Staff : State of Water

Staff

Staff Storytellers

Aidan Knowles

Aidan is a senior exchange student studying at UF for the 2012 Spring semester. Back home in Ireland, he is a BA Journalism major at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Previous experience include projects in print, web, television and radio.

Adrianna Paidas

As a journalism senior at a school that has developed a premier multimedia news track, I knew it was time to dive into the unfamiliar. I studied print journalism for much of my time at UF where I wrote for a local magazine and worked as the city reporter for the Independent Florida Alligator. But, I am now very interested in telling stories through photos, audio and video. No matter the medium, I just want to let people know what's going on around them, whether it's down the block or on the other side of the world.

Carl McKinney

Carl is a senior at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. His areas include writing, audio editing and HTML/CSS coding.

Danilo Baptista

Danilo is a senior journalism undergraduate with an outside concentration in business. Born on the island of Curacao and raised in Dania Beach, Florida, water has always been a central part of life. While working on his degree, Danilo has been published online and for print publications such as the Independent Florida Alligator. Specializing in print, Danilo is hoping to expand his multimedia skills beyond the written word to mixed media projects devoted to expanding awareness about Florida's natural life.

Eleanor K. Sommer

As she approached 60 years old, Eleanor K. Sommer decided to dump her nine-to-five job and embark on an adventure. Rather than retire, she chose to attend graduate school and turn her 40 years of writing, editing, and publishing experience into an environmental journalism career. Her first effort on this path has been to enroll in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Florida. Having previously eschewed the snow-covered hills of northwest New Jersey, Ms. Sommer had fled to the Florida sunshine to attend the University of South Florida in 1970. Subsequently, worked as a reporter and editor, and eventually published a monthly business magazine. She moved to Gainesville in 1994 and settled on 10 acres of “real” Florida near Paynes Prairie with her husband and 100-pound yellow Lab.

Hannah Winston

Hannah is a third-year journalism undergraduate. While attending the University of Florida, she worked as a staff writer for The Independent Florida Alligator, a reporting intern for The Gainesville Sun and was a writer for various student-run publications on campus. Though she specializes in print journalism, she is learning to tell stories through new mediums like video and visual interactives to present the news in new and engaging ways.

Kelsey Kern

Kelsey Kern is a 4th year Telecommunications student at University of Florida. She played soccer for the University for 3 years, and is now enjoying having the time to be more involved on campus. She has a passion for news and sports, and hopes to take what she has learned at the University of Florida and become an anchor. She had an internship with GTN Sports, and is currently working for WRUF sportsradio 850. She hopes to be anchoring and doing play by plays for the Florida soccer team by Fall 2012.

Kelly Maclellan

Kelly MacLellan is a third-year journalism student at the University of Florida from Miami, Fla. The complexity of water issues and their ranging effects on different industries and people were a major focus of reporting for State of Water. The fact is that there is no easy solution to the water problem in the state and understanding the eventual need for sacrifice is the only way we will see progress. Kelly has worked on media projects in production with Miss Florida U.S.A., and the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.

Lauren Wilson

Lauren is a senior at the University of Florida focusing on magazine and design. The Florida native grew up with Lake Marion Creek in her backyard. She has seen it deteriorate with time, so water issues are very near to her heart. She considers her biggest accomplishment while in school to be the role she played as a designer and writer at Good Life Community Magazine. After graduation, Lauren will take a magazine job in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Maria Castillo

Maria is a senior journalism student with a outside concentration in political science. She was born in Lima, Peru, and has used her Spanish skills to work with Noticias WUFT, a weekly radio newscast on Florida's 89.1.

Marcela Suter

Marcela is majoring in photojournalism and political science and wants to be a humanitarian photographer. A culture junkie and world traveler, Marcela could spend the rest of her life visiting new places, trying new foods and meeting new people. She wants to use her photography and video skills to tell the stories of the people she meets along the way. She also enjoys raspberries and the colour yellow.

