Executive Director
Bill Buzenberg became executive director of the Center in December 2006. Most recently, as senior vice president of news at American Public Media / Minnesota Public Radio, Buzenberg launched such programming initiatives as American RadioWorks and Speaking of Faith. Buzenberg was vice president of news and information at National Public Radio from 1990 to 1997. Buzenberg joined NPR in 1978 as the first reporter to help start Morning Edition. For 11 years, he was a foreign affairs correspondent based mostly in Washington, D.C. He was named London bureau chief in 1986 and became NPR’s first managing editor in 1989. He began his journalism career in newspapers, serving as city editor of the Colorado Springs Sun in the early 70s. He was co-editor of the memoirs of the late CBS News president Richard Salant: Salant, CBS, and the Battle for the Soul of Broadcast Journalism. A graduate of Kansas State University, Buzenberg has also studied at the University of Michigan as part of its mid-career professional journalism fellowship program, in the master’s program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy, and as a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Center Fellow
Katie Balestra is a graduate student at Georgetown University studying investigative journalism. She is a fellow at the Center for the Pearl Project, a group of students working with professor Asra Nomani to find the truth behind the kidnapping and death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Balestra graduated summa cum laude in 2002 from Youngstown State University with a degree in journalism, where she was managing editor of the university newspaper, The Jambar. She also worked as a copy-editing intern at The Vindicator, the daily newspaper in Youngstown, Ohio. In 2002, she began working as a writer-editor for the federal government, where she has worked for the last six years.

Copy Editor
Sara Bularzik joined the Center in April 2007. She graduated cum laude from American University in May 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in print journalism and a minor in international relations. During her time at American University, Bularzik was a copy editor for the university newspaper and an editor of an online news magazine. She also held internship positions at Washingtonpost.com, Reporters Without Borders, and WAMU radio.

Media Relations Manager
Steve Carpinelli assists the Center’s communications department with media strategy, procedures, and public outreach efforts. Before joining the Center in 2006, he worked in the research and intelligence practice group at Public Strategies, Inc.’s Washington, D.C., office, focusing on client issues in the telecommunications, finance, manufacturing, health care, and technology sectors. Carpinelli has more than 10 years of experience in Washington public affairs, media relations, and crisis communications issues with policy makers, corporate executives, and all forms of the media. He graduated with honors from American University’s School of International Service with a master’s degree in international communication and policy.

Staff Writer and Soles Fellow
Laura Cheek joined the Center in July 2008 as the University of Delaware’s 11th James R. Soles Fellow. She received a bachelor’s degree as well as honor society memberships in political science and sociology, concentrating in law and society. Cheek was a founding member and president of Delaware’s Mock Trial Team, a Blue Hen Ambassador, and recently studied abroad in Italy in January 2008. She held internships at the Department of Justice, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and most recently in the office of a U.S. senator. Originally from Arlington, Virginia, she now lives in Rockville, Maryland.

Staff Writer
Te-Ping Chen, originally hailing from Oakland, California, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with a joint bachelor’s degree in sociology and international relations. As an undergraduate, she worked extensively on electoral reform and voter-rights campaigns. In 2006, she began contributing freelance features to Rhode Island’s alt-weekly, The Providence Phoenix, as well as opinion columns to the on-campus Brown Daily Herald. Since graduating in December 2007 as a California Truman Scholar, Chen has written for The Nation magazine’s D.C.-based blog, J Street.

Writer
Dick Cooper came to the Center after a 36-year career as a newspaper reporter and editor, the last 28 years as a staffer at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Since leaving the daily newspaper business, Cooper has been the president of Cooper Media Associates Inc. a media consulting, editing, and writing firm. At The Inquirer, he worked as a reporter covering crime, courts, and corruption. He was an assistant city editor, edited several daily news sections, and managed the News Research Department that supplied journalistic research to The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. Before moving to Philadelphia, Cooper was a crime and investigative reporter at the Rochester, New York, Times-Union where he won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Attica Prison Riot. He is a graduate of Michigan State University School of Journalism and was a Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan. He taught investigative and in-depth reporting at Temple University for 10 years. Cooper has sailed the Chesapeake Bay for 30 years, and he and his wife, Patricia, now live and sail in St. Michaels, Maryland.

