Staff

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Joel Simon

Joel Simon worked as a journalist in California and Latin America before joining CPJ as Americas program coordinator in 1997. He began his career as a writer and photographer based in Central America, focusing on Guatemala's civil war. After obtaining a master's degree in Latin American studies from Stanford University, Simon moved to Mexico City in 1989 where he worked as an associate editor for Pacific News Service and as a freelance writer and photographer for a number of U.S. publications. In Mexico, Simon covered immigration, environmental issues, and the debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement. From 1991 to 1994, Simon was based in San Francisco and worked as a contributing editor to SFWeekly. He returned to Mexico in 1994 to report on the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas as a freelance correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle. Over the next three years, he covered the peso devaluation and resulting political upheaval in Mexico while making several reporting trips to Cuba. Simon's book on Mexico's environmental crisis, Endangered Mexico: An Environment on the Edge, was published by Sierra Club Books in 1997. Simon has participated in CPJ missions to Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Yugoslavia, Tajikistan, Mexico, Colombia, the Gambia, Russia, and the Philippines. He has written widely on press issues, including press freedom and international law, for the Columbia Journalism Review, Slate, Newsday, and the New York Review of Books, and has made numerous media appearances to discuss press freedom issues. Simon was made deputy director in 2000 and executive director in July 2006.

DEPUTY DIRECTOR
Robert Mahoney

Robert Mahoney worked as a journalist in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East before joining CPJ in August 2005 as senior editor. He reported on politics and economics for Reuters news agency from Brussels and Paris in the late 1970s, and from Southeast Asia in the early 1980s. He covered south Asia from Delhi for three years from 1985, reporting on the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination, the civil war in Sri Lanka, and the fallout from the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. In 1988, Mahoney became Reuters bureau chief for West and Central Africa based in Ivory Coast, spending considerable time in Liberia covering the civil war. He served as Reuters Jerusalem bureau chief from 1990 to 1997, directing print and later television coverage of the Palestinian intifada, the Iraqi missile attacks on Israel, the Oslo peace process, and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He worked as chief correspondent in Germany from 1997 to 1999 before moving to London to become news editor in charge of politics and general news for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. In 2004, he taught journalism for the Reuters Foundation in the Middle East, and worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch. He became CPJ deputy director in January 2007.

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND OUTREACH
John Weis

John Weis joined CPJ in April 2004. He directs all fund-raising activities of the organization, both annual support and campaign contributions. He has a long and successful record as a fund-raiser, having most recently served as the deputy director of development at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First). Weis has held fund-raising positions at WNYC Radio, the New York Public Library, and the University of Pennsylvania. He has a B.S. in Commerce from Rider University.

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Bill Sweeney

Bill Sweeney joined CPJ in June 2004 after working as New York news editor for The Associated Press. From 2000 to 2004, Sweeney directed AP's coverage of New York City and the metropolitan area, including the September 11 attacks and their aftermath, the embassy bombing and millennium terror trials, the anthrax threat of 2001, and the financial crime trials of Martha Stewart and others. He came to the AP from The Hartford Courant, where he oversaw coverage of mental health and juvenile justice issues. At The Courant, he edited the series, "Deadly Restraint," which described the abusive treatment of psychiatric patients nationwide and prompted federal reforms. Sweeney is a graduate of the University of Connecticut.

COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
Meredith Greene Megaw

Meredith Greene Megaw is an Emmy-winning television producer with more than 15 years of network news experience at ABC and NBC. She worked for ABC News from 1990 to 2006, except for a two-year period in 1996 and 1997 when she worked as a senior producer for NBC News Online, the precursor to MSNBC. At ABC, Greene Megaw produced award-winning programs on leading international figures, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Pervez Musharraf, Rudolph Giuliani, and Ariel Sharon. At NBC, she was an early leader in Internet newsgathering and production. Greene Megaw graduated from Smith College and attended Harvard College.

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
Lade Kadejo

Lade Kadejo holds a B.S. in accounting from Brooklyn College, where she also studied public and private finance at the graduate level. She has been in the accounting field for more than 18 years. Prior to joining CPJ in June 1999, she served as tax consultant and preparer for H&R Block and as finance officer for Aerotours International, an Australian travel wholesaler.

