard Downie Jr., Weil Family Professor of Journalism, Professor of Practice
M.A., The Ohio State University
Leonard Downie Jr., is vice president-at-large of The Washington Post, where he was executive editor from 1991 to 2008. During his 44 years at the Post, Downie was an investigative reporter, editor on the local and national news staffs, London correspondent and managing editor and helped supervise the newspaper’s Watergate coverage. During his 17 years as executive editor, the newspaper won 25 Pulitzer prizes. Downie is a founder and board member of Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc., a board member of the Center for Investigative Reporting and chairman of the board of advisers of Kaiser Health News. He is the author of four non-fiction books and a novel.

Steve Elliott, Director of Digital News, Cronkite News Service, Professor of Practice
M.B.A., Arizona State University
Steve Elliott is the founding director of Cronkite News Service’s print journalism program. He joined the Cronkite School in September 2006 after a 19-year career with The Associated Press, the world’s largest news organization. Elliott’s AP career included tours as a reporter, newsroom manager, bureau chief and business executive. At Cronkite News Service, Elliott leads groups of advanced students in coverage of statewide stories for newspapers and news Web sites. Their stories appear regularly in nearly 30 publications across the state and region.

Mary-Lou Galician, Associate Professor
Ed.D., Memphis State University (now University of Memphis)
Mary-Lou Galician, a media literacy advocate and award-winning researcher and educator, joined the Cronkite School after a long career in print journalism, television, public relations, advertising and marketing. She wrote the pioneering research-based textbook “Sex, Love, and Romance in the Mass Media” for the analysis and criticism course of the same name that she created and teaches and which is a model used at universities around the nation. Her “Handbook of Product Placement in the Mass Media” is used worldwide.

Kristin Gilger, Assistant Dean
M.A., University of Nebraska
Kristin Gilger directs the school’s 50-plus part-time faculty members, oversees the school’s professional programs and edits the school’s annual Cronkite Journal magazine. She was director of Student Media at ASU from 2002-2007. She spent 21 years in various reporting and editing roles at newspapers across the country, including the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, La., the Salem Statesman Journal in Oregon and The Arizona Republic. She conducts training at newspapers and for newspaper associations nationally and internationally.

Dan Gillmor, Director, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, Kauffman Professor of Digital Media Entrepreneurship, Professor of Practice
B.A., University of Vermont
Dan Gillmor is an internationally recognized leader in new media who is the founding director of the Knight Center at ASU. A longtime Silicon Valley-based journalist, Gillmor wrote a popular business and technology column for the San Jose Mercury News and launched a weblog in 1999, a site believed to have been the first mainstream journalism blog. In 2004 he published “We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People,” the leading book on citizen journalism. He also directs the Center for Citizen Media, a project to expand grassroots media.

Dawn Gilpin, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Temple University
Dawn Gilpin spent more than 15 years working in Italy in organizational communication and public relations, including crisis management and internal communication. She completed her Ph.D. in Mass Media & Communication at Temple University, where she was a Presidential Fellow. Gilpin’s research focuses on the interactions between organizations, media and public policy, particularly in terms of organizational and issue identity and the dynamics of knowledge and power. She teaches public relations at the Cronkite School.

Donald G. Godfrey, Doctoral Program Director, Professor
Ph.D., University of Washington
Don Godfrey is the immediate past editor of The Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, one of the leading scholarly journals in mass communication. He came to ASU in 1988 after 17 years in the television industry as a news and sports anchor, reporter and director. Godfrey, a broadcast historian, uses a variety of methods including historical, legal and critical in his work. He has served as president of the Broadcast Education Association. Godfrey has won dozens of awards for his creative and scholarly work, including the prestigious Distinguished Education Service Award from the BEA.

Susan Green, Broadcast Director, Cronkite News Service, Professor of Practice
B.A., Arizona State University
Susan Green is the founding broadcast director of the Cronkite News Service. She came to ASU in August 2006 from KNXV-TV, where she served as managing editor at the ABC affiliate. In her 21 years as a broadcast professional, Green held positions at stations in Phoenix, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and New York City. At Cronkite News Service, she works with advanced broadcast students to produce news stories and packages that are distributed to television stations across the state.

Retha Hill, Director, New Media Innovation Lab, Professor of Practice
B.A., Wayne State University
Retha Hill joined the Cronkite faculty in 2007 after nearly eight years at BET, where she was vice president for content for BET Interactive, the online unit of Black Entertainment Television and the most visited site specializing in African-American content on the Internet. Before joining BET, Hill was executive producer for special projects at washingtonpost.com. At the New Media Innovation Lab, Hill works with students from multiple disciplines, including journalism, to research and develop new media products for media companies.

