Profiles

Waliullah Rahmani is an Asia researcher with CPJ. From 2016 to the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, he was founder and director of Khabarnama Media, one of Afghanistan’s first digital media organizations; he has also worked as a government adviser and researcher in Afghanistan. Asia program coordinator Steven Butler lived and…

Shazdeh Omari joined CPJ in 2011 and served as deputy editor for news and later news editor, before joining the development department in 2015. She was the copy chief at The Village Voice for four years and has worked as a reporter, writer, editor, medical editor, and copy editor in the United States and Greece….

Lucy Westcott became director of CPJ’s Emergencies Department in October 2021. She oversees CPJ’s assistance and safety work worldwide. Prior to joining CPJ as James W. Foley research associate in 2018, Westcott was a staff writer for Newsweek, has reported for outlets including The Intercept, Bustle, The Atlantic, and Women Under Siege, and was a…

Sonali Dhawan joined CPJ as an Asia researcher in 2021. Previously, she served as a program officer with the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights and worked with Save the Children, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International USA. Dhawan holds a bachelor’s degree in government and Arabic and Islamic studies from Georgetown University. She…

Natalie Southwick is CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator. Prior to joining CPJ, she was a member of Witness for Peace’s international accompaniment team in Bogotá, Colombia, a reporting specialist with ACDI/VOCA’s Afro-Colombian and Indigenous Program, and the editor of a website focused on Latin American news. Her work has appeared in the Boston…

Alicia Ceccanese is CPJ’s global technology researcher. She was previously a staff attorney with the Center for Human Rights at the American Bar Association and has studied law at Georgetown University Law Center and the American University of Paris.

Jennifer Dunham joined CPJ as deputy editorial director in May 2018. Prior to CPJ, she worked for six years at Freedom House–including more than two years as the research director for the organization’s Freedom in the World and Freedom of the Press reports–and was a lead researcher and spokesperson for the press freedom project. 

Arlene Getz is editorial director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Now based in New York, she has worked in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East as a foreign correspondent, editor, and editorial executive for Reuters, CNN, and Newsweek. Follow her on LinkedIn.