DEPUTY EDITOR
Lauren Wolfe

Before joining CPJ in July 2007, Lauren Wolfe was the copy chief of the daily newspaper amNewYork from 2005 to 2007. She has been an editor, reporter, and researcher for newspapers, magazines, books, and electronic media, including at the Long Island Press, Architecture magazine, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She worked as a researcher and reporter for two New York Times books on the September 11 attacks, 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers and City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Phoenix, and The International Herald Tribune among other publications. She studied at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and received a bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University in 1997.

MEDIA OFFICER
Andrew Levinson

Andrew Levinson joined CPJ in July 2007 after working as a production assistant for CNN. He has been an intern at "60 Minutes," Sanctuary for Families, and the Governor's Office of the State of New Jersey. He received a master's degree in international relations from New York University and a bachelor's degree in politics from Union College.

WASHINGTON, D.C. REPRESENTATIVE
Frank Smyth

Frank Smyth began his career reporting from El Salvador in the mid-1980s. He has covered Guatemala, Rwanda, Colombia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. In 1991, Iraqi authorities captured and imprisoned him while he was reporting on the Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq. His articles and opinion pieces have appeared in The Village Voice, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Foreign Affairs. He contributed to Crimes of War, a collection of essays on human rights and armed conflicts edited by Roy Gutman and David Rieff. Smyth has also served as an investigative consultant for the Human Rights Watch Arms Division and Amnesty International USA. He has collaborated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. He is a graduate of Boston College and Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

COORDINATOR, IMPUNITY CAMPAIGN & JOURNALIST ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
Elisabeth Witchel

Elisabeth Witchel joined CPJ in July 2001 to launch the Journalist Assistance Program. In 2007 she also became coordinator of CPJ's Global Campaign Against Impunity. Before joining CPJ, Witchel worked in product marketing at Grassroots Enterprise, a San Francisco-based political advocacy communications firm. Previously, she spent several years in Seoul, Korea, as a freelance journalist. In addition to holding a B.A. in history from Stanford University, she has an M.A. in international studies and diplomacy from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. Witchel has written for US News & World Report, The Korea Times, Travel Holiday, The Industry Standard, and Kirkus Reviews.

JOURNALIST ASSISTANCE PROGRAM ASSOCIATE
Sheryl A. Mendez

Sheryl A. Mendez is a founding member of the "Crimes of War Project" and editor of research and photography for the book, Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (W.W. Norton & Co.). In 2008, she was awarded the Every Human Has Rights media award by Internews and The Elders for documenting the experiences of Iraqi refugees and asylum seekers in the Middle East and Europe. In collaboration with Offline: Media, she conceived "Offline: Baghdad (Not Just Another Film Festival)" to draw attention to the plight of Iraqi journalists, fixers, and media workers at risk. Mendez is also a widely published radio and photojournalist previously based throughout the Middle East and Asia. She covered the 2006 war in Lebanon, the aftermath of the war in Iraq from 2003 to 2005, and the earthquake in Bam, Iran, in 2003. She has also worked as a consultant to the Open Society Institute and Al Liquindoi of Spain. For nearly six years from 2000, she was the editor of photography of US News & World Report's New York bureau. Prior to that, she was editor of story development and research for Magnum Photos. Currently, she is on the board of November 11, a nonprofit organization engaging with independent authors who pursue innovation in the visual arts, journalism, and emerging fields. Mendez holds an M.S. in International Affairs from The New School for Social Research, and a B.A. in Political Science and Journalism from Rutgers University.

WEB MANAGER AND SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR
Mick Stern

Mick Stern has been a free-lance editor, technical writer, graphic designer, and teacher at several universities, including Syracuse University, Rutgers (New Brunswick), and New York University's Department of Undergraduate Film and Television, where he still teaches part time. He holds a PhD in literature from New York University.

RECEPTIONIST AND OFFICE MANAGER
Janet Mason

Prior to joining CPJ, Janet Mason worked as an executive secretary, an administrative assistant, a scheduling coordinator, and a radio producer for various companies, including CBS, NBC, WYNY, and Deloitte & Touche. She holds a bachelor's in communications/journalism from the City College of New York.