Jim Jacoby, Lecturer
B.A., Arizona State University
Jim Jacoby joined the Cronkite School faculty after 20 years in television news. An Emmy award-winning editor and director, Jacoby teaches television production and serves as the school’s production manager. In addition to his Cronkite School duties, he works as a freelance editor and does graphics for the Arizona Cardinals, Sun Devil Football, and several local production companies.

Aric Johnson, Arizona Republic Editor-in-Residence
B.A., University of Southern California
Aric Johnson is the school’s first Arizona Republic Editor in Residence, overseeing students in a multimedia reporting class in which they report breaking news for azcentral.com, Arizona’s most viewed news Web site. He works out of the Republic’s newsroom, coaching students and editing their work. Johnson worked at newspapers in California and Nevada before coming to the Republic, where he has served as assistant business editor, education editor and editor of the Tempe Republic.

Andrew Leckey, Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism, President, Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, Professor
M.A. University of Missouri
Andrew Leckey is the Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism and President of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at the Cronkite School. He is a longtime syndicated investment columnist for the Chicago Tribune, former CNBC anchor and the author or editor of 10 financial books. He received the National Association of Investors Corporation’s Distinguished Award in Investment Education and was founding director of the Bloomberg Business Journalism Program at the University of California, Berkeley.

Frederic “Fritz” Leigh, Associate Dean, Clinical Professor
Ed.D., Arizona State University
Fritz Leigh served as the Cronkite School’s first associate director from 1987 to 2005 before being appointed associate dean. He launched ASU’s campus radio station in 1982 and continues to oversee the station. Leigh previously taught broadcasting at the University of Nebraska and developed a fine arts radio station for metropolitan Omaha. He co-authored “Electronic Media” and co-edited “Historical Dictionary of American Radio.” His responsibilities in the Cronkite School include student recruitment and retention.

Mark Lodato, News Director, Professor of Practice
B.J., University of Missouri
Mark Lodato joined the Cronkite School in 2006 after working for 16 years as a television reporter and anchor for television stations in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Phoenix and Ft. Myers, Fla. He also served as news director at the University of Maryland’s Phillip Merrill College of Journalism. At the Cronkite School, Lodato oversees the broadcast news operation and works with advanced students in the school’s national award-winning television newscast, Cronkite NewsWatch, which airs three times each week across much of Arizona.

Jason Manning, Director of Student Media
M.A., George Mason University
Jason Manning is director of Student Media at ASU, overseeing The State Press, Web Devil, State Press Magazine and Sun Devil Television. Prior to joining ASU, he was the politics editor for washingtonpost.com, where he led the Web site’s coverage of the federal government and national campaign politics. While at washingtonpost.com, Manning planned and implemented the Web site’s multi-format election coverage, using data, video, audio, photos, graphics and text. He also oversaw collaborative projects to produce award-winning interactive news features.

Fran R. Matera, Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Miami
Fran Matera joined the Cronkite faculty in 1989 after teaching at Florida International University and the University of Miami. She has a background in both newspapers and public relations, including stints as the night copy chief at The Miami News and as an editor of a fine arts magazine. She teaches writing for public relations and public relations campaigns at the Cronkite School, and her students have won the NASA Means Business competition four years in a row. Matera’s research focuses on Hispanic audiences and is conducted in both English and Spanish.

Tim McGuire, Frank Russell Chair for the Business of Journalism, Professor
J.D., William Mitchell College of Law
Tim McGuire is the former editor and senior vice president of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the nation’s 17th largest daily newspaper. He served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and wrote a nationally syndicated column, “More Than Work,” focusing on ethics, spirituality and values in the workplace, before joining the Cronkite School in 2006 as the Frank Russell Chair in the Business of Journalism. He teaches courses in ethics and diversity and the business of journalism and serves as mentor to graduate students.

Rick Rodriguez, Carnegie Professor of Journalism, Southwest Borderlands Initiative Professor, Professor of Practice
B.A., Stanford University
Rick Rodriguez is the Cronkite School’s first Carnegie Professor specializing in Latino and transnational news coverage. The former executive editor of The Sacramento Bee in Sacramento, Calif., and the first Latino president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors came to the Cronkite School in 2008 to develop a new cross-disciplinary specialization in the coverage of issues related to Latinos and the U.S.-Mexico border. While he was at the Bee, the paper won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. Rodriguez is known nationally as a champion of watchdog journalism and newsroom diversity.