Data Editor
David Donald joined the Center in September 2008. Prior to that, he served as training director at Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting for four years. He conducted more than 150 training events for thousands of journalists in the United States and internationally with a focus on investigative skills and data analysis to uncover fraud and other governmental abuse. While at IRE, his analysis ranged from examining structurally deficient bridges after the Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse to crime on the nation’s college campuses. Previously, Donald spent 11 years at the Savannah Morning News in Georgia where he was research and projects editor. Among his many stories, he covered the resegregation of public schools, race relations, and an in-depth look at the aging population. His work was part of a series of stories winning two James K. Batten Awards and two Hammet Awards for ethical and courageous journalism. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from Kent State University, a master’s in English from Cleveland State University, and earned a media management fellowship at the Poynter Institute in 1991.

Senior Fellow
John Dunbar comes to the Center after two-and-a-half years covering information technology and economics for the Washington, D.C., bureau of The Associated Press. Prior to AP, he spent seven years at the Center where he created the Well Connected project and contributed to numerous other Center projects. Before working at the Center, Dunbar was an investigative reporter with the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. He is a graduate of the University of South Florida in Tampa where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mass communications.

Staff Writer
Before he joined the Center’s staff in 2008, Joe Eaton was a staff writer at Washington City Paper and a reporter at The Roanoke Times. He has written for Salon.com, USA Today, and The (Baltimore) Sun. Eaton graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in English and earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland.

Director of Development
Bridget Gallagher brings 10 years of experience as a development professional back to the Center, where she previously served as associate director of development. Gallagher has implemented hands-on major gifts cultivation, proposal writing, and prospect research strategies as a staff member and consultant for advocacy, arts, media/journalism, and educational organizations locally and nationally. Her experience encompasses development and management for organizations including the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra in Michigan, The Doe Fund in New York City, and a political party in Anchorage, Alaska, where she served as executive director from 2003-2004. Gallagher hails from Michigan and holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and English from the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Staff Writer
Caitlin Ginley joined the Center in July 2007 as the University of Delaware’s 10th James R. Soles Fellow. She graduated cum laude in May 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in English and political science, concentrating in journalism. She worked for two years on the editorial staff of the university’s award-winning student newspaper, The Review, and was an intern for Delaware Today magazine and Court TV.

Web Editor
Andrew Green joined the Center in July 2008 as web editor. Green graduated from Northwestern University in 2004 with a degree in journalism and a double major in political science. Following graduation he spent a year in Zambia on a Fulbright Grant, studying the development of the country’s independent media. Most recently he served as a fellow at The American Prospect. He has written for In These Times, Global Journalist, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, among other publications.

Staff Writer
Nikola Horejs joined the Center as a Fulbright fellow in September 2008. He is on leave from a business daily newspaper in the Czech Republic, where he is a contributing editor for the foreign affairs desk. Previously he spent several years at People in Need, the largest Czech nonprofit organization for human rights and development, working with media and training journalists in troubled countries.

Project Coordinator
Josh Israel joined the Center in 2006. Previously, he spent four years working as director of research on Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist/historian Nick Kotz’s acclaimed book Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America, and six months as an aide to a Virginia state legislator. Israel is a 1999 magna cum laude graduate of Brandeis University and was a 2004 Political Leadership Program Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership.

Development Associate
Caroline Jarboe came to the Center in 2007 after eight years at National Public Radio, where she most recently served as senior development associate, and a year as development manager for the Self Reliance Foundation/Hispanic Communications Network. At NPR, Jarboe worked with the nation’s major private foundations, and she was a central development staff member in charge of writing about NPR’s news coverage plans. She graduated from Tulane University with a bachelor’s degree in American studies and received a master’s degree from the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program. Under her maiden name Caroline Langston, Jarboe is a widely published writer and essayist, a winner of the Puschart Prize, and a commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered.

