About CPJ


Staff


EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Joel Simon

Joel Simon is the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. He has written widely on media issues and has led numerous international missions on behalf of journalists worldwide.

Under Simon's guidance, CPJ launched the Global Campaign Against Impunity and established the Journalist Assistance program, which provides aid to journalists in distress. Simon has also led efforts to protect press freedom on the Internet as journalists increasingly work online.

Simon articles on press freedom issues have appeared in numerous publications, including Slate, Columbia Journalism Review, The New York Review of Books, World Policy Journal, Asahi Shimbun, and The Times of India. He appears regularly in the media as a commentator on press freedom issues, including in The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, and CNN.

Under Simon's leadership, CPJ has been honored with the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights and a News & Documentary Emmy for its work in defense of press freedom.

Simon joined CPJ in 1997 as Americas program coordinator and was deputy director from 2000 until his appointment as executive director in 2006. Simon began his career as a journalist in Latin America. He covered the Guatemalan civil war, the Zapatista uprising in Southern Mexico, the debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the economic turmoil in Cuba following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He is the author of Endangered Mexico: An Environment on the Edge (Sierra Club Books, 1997). He is a graduate of Amherst College and Stanford University.
> Follow him on Twitter @Joelcpj.      >> Read Joel Simon's blog.


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.  
>> Follow him on Twitter @RobMahoney_CPJ.     >> Read Robert Mahoney's blog.


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.


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.


DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND COMMUNICATIONS
Gypsy Guillén Kaiser

Gypsy Guillén Kaiser is an international communications expert with wide-ranging advocacy expertise. Prior to joining CPJ in October 2010, she led global media relations and public outreach at Transparency International in Berlin. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York, she began her career as a journalist after graduating from New York University. She has worked as a reporter, translator and editor at Dow Jones Newswires and other major news organizations. Guillén Kaiser is fluent in English, Spanish and German.


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.


SENIOR PROGRAM OFFICER
Kavita Menon

Kavita Menon joined CPJ in 1998 as a research associate focused on South Asia and the Pacific. She headed the Asia program from 1999 to 2003, when she left CPJ to take up the Pew Fellowship in international reporting at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Menon has written for publications including The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, and Ms. magazine. She has produced radio features for NPR's "All Things Considered," Monitor Radio, WNYC, and WBAI, and previously worked as the assistant producer of NPR's "On the Media." Menon worked as a researcher and campaigner on South Asia for Amnesty International before returning to CPJ in 2008. She earned a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, and a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
>> Follow her on Twitter @kavita718.


SENIOR EDITOR
Elana Beiser

Elana Beiser has 14 years experience editing international and business news, having worked for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires in New York, London, Singapore, Brussels and Hong Kong as a copy editor, news editor and occasional writer. Prior to joining CPJ in 2011, she developed, launched, and managed the Asian edition of WSJ.com, and led integration of the Hong Kong newsroom's print and digital operations. Beiser has also worked in production for an alternative weekly, and spent a year in Israel with Project Otzma doing volunteer work such as tutoring immigrant children. A native of Kansas City, she is a graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans.


DEPUTY EDITOR FOR INNOVATION
Kamal Singh Masuta

Kamal Singh Masuta is a creative professional with more than 10 years of experience in Web site management and design, along with graphic design and production. He joined CPJ in May 2010 to oversee and advance the organization's online presence and electronic communications. Prior to joining CPJ, he served in similar positions at nonprofit organizations, including the Cordoba Initiative and Leader to Leader Institute. He also has experience in for-profit settings, having worked for Nature Publishing Group. He graduated from SUNY at Stony Brook in 1999 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and has taken advanced graphics/Web courses at Pratt Institute and NYU.


DEPUTY EDITOR FOR NEWS
Shazdeh Omari

Shazdeh Omari joined CPJ in 2011 after working as copy chief at The Village Voice for four years. She has worked as a reporter, writer, editor, medical editor, and copy editor in the United States and Greece. Prior to her career in publishing, she taught English at Western Connecticut State University and reported, wrote, and produced radio features as an intern at United Nations Radio. Omari was born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, where she learned to read, speak, and write Urdu. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and sociology from the University of Connecticut and a master's degree in English-TESOL from Western Connecticut State University.


