Staff

Thor Neureiter is a veteran independent documentary producer and director whose work is focused on contemporary issues concerning U.S. foreign policy and domestic politics. His first independent feature documentary, which he directed, shot, and edited, “Disaster Capitalism (link is external)” will be released in 2017. The film was selected to the prestigious HotDocs Forum and has received support from The Bertha Foundation, The Film Collaborative, Documentary Australia Foundation, and Screen Australia.

During his career Thor has produced films for People & Power on Al Jazeera English and worked on programming for FRONTLINE on PBS, including “Showdown with Iran,” “News War: Secrets, Sources & Spin,” “The Last Abortion Clinic,” and “The O.J. Verdict.” He has also worked extensively for HBO and began his career working for Ken Burns/Florentine Films in 1999 as an Assistant Editor on the 10-part series “Jazz.” His first documentary as a producer, “Miracle in New York: The Story of the ’69 Mets,” was awarded a 2010 New York Emmy Award. Thor holds an M.A. Politics degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. While enrolled in the M.A. program, he began advising journalism students at Columbia which eventually lead to his current position of Director, Video Journalism at the school.

Sally Herships is an award winning audio journalist.  Her bylines include the BBC, The New York Times and Marketplace. She’s been a frequent guest host at NPR’s daily economics podcast  The Indicator and covered the pandemic and New York’s embattled Governor Andrew Cuomo for NPR’s National Desk.  Her work covers a range of styles and beats and has won critical acclaim. Her 2011 investigation of the DOD’s failure to comply with its own tobacco pricing restrictions won a Third Coast Radio Impact Award and was an IRE finalist.  In 2016, her BBC documentary “As Many Leaves” was described by The Guardian as an "Emotional, wonderful listen," and was rated among the year’s top ten podcasts by Vulture.  In 2022, Sally hosted and co-executive produced “The Heist,” an investigative podcast series which revealed the failures of President Trump’s 2017 tax bill, racked up multiple awards and was honored as a Dupont Finalist.

Sally has been teaching for over a decade. In 2013, she founded the podcast school, Radio Boot Camp. She studied at Parsons School of Design, but in 2004, the kind folks at Radiolab took her in and taught her all things audio for which she is forever grateful.

Priyanjana Bengani is the Tow Computational Journalism Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism. Her work focuses on using computational techniques to research the digital media landscape, including partisan local news and the intersection of platform companies with the media. She co-teaches a course on Information Warfare Reporting at Columbia Journalism School, and has previously co-taught a class on Algorithms for the Lede Program. 

Her most recent projects, published in the Columbia Journalism Review,have focused on uncovering networks of mysterious ‘pink slime’ local news outlets, looking at activity on WhatsApp groups during the Indian election, and analysing how Facebook labels posts inconsistently. 

Pri is a graduate of Columbia’s MS dual degree in Computer Science and Journalism (2017). She completed her BS in Computer Science and Business Studies from the University of Warwick in England. 

She likes code.

Margaret Sullivan, weekly columnist for the Guardian US, is the Executive Director for the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security. This marked her return to Columbia Journalism School, where she previously taught Audience and Engagement courses.

In her role at the Guardian, Ms. Sullivan writes on media, politics and culture; she also served as the 2023 Jack and Pamela Egan Visiting Professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and Dewitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy.

Prior to her time at Duke University, she wrote extensively on journalism ethics and press freedom as a columnist for The Washington Post. Her work there, and as the Public Editor of the New York Times from 2012 to 2016, focused on the intersection of politics, democracy and media. She also is the former executive editor of her hometown daily newspaper, The Buffalo News, where she began as a summer intern.

In addition to her work in journalism, Sullivan has published two books. In 2020, she introduced “Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy” (Columbia Global Reports) and in 2022 “Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-stained Life” (St. Martin’s Press). Both were  acclaimed.

Kristen Lombardi heads the Columbia Journalism School’s postgraduate reporting program, Columbia Journalism Investigations, where she has the privilege of helping produce great investigative stories while training the next generation of great investigative reporters. Under her editorial leadership, CJI fellows have dug into worker heat deaths (link is external), the mental-health toll of climate-fueled disasters (link is external) and online-dating companies’ response to sexual assaults (link is external), and CJI investigations have won accolades from the South Carolina Press Association, the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Peabody Awards.