Sharon Rosenhause, Edith Kinney Gaylord Visiting Professor in Journalism Ethics
B.A., Queens College
Sharon Rosenhause is the former managing editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. She also served as editor of “Chronicle PM” for the San Francisco Chronicle and as managing editor for news at the San Francisco Chronicle. Rosenhause is currently secretary and a board member of the Institute for Justice and Journalism and on the selection committee for the Kaiser Media Fellowships. She is a recipient of the Robert G. McGruder Award for Diversity Leadership and directed New America Media's Veterans Project, an ethnic-mainstream collaboration in Los Angeles. She teaches courses in ethics and diversity.

Dennis E. Russell, Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Utah
Dennis Russell joined the Cronkite faculty in 1991 after a decade-long career as a print journalist in the Phoenix metropolitan area. He teaches a wide array of classes, including Mass Communication Law, Media Issues in American Pop Culture and Media Problems. His research focuses on mass-mediated popular culture, critical studies, film, literary and music analysis and First Amendment law. He has been published in Popular Culture Review, Studies in Popular Culture, Southwestern Mass Communication Journal and Communication and the Law.

Joseph Russomanno, Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Colorado-Boulder
Joseph Russomanno joined the Cronkite School in 1994. He has worked a news reporter in radio and television and as a television news writer, newscast producer and executive producer at stations in St. Louis and Denver. He has received several awards for his broadcast work. His teaching and research focus on broadcast issues and First Amendment law. Russomanno has published three books related to First Amendment law and has written articles and opinion columns for a scholarly and mass media publications. He teaches media law.

Carol Schwalbe, Associate Professor
M.A., The George Washington University
Carol Schwalbe has more than 30 years of experience with the National Geographic Society, including producing the National Geographic Traveler online and editing for National Geographic magazine. She joined the Cronkite faculty in 2002 and teaches magazine writing and online journalism. Her research focuses on the role of images in shaping ideas and public opinion, ethical concerns about publishing violent images and the visual framing of the Iraq War.

B. William Silcock, Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Missouri
A two-time Fulbright Scholar, Bill Silcock researches global television news cultures, most recently in the Balkans. He joined the faculty in 2001 after a career as a TV news director, producer and anchor/reporter. He has won national awards for his documentaries “Backstage at a Presidential Debate: The Press, the Pundits and The People,” “Fortress of Faith” and “Woodstock: Back to the Garden.” Silcock’s research examines newsroom culture, particularly news values. He teaches broadcast journalism and the history and principles of journalism.

Terry Greene Sterling, Writer-in-Residence, Faculty Associate
M.F.A., Goucher College
Terry Greene Sterling is the school’s first Writer-in-Residence. She is a three-time winner of Arizona’s highest journalism honor, the Virg Hill Journalist of the Year Award and the recipient of 48 other national and regional journalism awards. She was a staff investigative reporter at Phoenix New Times for 13 years. Her stories have appeared in The Washington Post, Newsweek, Arizona Highways and Phoenix Magazine, among others. Sterling is currently under contract with the Globe Pequot Press for a book on immigration that will be published in 2010.

Edward J. Sylvester, Professor
M.A., City College of New York
Ed Sylvester teaches science writing as well as news writing, reporting and editing courses. His specialty is science writing, and he has written four books for popular audiences on subjects ranging from the prospects for genetic engineering to doctors’ efforts to discover the secrets of the brain in his latest book, “Back From The Brink.” He also has written articles for national magazines and book reviews for The New York Times. Before joining the Cronkite faculty, Sylvester was a reporter at the Los Angeles Times.

Leslie-Jean Thornton, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Leslie-Jean Thornton’s research focuses on professional journalism practices, convergence and new media. She is particularly interested in the various “digital divides” that may or may not form as a result of changed distribution and reporting forms for news. She has taught online media and advanced editing at the Cronkite School since 2004 after developing similar classes for the State University of New York at New Paltz. Before accepting a Freedom Forum fellowship for her doctoral work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she was a newspaper editor in New York, Connecticut and Virginia - most recently at The Virginian-Pilot.

Xu Wu, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Florida
Xu Wu, a native of Beijing, graduated from People’s University of China in 1992 and worked as a national correspondent and domestic news editor at Xinhua (New China) News Agency. He helped found the Xinhua Daily Telegraph, one of the leading national newspapers in China, and operated a media consulting agency there. He has taught strategic media and public relations at the Cronkite School since 2005. Wu’s research interests include international public relations, crisis management, public diplomacy and political communication.