SENIOR ADVISER FOR JOURNALIST SECURITY
Frank Smyth

Frank Smyth is a journalist who has specialized in armed conflicts, organized crime, and human rights, reporting from nations including El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan, Jordan, and Iraq where, in 1991, he was imprisoned for 18 days. Through the 1990s Smyth investigated arms trafficking for Human Rights Watch. He has reported for CBS News, and written for The Nation, The Village Voice, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, World Policy Journal, and Foreign Affairs. Smyth has testified on press freedom matters before the Organization of American States, the International Commission of Jurists, and the U.S. Congress. Smyth blogs on journalist security issues for CPJ. He is also the founder and executive director of Global Journalist Security, a firm that provides consulting and training services to journalists and others. 

 >> Follow him on Twitter @JournoSecurity.     >> Read Frank Smyth's blog.


COORDINATOR, IMPUNITY CAMPAIGN & JOURNALIST ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
Maria Salazar-Ferro

Salazar-Ferro became coordinator of these two programs in January 2009 after serving four years as research associate for CPJ's Americas program. She is a native of Bogotá, Colombia, and grew up in New York. Fluent in Spanish, English and French, Salazar-Ferro has an MA in 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-Ferro 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.
>> Read Maria Salazar-Ferro's blog.


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.
>> Read Sheryl Mendez's blog.

ADVOCACY AND COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATE
Magnus Ag

Prior to joining CPJ in 2010, Magnus Ag worked as head of section in the Danish Ministry for Science, Technology, and Innovation. He represented the Danish Government in EU-level negotiations in Brussels and wrote speeches for the Danish minister for science. He has also developed and implemented ideas for the online campaign for the re-election of Dick Hubbard as mayor of Auckland, New Zealand. Early in his career, he compiled the daybook at the national Danish news agency, Ritzaus Bureau, in Copenhagen. As part of his studies, Ag was awarded a Socrates Erasmus exchange scholarship at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the U.K. Ag holds both a bachelor's and a master's degree in political science from the University of Copenhagen. He is fluent in English, Danish, and Norwegian.


COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATE
Nancy Sai

Prior to joining CPJ in 2012, Sai was a contributor to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London. She has also handled media relations and campaigns for Dream for Darfur, Human Rights Watch, and the Ghana-based Human Rights Advocacy Centre. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and women and gender studies from the College of New Jersey, and a master's degree in human rights from the University of Sussex.


EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT AND BOARD LIAISON
Gregory Fay

Prior to coming to CPJ in May 2010, Gregory Fay worked for one year as the Program Coordinator for China Labor Watch, which is based in New York and Shenzhen, China. In 2008, he was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to conduct research at Xinjiang Normal University in Urumqi, China. Fay graduated from Brown University in 2007 and has also studied at Heilongjiang University, Indiana University, Duke University in Beijing, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is a member of Cheer New York and also writes for Chinese Labor News Translations.


ADVOCACY PROGRAMS

SENIOR ADVISER
Jean-Paul Marthoz

Marthoz is a Belgian journalist and longtime press freedom and human rights activist. He teaches international journalism at the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium and has reported from many countries for the Brussels daily Le Soir and the quarterly Enjeux internationaux. He is the associate editor of the policy quarterly Europe's World and is the vice-chair of the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch, where he was European press director from 1996 to 2006. He has written several books on journalism, human rights diplomacy, and international relations as well as reports for a number of think tanks and international organizations. He is currently working on the role of the press in reporting mass atrocities and genocides.

 

AFRICA ADVOCACY COORDINATOR
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 U.N's "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine. Keita also monitored various U.N. reform consultations at the United Nations.
>> Follow him on Twitter @africamedia_CPJ.     >> Read Mohamed Keita's blog.


EAST AFRICA CONSULTANT
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.
>> Follow him on Twitter @africamedia_CPJ.     >> Read Tom Rhodes' blog.


SENIOR 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.
>> Follow him on Facebook @ CPJ en Español.     >> Read Carlos Lauria's blog.