Before joining the J-School in August 2018, Kristen spent 11 years as an investigative reporter at the nonprofit newsroom the Center for Public Integrity, covering environmental and social justice issues. She’s been a journalist (link is external) for 26 years and has received numerous national and regional awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Dart Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service. In 2013, President Barack Obama signed a law addressing problems exposed by her 2009-10 CPI investigation, “Sexual Assault on Campus (link is external).” She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and an Ochberg Fellow at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and has a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University. She’s taught investigative skills classes at Columbia and serves as a master’s adviser for students in the Stabile investigative reporting program.

Jonathan Soma is a programmer and educator who focuses on making unapproachable data accessible. He has made maps, processed data, and crowdsourced stories with ProPublica, WNYC, The New York Times, and others.

In 2009 he helped create Big Apple Ed, a web application that crunched NYC school data, which was awarded third place in New York City's first annual Big Apps contest. Since then, Soma's personal projects - analyzing the Japanese census, MTA travel times and more - have been featured everywhere from Gawker to The New York Times Style section.

In 2010 Soma cofounded the Brooklyn Brainery, a community-driven recreational school where he instructs on neuroscience, the Loch Ness Monster, and everything in between. He is also a speaker at Masters of Social Gastronomy, a monthly lecture series on culinary history, food science and culture.

Soma earned his B.A. in Cognitive Science from the University of Virginia.

Jimmy So is the editor of Columbia Global Reports, a publishing imprint from Columbia University that commissions authors to produce works of original thinking and on-site reporting from all over the world, on a wide range of topics. He has commissioned and edited authors such as Masha Gessen, Bill Keller, Harriet A. Washington, Margaret Sullivan, Bethany McLean, Tim Wu, Roxane Gay, Edmund Morris, Jonathan Schell, Clay Shirky, Gish Jen, and Sasha Issenberg, among many others.

He is a regular film and book critic and was a culture and books editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast, where he contributed many film, book, television, and music criticism, and won a National Magazine Award as part of the books team for his reviews. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Chronicle of Higher Education, CBS News, and other publications. He has worked for The New Yorker, CBS News, and KUOW radio. He was a classical music critic for The Seattle Times, and a news anchor and senior editor at the Hong Kong television stations TVB and ATV, where he covered the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and the Beijing Olympics. He is writing a book about the early friendship of two Chinese film directors. He is a graduate of the MA program at Columbia in the arts and culture concentration, where he won the Pulitzer traveling fellowship.

Jelani Cobb joined the Columbia Journalism School faculty in 2016 and became Dean in 2022. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015. He received a Peabody Award for his 2020 PBS Frontline film Whose Vote Counts? and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2018. He has also been a political analyst for MSNBC since 2019.

He is the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obamaand theParadox of Progress and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic. He is the editor or co-editor of several volumes including The Matter of Black Lives, a collection of The New Yorker’s writings on race and The Essential Kerner Commission Report. He is producer or co-producer on a number of documentaries including Lincoln’s Dilemma, Obama: A More Perfect Union, Policing the Police and THE RIOT REPORT.

Dr. Cobb was educated at Jamaica High School in Queens, NY, Howard University, where he earned a B.A. in English, and Rutgers University, where he completed his MA and doctorate in American History in 2003. He is also a recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation and the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Journalism Project and the Board of Trustees of the New York Public Library. He received an Honorary Doctorate for the Advancement of Science and Art from Cooper Union in 2022, and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Rutgers University in 2024. York College / CUNY and Teachers College have honored Dr. Cobb with medals.

Dr. Cobb was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2023.

George Miller is a longtime journalist and educator.

He was a photojournalist and reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News, and he later published a local music magazine in Philadelphia called JUMP. His words and images have been published around the world.

Before arriving at the Graduate School of Journalism, Miller was on the faculty of the Journalism Department at Temple University. He taught magazine writing, documentary photography, entrepreneurial journalism and a multimedia reporting class called Philadelphia Neighborhoods, as well as many other classes. From 2018 through 2021, he also served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Temple University’s Japan Campus in Tokyo.