Sara Clark

Sara is a graduating Journalism senior. She's interned at INsite Magazine and The Gainesville Sun but plans on working as a web and graphic designer in the future. Sara is expanding her skills to encompass computer programming and animation software. Attending graduate school or an arts school are both options that she's considering for the future.

Contributing Storytellers

Mita Adesanya

Mita Adesanya is a fourth-year journalism student at the University of Florida. An international student, she grew up in Nigeria, southeast Asia and England. She is passionate about sports, music and fighting modern-day slavery. She hopes to do multimedia journalism in the future, and eventually become a documentary filmmaker.

Alejandria Artiles

Alejandria Artiles was born in Caracas, Venezuela and came to live to the U.S. to study journalism. She wants to focus her career toward the Hispanic media in the U.S. She reports on events and entertainment news for Entre Vecinos Florida, a newspaper in South Florida.

Sixtine Gurrey

Sixtine Gurrey is senior studying journalism and French. During her studies, she has freelanced for The Independent Florida Alligator and The Gainesville Sun, and interned at the Sun Sentinel. In 2011, she worked at France 24, an international television news station as assistant senior producer, for six months in Paris. She hopes to use her multimedia skills in an international newsroom.

Allysar Hassan

Allysar Hassan is a senior at the University of Florida majoring in journalism with a concentration in online media. For her career, she wants to be a voice that informs and inspires those in power to make a difference for the people who have less power.

Aundre Larrow

Aundre Larrow is a third-year journalism major who is passionate about visuals. He received a film camera from a high school theater teacher and hasn't looked back since. At the University of Florida, he has worked as a staff photographer for The Independent Florida Alligator.

Kathryn Milstein

Kathryn Milstein is a journalism senior at the University of Florida with a focus on writing. She has interned with the Toledo Free Press in Ohio. She co-started a 1,400-member club at the university, known as Gators Humans vs. Zombies. With a passion to try everything, she hopes to eventually work in New York City as a writer.

Jessica Oliver

Jessica Oliver is a fourth-year journalism major at the University of Florida. She only recently decided to pursue a career in journalism. She has traveled since the age of 2, and would like to continue to do so as a career for a travel, fashion or food magazine.

Andrea Rumbaugh

Andrea Rumbaugh is a fourth-year journalism student at the University of Florida. She has written for several publications, including The Gainesville Sun and The Detroit News. She will spend the summer working with News 21, which is an investigative journalism project focused on voting rights. After News 21, she will work as a multimedia reporter for The News-Press in Fort Myers.

Advisers

Amy Zerba

Amy Zerba is an assistant professor in UF's College of Journalism and Communications, where she teaches courses in visual journalism, multimedia journalism and survey research methods. She spent more than 10 years as a journalist working as a copy editor / page designer at the Sun Sentinel, Houston Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman and a multimedia producer at CNN.com. Her research area focuses on the news habits and non-news habits of 20-somethings in the U.S. In her research, she experiments with ways to make news more engaging for the young adult audience.

Ethan Magoc

Ethan is a graduate student at the University of Florida pursuing a master’s degree in journalism. He is the graduate assistant for the 21st Century News Lab and is serving as an executive producer for this project. A native of Pennsylvania, he has interned with the Erie Times-News, the Erie SeaWolves (Double-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers) and held a variety of campus jobs creating written, still and motion media. He also maintained a freelance client base instructing various non-profit organizations in video editing and creating an online presence. He graduated in 2011 from Mercyhurst College with a bachelor’s degree in communication.

Matt Sheehan

Matt Sheehan is the State of Water director, and oversees the multimedia reporting and production of the project. Matt is director of the 21st Century News Laboratory at UF’s College of Journalism and Communications. Sheehan joined the college after two years in the media startup world, where he served as chief operating officer for a niche media company. A journalist and MBA, he has jumped between established/emerging media and the academy. He’s served as an assistant news editor at The Washington Post, worked at a few East Coast papers (as an editor, reporter, designer and online producer), and spent a few years as an academic administrator at the University of Maryland, where he also taught.