REGIONAL PROGRAMS

AFRICA PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Tom Rhodes

Tom Rhodes began his journalism career in 2001 as a writer at NewsAfrica magazine in London and as a contributor to a local radio station. The following year he moved to Khartoum, Sudan, to work as a university professor and a contributor for the Integrated Regional Information Network. In 2004, Rhodes helped initiate southern Sudan's first independent newspaper, The Juba Post, in Juba. He was the editor of the paper for more than two years while also a contributor for the BBC. He wrote and edited several pieces for Small Arms Survey, UNICEF, and UNDP during his stay in Sudan. He is a history graduate from the University of Massachusetts and has a master's degree in African Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

AFRICA RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Mohamed Keita

Keita, a native of Bamako, Mali, also lived in Senegal before moving to New York. Fluent in French and English, Keita is a graduate of the City College of New York. Prior to joining CPJ, Keita volunteered as a researcher with the nongovernmental World Federalist Movement-Institute of Global Policy, which works to build international democratic institutions. He was responsible for a project on the structures and mechanisms of the African Union and helped organize outreach activities in West Africa for a project on the UN's "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine. Keita also monitored various UN reform consultations at the United Nations.

AMERICAS PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Carlos Lauria

Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lauria began his journalistic career as a contributor to regional newspaper Diario La Unión, where he was promoted to managing editor. In 1991, he began working at Playboy Magazine Argentina and later became managing editor. In 1994, Lauria settled in New York City as U.S. bureau chief correspondent for the largest magazine publisher in Argentina, Editorial Perfil. In this position, he wrote and edited hundreds of stories that were published in the various magazines owned by the company, particularly Noticias, the world's largest Spanish-language newsmagazine. He has been invited to speak about the current crisis in Argentina by the American Jewish Committee (June 2002) and to discuss developments in the murder of photographer José Luis Cabezas, who worked for Noticias, by the Freedom Forum (April 1997). He is a journalism graduate of Universidad Católica Argentina.

AMERICAS RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Maria Salazar Ferro

Salazar, a native of Bogotá, Colombia, grew up in New York. Fluent in Spanish, English and French, Salazar studied anthropology at Universidad de los Andes, in Bogotá and graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor's degree in anthropology and comparative literature. Salazar worked for the United Nations Fund for Population Aid as a researcher in a project on sexual and reproductive health among young refugees in Colombia. She also conducted research on HIV/AIDS prevention in Latin America for the International Planned Parenthood Federation. She worked for Inter-Press Services in New York as an associate reporter.

ASIA PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Bob Dietz

Since 1977, Bob Dietz has worked as a journalist in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the United States. He started as a freelance journalist in Tanzania, moving to Uganda after the departure of Idi Amin, and then to Somalia in 1981. He was a cameraman and bureau chief in Cairo and Beirut for Visnews, now Reuters TV, covering the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its aftermath. He moved to Asia as a bureau chief for NBC News in Seoul and then in Manila, where he opened the network's bureau shortly before the downfall of the Marcos regime. In 1988, he was awarded a William Benton Fellowship for Broadcast Journalists at the University of Chicago, studying international relations. He later served as interim general manager for a start-up PBS station in his hometown of Philadelphia, before working for the newly launched CNN International in Atlanta. In 1995, Dietz moved to Hong Kong with his wife, Donna Liu, who opened CNNI's Asia Production Center. After seven years as a senior editor at Asiaweek magazine, he returned to the United States and worked with the World Health Organization, handling media relations and risk communication during the SARS and avian influenza outbreaks. WHO assignments took Dietz to Beijing, Manila, Hanoi, Geneva, New Delhi, Phnom Penh, and Indonesia's Aceh province following the December 2004 tsunami. While at WHO, he worked closely with local and foreign reporters across Asia. Since starting at CPJ in January 2006, Dietz has continued to travel widely in Asia, including reporting trips and CPJ missions to Afghanistan, China and Hong Kong, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

ASIA RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Madeline Earp

Madeline Earp has a master's degree in East Asian studies from Harvard University and a bachelor's degree in English literature from Cambridge University, UK. She has studied Mandarin Chinese in China and Taiwan and taught English in Asia, Europe and America. She joins CPJ from Human Rights in China where she provided executive and communications support.

