Profiles

Carlos Lauría, CPJ’s program director and senior program coordinator for the Americas, is a widely published journalist. A native of Buenos Aires, he has written extensively for Noticias, the leading Spanish-language newsmagazine. Follow him on Facebook @ CPJ en Español.

Elana Beiser is editorial director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. She previously worked as an editor for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal in New York, London, Brussels, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Erik Bierbauer is a counsel at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York.

Sara Rafsky, former research associate in CPJ’s Americas program, is a freelance journalist and M.S. candidate in Comparative Media Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was previously researcher on Central America at Amnesty International in Mexico City.

Aaron Berhane, former editor-in-chief of Eritrea’s now-banned largest private newspaper, Setit, escaped arrest in September 2001 and launched Meftih newspaper in Canada.

Solomon Abera worked as a reporter, presenter, producer, and commentator with Eritrea’s government-controlled national radio station Dimtsi Hafash following independence in July 1991. In 2003, he also began working as a presenter with state broadcaster Eri-TV and state-controlled youth radio Radio Zara. He defected in March 2005 after enduring government censorship and intimidation.

John Otis, CPJ’s Andes correspondent for the Americas program, works as a correspondent for Time magazine and the Global Post. He authored the 2010 book Law of the Jungle, about U.S. military contractors kidnapped by Colombian rebels, and is based in Bogotá, Colombia.