David E. Kaplan
Editorial Director
David E. Kaplan was named editorial director in September 2008. In addition to overseeing the Center’s editorial work, he serves as director of its International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. An ICIJ member since 1999, Kaplan has reported from more than two dozen countries. Over a 30-year career, he has investigated organized crime, terrorist groups, corporate polluters, corrupt cops, neo-Nazis, the banking industry, and the intelligence community. Kaplan worked previously as chief investigative correspondent for U.S. News & World Report and as one of two senior editors at the San Francisco-based Center for Investigative Reporting. He is a former Fulbright scholar in Japan, and his books include YAKUZA, widely considered the standard reference on the Japanese mafia; and Fires of the Dragon, on the murder of journalist Henry Liu. Kaplan’s stories have won or shared more than 15 awards, including honors from Investigative Reporters and Editors, the American Bar Association, Overseas Press Club, and World Affairs Council.

Staff Writer
Sarah Laskow, a researcher for Buying of the President, joined the Center in August 2006. She holds a bachelor’s degree in literature from Yale University and has worked with Chile Pepper magazine, the West Africa bureau of The New York Times, and National Public Radio. At Yale, Laskow was a founding editor of The (Yale) Hippolytic and senior editor of The New Journal, the magazine about Yale and New Haven.

Staff Writer
Marianne Lavelle joined the Center in July 2008 as an investigative reporter focusing on energy, environment, and climate, bringing two decades of experience covering the intersection of business and policy in Washington, D.C. Previously a senior writer at U.S. News and World Report, she tracked how rising fuel costs are transforming the U.S. economy and explored the barriers to alternative energy solutions. Before joining U.S. News, she created a beat on federal regulation for The National Law Journal, covering the savings and loan collapse, and spearheading a groundbreaking investigative report on environmental justice, “Unequal Protection,” winner of the George Polk Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, and numerous other honors. Lavelle has written for The New York Times Magazine and The Washington Post, and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and National Public Radio. With the Center for Public Integrity in 1996, she co-authored the book Toxic Deception, which explored how dangerous products stay on the market, even when safe alternatives are available. She has a master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor’s degree in English from Villanova University.

Web Developer and Information Technology Manager
Tuan Le came to the Center in 2007 and has worked in a variety of environments, ranging from high-energy startups to blue-chip corporations to nonprofit organizations. Some of the responsibilities and roles he has held include project manager, team leader, and web developer. His background is as varied as his experience, but he specializes in web technologies that include ASP.NET, SQL, AJAX, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

Staff Writer
Matthew Lewis joined the Center in July 2008 after working at The Fund For Independence in Journalism, assisting Charles Lewis on a forthcoming book. He also worked on Iraq: The War Card in partnership with the Center. Lewis earned bachelor’s degrees in journalism and political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At Wisconsin, he founded and edited an online magazine connecting college sportswriters, The Heptagon. He was an intern for the Wisconsin State Journal and Rotowire and wrote for scout.com, the Badger Herald, the Vanderbilt Hustler, and Vanderbilt Sports Weekly.

Staff Writer
Kristen Lombardi joined the Center’s staff in November 2007. She has worked as a journalist for more than 12 years, mainly at alternative newsweeklies. Most recently, she was a staff writer and investigative reporter at The Village Voice, where she provided groundbreaking coverage of the 9/11 health crisis. Her work has explored such social issues as the family courts, criminal justice, and child abuse. Lombardi’s investigative reports as a staff writer for The Phoenix were widely credited with helping to expose the clergy sexual-abuse scandal in Boston and were recognized by the Columbia Journalism Review and other publications. Her investigative reporting has been honored by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, the New England Press Association, and The Livingston Awards, and she was awarded a fellowship from the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma for her coverage of abuse, public health, and mental illness. Lombardi graduated with high honors from the University of California at Berkeley and has a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University.

