Mango is a design educator and consultant at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. After receiving a BFA in Design from Virginia Commonwealth University, she designed for the Washington Post, Journal Newspaper TMC Publications, NRA-American Marksman. As AME for the Akron Beacon in 1994, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for the series “The Question of Color.” She serves as the visual consultant to the project, helping graduate students engineer the overall visual aesthetic and design of the prototype. Curtis believes students must understand that journalism does not end at the American border; the entire world is their frontier.
Jeremy Gilbert
Jeremy is an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, teaching and researching media product design and digital innovation. He has directed and built award-winning digital projects across platforms and helped revamp Medill’s interactive curriculum. Before coming to Medill, he led redesigns at The Poynter Institute and several award-winning Florida newspapers. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the science of journalism from Medill. Jeremy helped the Innovation Project team with product ideation and human-centered design. He believes that a global outlook is part of what binds a local community together and to the wider world.
Rich Gordon
Rich is professor and director of digital innovation at the Medill School of Journalism, where he launched the school’s graduate program in interactive publishing. He is one of four Northwestern faculty members – two from journalism and two from computer science – awarded a Knight Foundation grant to establish the Knight News Innovation Laboratory at Northwestern. He was the first online director for the Miami Herald Publishing Co. Before that he worked as reporter, bureau chief and editor for newspapers in Virginia and Florida, where he was one of the early leaders in computer-assisted reporting. He earned a B.A. in history at the University of Pennsylvania. His philosophy on global journalism: “Thanks to the Internet, information about the world outside the United States is more accessible than ever – but journalists need to help people understand and care about the world beyond our borders.”
Rachel Davis Mersey
Rachel (PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007; MSJ, Northwestern University, 2001; BA, Wake Forest University, 2000) is an assistant professor at Medill and a member of the Innovation Projects Resource Board. She specializes in audience research and is the author of “Can Journalism Be Saved? Rediscovering America’s Appetite for News.” Her approach focuses on understanding people’s identities to effectively communicate information, including international news, with them. Rachel is also the senior director of the Media ManagementCenter and a fellow with the Institute for Policy Research, both at Northwestern.
Owen Youngman
Owen was appointed to the Knight Chair in Digital Media Strategy at Medill after a 37-year career
at the Chicago Tribune. He created chicagotribune.com and metromix.com as the Tribune’s
first director of interactive media; directed the development and launch of RedEye; and, in nine
years as a vice president and senior vice president, oversaw strategy and development. His
responsibilities on the business side also included strategic marketing; community relations and
the Tribune’s philanthropy; direction of the company’s developing businesses; events; research;
readership growth; and cross-company project management. During a Tribune career that began
in 1971 as a copy boy, Youngman held newsroom positions including deputy sports editor,
associate metropolitan editor/suburban news, associate features editor, associate managing
editor/financial news and managing editor/features.