ASIA PROGRAM CONSULTANT
Shawn W. Crispin

Shawn W. Crispin was bureau chief for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review in Bangkok from 1999 to 2004, where he wrote on a wide range of political, business, and social issues. From 2001, Shawn also served as bureau chief for the Review's sister publication, The Asian Wall Street Journal. His coverage of Asia's AIDS epidemic was part of a package recognized in 2004 for the "Excellence in Magazines" award of the Society of Publishers in Asia. In 2005, Shawn served as an investigative consultant with Human Rights Watch (Asia), where he researched and wrote a full-length report on press freedom issues in Thailand. His journalism has also appeared in the International Herald Tribune and Institutional Investor magazine and he is currently the Southeast Asia editor for Asia Times Online. Shawn received a master's degree in Southeast Asian Studies and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC in 1999. He speaks fluent Thai.

EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Nina Ognianova

Before joining CPJ as Europe and Central Asia research associate in December 2003, Nina Ognianova worked as a staff writer for the International Journalists' Network, the media-assistance Web site of the nonprofit International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in Washington, D.C. She covered the countries of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. In September 2003, Ognianova coordinated an ICFJ conference, which was held in her native Bulgaria, for Balkan investigative journalists about covering the problems of human trafficking. Ognianova earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and mass communications from the American University in Bulgaria and a master's degree from the Missouri School of Journalism--Columbia. While in Missouri, Ognianova was on the editorial staff of the magazine of the International Press Institute, Global Journalist, where she also published articles. Ognianova is a native Bulgarian speaker, fluent in Russian, and proficient in Macedonian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, and Italian. She was promoted to senior research associate in January 2006 and became program coordinator in June 2006.

EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Muzaffar Suleymanov

Muzaffar Suleymanov joined CPJ in 2007. A contributor to Central Asia news Web sites, he holds a master's degree in international peace studies from the U.N. University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica, and a bachelor's degree in international and comparative politics from the American University-Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Prior to joining CPJ he worked for non-profits focused on Central Asia, including the Open Society Institute-sponsored Civic Education Project and American University-based East West Center. While in Costa Rica, he volunteered for the U.N. University for Peace and co-founded the Human Dignity Project, a nonprofit that promotes respect for human rights. As part of the Human Dignity Project, Suleymanov coordinated a two-week mission to Kyrgyzstan to explore possibilities for human rights training. He speaks Russian and Uzbek, and is proficient in Tajik.

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Mohamed Abdel Dayem 

Before joining CPJ in December 2008, Mohamed Abdel Dayem was a research analyst at the Save Darfur Coalition, where he was responsible for researching and producing all of the coalition's written materials. Abdel Dayem was also involved in increasing the coalition's outreach and coordination with activists, governments, and the media in the Middle East and Muslim world at large. In late 2006 and early 2007, Abdel Dayem worked at the National Endowment for Democracy, where he managed the Endowment's Iraq portfolio. Prior to that, he spent nearly five years at Human Rights Watch, conducting research and media outreach on countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Abdel Dayem has also worked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has also been a consultant to a variety of NGOs, including the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Open Society Institute's Iraq Revenue Watch, the Fund for Global Human Rights, and the International Center for Journalists, among others. A graduate of the University of Central Florida, where he majored in political science and anthropology, Abdel Dayem also has an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, where he specialized in international law, conflict management and international economics. Aside from English, Abdel Dayem is fluent in Arabic and German. He has lived and traveled extensively in the Middle East.

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Mariwan Hama-Saeed

Mariwan Hama-Saeed, a native of Halabja, Iraq, moved to the U.S. to study journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he received a master's degree in 2008. Prior to joining CPJ, Hama-Saeed worked as the Iraq editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, a London-based nonprofit that promotes independent media in post-conflict countries. He holds a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Sulaimaniyah in Iraq. The Foreign Press Association in New York awarded Hama-Saeed its second prize in 2008.