When ONA15 gets under way, you won’t need to be in six places at once, thanks to these 14 curators, who will be keeping you up to date on all sessions — live. They’ll be watching for the best content being shared by attendees and pulling it together to help tell the stories of the sessions as they unfold.
Meet the social team:
Karen Workman | @karenworkman
Karen is a Senior Staff Editor for The New York Times. She came to New York from Michigan and has been hanging around newsrooms since she was a teenager. She resides in Brooklyn, which she loves dearly despite not being any good at the hipster thing. She is the social team volunteer chair for ONA15.
Catherine Cloutier | @cmcloutier
Catherine writes about data for The Boston Globe and co-organizes the ONA Boston group. She enjoys long reads, fall days and dousing almost all food with hot sauce. If given the opportunity, she will sing the praises of her home state of Maine ad nauseam.
Adrian Lee | @AdrianKLee
Adrian is a Toronto-based digital editor at Maclean’s, Canada’s national magazine. He has a combined honors degree in journalism and philosophy, because he thought the journalism degree was way too practical and wealth-generating on its own. He is an expert in rap music and being a fan of bad sports teams.
Alex Laughlin | @alexlaughs
Alex is a social producer for The Washington Post, where she (wo)mans the main Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. Before the Post, she worked at National Journal. She graduated from the University of Georgia, where she co-founded the ONA at UGA student group in 2013.
Heather Bryant | @HBCompass
Heather is a journalist and software engineer based in San Francisco. She’s currently the project lead for Project Facet, an open source journalism software project. When she’s not consulting with media organizations on digital projects or coding, she’s behind a camera putting her photography background to use.
Katie Yaeger | @KatieYaeger
Katie is a graduate research assistant for the Journalism Digital News Archive, an initiative of the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. She also works on audience development and strategy for the media startup Gistory. Previously, Katie worked for the American Press Institute, The Kansas City Star and the Orange County Register.
April Bethea | @AprilBethea
April is a news producer and social media manager at The Charlotte Observer. She previously spent eight years as a reporter in Charlotte, covering everything from schools to county government, crime to community features. After years of following from home, she’s thrilled to attend her first ONA conference and to help share all the interesting things we’ll learn in LA.
Sarah Loyd | @sarahloyd
Sarah is the Director of Client Strategy at SocialNewsDesk and is based in San Antonio. Before joining SND, she spent more than a decade in television news, promotions, creative services and social media. Sarah is a Texas native and while she didn’t grow up with social media, she got here as soon as she could.
Lindsey Wiebe | @lindseywiebe
Lindsey is the associate online editor at Maclean’s Magazine and a co-organizer of the ONA’s Toronto chapter. She comes to Toronto by way of Winnipeg, where she worked as a social media editor and reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press. She hails from a farm in rural Manitoba. (The answer to any question about this bio is, almost certainly, “It’s in Canada.”)
Beth Ponsot | @bponsot
Beth is the Online News Editor for PBS NewsHour Weekend in New York City, where she leads the program’s digital team. Beth is responsible for managing the NewsHour’s web and social reporting efforts on the weekends. She is also a part-time graduate student at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Meena Ganesan | @MeenaGanesan
Meena is a digital producer for the live events division at The Washington Post, where she combines work in IRL with an obsession in social, Web video and narrative storytelling. Previously, she covered the 2012 election for the PBS NewsHour’s politics division. She’s from Anchorage, Alaska, and went to school in Boston at Emerson College.
Evan Mackinder | @evandmac
Evan is Slate’s audience engagement editor. Prior to joining Slate, he managed social media and engagement strategy at the Sunlight Foundation and OpenSecrets.org. A graduate of the University of Michigan and a native Michigander, he currently lives in Washington, D.C.
Maria Murriel | @mariamurriel
Maria is in charge of internetting at South Florida’s NPR station. Podcasts, Piktocharts, newsy memes, copy edits. All of it. She likes beer, cats and stories about migration and identity.
Jennifer Mizgata | @jmizgata
Jennifer is the only member of the team who is not a volunteer. She leads communications and social media strategy for ONA and works with journalists to organize trainings, events and ONA Local meet-ups, She lives in Baltimore and works out of D.C., which is a totally reasonable thing to do and gives her access to all of the best things in both places.