He taught in summer multimedia journalism programs in Cagli, Italy, in Armagh, Northern Ireland, and in London.

He is a graduate of Loyola University of Maryland. He earned master’s degrees at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his doctorate in higher education leadership from Wilmington University.

As the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the Journalism School, Miller’s primary duty is to ensure that students receive the best possible learning experience.

As the Assistant Dean of Student, Academic, and International Programs, Elena directs the Part-time Program for M.S. students and oversees a portfolio of international programs and communications. A graduate of the Part-time M.S. program, she was a staff writer at The Miami Herald. Her magazine work has appeared in VIBE, Marie Claire, Commonweal and PODER. She has also worked as an editor at Scholastic News and a staff writer at the Ford Foundation’s quarterly magazine. Elena is the faculty adviser to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ student chapter at Columbia University. She is a member of the school’s Academic Affairs team.

Duy Linh Nguyen Tu is a journalist and documentary filmmaker, focusing on science, climate, and the environment. His work has appeared in print, online, on television, and in theaters. He is also the author of Narrative Storytelling for Multimedia Journalists (Focal Press).

Tu is the Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Professional Practice and teaches reporting and video storytelling courses. He is also a graduate of the program. 

Dolores Barclay is an author and former National Writer and Arts Editor of The Associated Press. She worked for AP first as a reporter covering City Hall, federal and criminal courts, and the police beat for the New York City bureau, before advancing to National Writer and investigative reporter. She later moved into culture coverage as a writer and critic and rose to manage and overhaul AP's culture beat as Arts and Entertainment editor. Her investigative series with fellow National Writer Todd Lewan, "Torn From the Land," was a seminal work in documenting the massive loss of wealth suffered by Black Americans through land loss. The project was awarded the Aronson Prize for Social Justice Journalism, the APME Enterprise Award, and the Griot Award of the New York Association of Black Journalists and was submitted for a Pulitzer Prize. It remains a studied and much discussed work. Barclay, who has taught feature writing at Rutgers University, is the author of two inspirational books, and co-author of "A Girl Needs Cash" and "Sammy Davis Jr. My Father,” now a film project with the Emmy-winning actress/producer/writer Lena Waithe. She also worked with Diana Ross on her best-selling memoir, "Secrets of a Sparrow." A graduate of Elmira College, Barclay was honored with the Alumni Association’s Outstanding Achievement Award in 2011. She is also a recipient of The Multiple Sclerosis Award for Excellence in Communication. She is currently working on her first novel and a nonfiction account of her family’s storied history.

When not working, Barclay sails, fishes, snorkels, travels, gardens and cooks. She enjoys theater, film, music, art, dance and comic books.

Books

A Girl Needs Cash

Sammy David Jr.: My Father

Believe in Yourself

Starting Over

Bruce Shapiro is Executive Director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, a project of Columbia Journalism School encouraging innovative reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy worldwide.

An award-winning reporter on human rights, criminal justice and politics, Shapiro is a contributing editor at The Nation and U.S. correspondent for Late Night Live on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National. He is also teaches ethics at Columbia Journalism School, where he is adjunct professor and Senior Advisor for Academic Affairs. His books include "Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America" and "Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America's Future."

Shapiro is recipient of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies for "outstanding and fundamental contributions to the social understanding of trauma." He is a founding board member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

Ariel Ritchin is the Senior Producer for the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma, a project of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism encouraging innovative reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy worldwide. He directs and oversees all editorial content and leads strategic and digital initiatives, while managing specialized programs, workshops and trainings for reporters all over the world. Ariel is also a multimedia journalist and documentary filmmaker whose audio and video work has appeared on NBC, PBS and PRX, among others. He has previously worked in the multimedia department at the ACLU and as a video editor for Lucky Tiger Productions. He is a Logan Foundation Nonfiction Fellow, a Posse Foundation Scholar and a Humanity in Action Senior Fellow. Ariel's film work has been supported by DOC NYC, the Park Foundation, the Redford Center and the Rogovy Foundation. He holds an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Middlebury College.