Chief Operating Officer
Ellen McPeake returned to the Center in November 2007 as its chief operating officer. She has spent most of her life in the nonprofit sector, working for such groups as the Center for Law and Social Policy, the Mental Health Law Project, Public Citizen, and most recently Greenpeace, as its chief operating officer. McPeake majored in international management at Georgetown University.

Staff Writer
Aaron Mehta graduated with honors from Tufts University in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in history and communications. Hailing from the Boston area, he has worked for a national political convention, for the legal watchdog group CREW in Washington, and on several Massachusetts-based campaigns. Most recently, he filled the role of research and policy director for a city council race in Boston. Mehta is also an amateur musician and freelance editor in his free time. An editor of his high school paper and a former columnist for The Tufts Daily, he is excited to be returning to journalism.

Project Director
Asra Q. Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter for 15 years, joined the Center in 2008 as co-director of the Pearl Project, a faculty-student investigation into the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter and friend Daniel Pearl. Pearl and his wife, Mariane, were staying at Nomani’s rented home in Karachi, Pakistan, when he was kidnapped in 2002. Nomani launched the Pearl Project at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies in August 2007 as a professor of journalism. She earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies from West Virginia University and a master’s degree in international communications from American University’s School of International Service. Nomani is the author of Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. She is also the author of Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love. She has written on issues related to Islam for The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time, Sojourners, Slate, Salon, and The American Prospect. She has also written for the Los Angeles Times, Glamour, and People. She is a regular contributor to National Public Radio’s Tell Me More program.

Computer-Assisted-Reporting Specialist
Mike Pell joined the Center’s staff in December 2007. From 2002 to 2006, as a reporter for the Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York, Pell covered local politics, the Canadian border, and environmental issues related to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. His stories for the newspaper won two Associated Press awards. He then went to the University of Missouri School of Journalism to study computer-assisted reporting; in 2007 he was a Pulliam Fellow at The Arizona Republic.

Office Assistant and Executive Assistant to the Executive Director
Regina Russell studied business management at Roanoke Chowan Community College and George Washington University. She is completing her bachelor’s degree at Trinity College.

Staff Writer and American University Fellow
Prior to joining the Center, Nick Schwellenbach was an investigator at the nonprofit Project On Government Oversight since 2004, where he investigated access to information issues and national-security related corruption and waste. He assisted scores of reporters and congressional investigators in dozens of public interest investigations and has testified before Congress on the need for stronger whistleblower protections in order to improve oversight. Schwellenbach was also a reporter-researcher for the Nieman Watchdog, a project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, that seeks to improve the quality of American journalism. He also represented POGO on the Steering Committee of Openthegovernment.org, a coalition of news organizations and nonprofits that challenges excessive government secrecy. He is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at American University and earned a bachelor’s in history with a minor in economics from the University of Texas-Austin in 2004.

Staff Writer
Dusty Smith joined the Center in October 2007 to work on the Land Use Accountability Project. Smith is a 1999 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, where he helped run a news service that distributed coverage of the Virginia General Assembly to publications around the state. He also worked as an intern in the Washington bureau of Fortune magazine. After graduation, Smith covered the boards of supervisors in Fairfax, Fauquier, and Prince William counties for Times Community Newspapers, which publishes nearly 20 community newspapers in the Virginia suburbs of the nation’s capital. He then joined Leesburg Today as its chief Loudoun County government reporter. Smith has won numerous awards for his coverage of business, small-town politics, and a high-profile murder trial.

Research Editor
Before coming to the Center, Peter Smith was employed as a law clerk at the firm of Gaffney & Schember, P.C., in Washington, D.C. He received his bachelor’s degree in medieval European history from Harvard University and his law degree from American University.