AMERICAS RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Sara Rafsky

Sara Rafsky joined CPJ in 2011. She previously wrote about culture and politics as a freelance journalist in South America and South East Asia. Rafsky also worked at ARTnews magazine and interned with The Associated Press in Bogotá, Colombia. In 2008, she was awarded a Fulbright Grant to research photojournalism and the Colombian armed conflict. Rafsky also lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she worked with the Global Human Rights and Governance division of the Ford Foundation and interned with Human Rights Watch and the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (CELE). She has a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University and is fluent in Spanish and proficient in French.
>> Follow her on Facebook @ CPJ en Español.


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.
>> Follow him on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.    
>> Read Bob Dietz's blog.


SENIOR ASIA PROGRAM RESEARCHER
Madeline Earp

Since joining CPJ in 2007 as the Asia research associate, Earp has spoken on Chinese media issues in the U.S. and Japan and conducted a reporting mission to Hong Kong and mainland China. She previously worked at Human Rights in China in New York. Earp graduated with a master's degree in East Asian studies from Harvard University in 2006. She was awarded a one-year British Association for Chinese Studies scholarship to Cheng Kung University in Taiwan in 2004, and studied Chinese at Zhejiang University in China in 2000. She has a bachelor's degree in English literature from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in her native U.K. She became a senior researcher in 2010.
>> Follow her on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.    
>> Read Madeline's Earp's blog.


SENIOR SOUTHEAST ASIA REPRESENTATIVE
 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, Crispin 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. Crispin received a master's degree in Southeast Asian Studies and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington in 1999. He speaks fluent Thai.
>> Read Shawn Crispin's blog.


EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Nina Ognianova

Since becoming coordinator of the Europe and Central Asia Program in 2006, Nina Ognianova has led fact-finding and advocacy missions to Russia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan on regional press freedom issues. Starting in 2007, Ognianova has organized and participated in yearly CPJ missions to Moscow and the European Union, focusing on the issue of impunity in Russian journalist killings. Ognianova previously worked as CPJ's Europe and Central Asia researcher. Prior to joining CPJ in December 2003, Ognianova was a staff writer for the International Journalists' Network, the media-assistance Web site of the nonprofit International Center for Journalists in Washington, where she covered Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. In September 2003, Ognianova coordinated an ICFJ training conference, held in her native Bulgaria, for Balkan investigative reporters who cover 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. Her commentaries have appeared in The Guardian of London, the International Herald Tribune, and The Huffington Post among others. Ognianova is a native Bulgarian speaker, fluent in English and Russian, and proficient in Macedonian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, and Italian.
>> Read Nina Ognianova's blog.
  

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.
>> Read Muzaffar Suleymanov's blog.


INTERNET ADVOCACY COORDINATOR
Danny O'Brien

Prior to joining CPJ in April 2010, O'Brien worked as a journalist covering technology and culture for the New Scientist, The Sunday Times of London, and The Irish Times. He was one of the original staff members of Wired UK magazine in 1995, and from 1997 to 2007 co-edited the online newsletter Need To Know, which won a special commendation at the first Interactive BAFTA awards and NetMedia's European Internet Journalist of the Year award for 2001. In 2005, O'Brien joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation as their chief activist, later specializing in international advocacy for privacy and freedom of expression. That year he also co-founded the Open Rights Group, a British grassroots digital rights organization, and remains on their board. He is based in San Francisco.
>> Follow him on Twitter @danny_at_cpj.     >> Read Danny O'Brien's blog.


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.
>> Read Mohamed Abdel Dayem's blog.


MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Dahlia El-Zein

Before Dahlia El Zein joined CPJ in 2011, she worked in Cairo and Beirut for a local publishing house. From 2008 through 2010, she worked as program coordinator at Human Rights Watch, where she helped in the production of the annual World Report book. El Zein holds a master's degree in Arab studies from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C., and a bachelor's degree in international relations from Regent's College in London. During her time as a research assistant at Georgetown's Center of Contemporary Arab Studies in D.C., she interviewed U.S. Iraq War veterans on their perceptions of Iraqi culture and society, which resulted in a joint publication by the University of Chicago press. She has also worked for Chatham House in London and the International Labour Organization of the United Nations in Geneva. A Lebanese native who grew up in Cairo, El Zein speaks Arabic fluently and is proficient in French.

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