Tom Stites
Consulting Editor
Tom Stites, who joined the Center in January 2007 to provide developmental editing for investigative projects and books, was for a decade the editor and publisher of UU World, the national magazine of the Unitarian Universalist religion. His long journalism career also includes ranking positions at major newspapers including managing editor of The Kansas City Times; national correspondent, national editor, and associate managing editor for project reporting at The Chicago Tribune; and night national editor of The New York Times. Projects he has directed have won every major journalism award, including the Pulitzer Prize.

Web Media Production Associate
Ariel Olson Surowidjojo received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Oregon, Eugene, in 2005. She began reporting as an intern for TriCounty News in Junction City, Oregon, and later worked as a freelance reporter for the Eugene Weekly newspaper and for Eugene Magazine, covering local art and entertainment. In August, Surowidjojo married and moved to Washington, D.C., to pursue a master’s degree in journalism at American University. She recently co-authored an article for Washingtonpost.com, identifying young voters’ concerns in the 2008 presidential election.

ICIJ Deputy Director
Marina Walker Guevara joined ICIJ in fall 2005. She has written for newspapers and magazines in Argentina and the United States on issues ranging from public health and the environment to courts and human rights. Her investigations have won and shared more than 10 national and international awards. In March 2006 she was awarded the European Commission Lorenzo Natali Prize (Latin America and the Caribbean region) for her reporting about environmental damage caused in Peru by a U.S.-based mining company; that investigation also won her the 2006 Reuters-IUCN Media Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting. She graduated magna cum laude from Universidad Nacional de Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina, with a bachelor’s degree in communication sciences, and earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri.

Staff Writer and American University Fellow
Kate Willson received a bachelor’s degree in French from Oregon State University. Following graduation she worked briefly in Colombia and then at community and daily newspapers where she covered courts and focused on enterprise and investigative reporting. Willson joined the Center in 2007 and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at American University.

Managing Editor
Gordon Witkin joined the Center in September 2008 following a long career at U.S. News & World Report and a shorter stint at Congressional Quarterly. At U.S. News, Witkin served as a regional correspondent in Detroit and as bureau chief in Denver, before coming to Washington in 1987. He covered criminal justice for 11 years, before joining the management ranks as chief of correspondents in 1998. Starting in January 2003, he served four and a half years as the news magazine’s national affairs editor. More recently, Witkin spent a year as social policy editor at Congressional Quarterly, supervising coverage of health care, legal affairs, education, immigration, housing, and labor. He began his career at The Indianapolis Star, and has been a freelance contributor to Planning magazine and Tennis magazine. Witkin’s work has been honored by the American Bar Association and the National Press Club. 

Center Fellow
Kira Zalan is a graduate journalism student at Georgetown University. She received a double Bachelor of Arts degree from University of California, Santa Cruz, in politics and legal studies and a Master of Science degree from London School of Economics in Russian and post-Soviet studies. Zalan was the managing editor for the Pearl Project at Georgetown, and she joined the Center in August 2008 as a fellow, where the project has found its new home.

Project Director
Michael (M.J.) Zuckerman’s 30 years in journalism have included a variety of stints, starting as a radio reporter at WINS All-News Radio in New York City and years as a “cops and courts beat reporter” for Gannett Newspapers in New York. He authored a book, Vengeance Is Mine, investigating a mob hit man’s rise to power as Los Angeles family crime boss and the abuses of the federal witness protection program. Most recently he’s written for the Carnegie Corporation of New York on topics ranging from the thorny U.S.-North Korean peace talks, America’s lack of bio-security readiness, and assessing threats of nuclear terrorism in the United States. Zuckerman is a frequent lecturer at the National Defense University and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and serves as an adjunct professor of journalism at the George Washington University. A “Founder” of USA Today, Zuckerman served there as rewrite desk chief, projects editor, Washington editor, and foreign editor, before working for five years as senior writer investigating, among other things: the weaknesses of U.S. policy after the holocaust in Rwanda; the influence of Russian organized crime over U.S. businesses in Moscow during the 1990s; and the threats of international terrorism and failures of U.S. national security policies to adapt to the new rules of engagement — and avoid conflicting with traditional civil liberties — in today’s cyber era.