Dijana’s Bio

Hi all! I am Dijana Milenov and I am a graduate student of architecture at MIT.

I lived in Serbia until I was seventeen when I moved to an international boarding school in Italy. After that I finished an architecture and design degree at the University of Florida and this is my second year of graduate studies at MIT.

As a designer I am interested in the ways art can reveal knowledge and trigger possible new realities. In the times of abundance of data I believe that it is important to promote problem-solving skills in designing for knowledge. My architectural explorations question the function of beauty in our daily lives and in our relation to the environment. I have spent the last year away from MIT travelling in Serbia, Israel, and France working with architects with similar agendas.

My hope for this class is to improve my writing skills and to become freer and more creative using this media. I am very excited to work in a diverse group and learn from everyone!

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Josh’s bio

I’m Josh, a second year graduate student in Comparative Media Studies. My previous credits include working as a Research Assistant at the University of Oxford’s Internet Institute, and as a Field Organizer on the Obama re-election campaign in New Hampshire. I’ve also worn several media hats: I previously sub-edited a news website called The Vibe, which provides a space for writing and original journalism by students and young people, and I’m a staff writer for MIT’s The Tech. (I also do the occasional radio interview for The Monocle 24.)

From my perspective, this class sits perfectly at the intersection of research and practice. My graduate thesis (due in May) looks at how Donald Trump was able to gain the attention and support needed to win the presidency, especially in respect to the use of his Twitter account. The story I’m telling obviously has a lot to do with the news media and its reporting role, in the age of email hacks, dossier leaks, nocturnal tweets, and other virtual flotsam.

Get @ me @JoshCowls, and on www.joshcowls.com. I’m also part way through an attempt to write 100 words every day for 100 days – you can follow my progress at medium.com/@JoshCowls.

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Mika’s bio

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Hi, I’m Mika, a Tokyo-based TV producer of documentary and educational shows at NHK, a public broadcaster in Japan. This year, I am spending time at MIT Media Lab as a visiting scientist, working with the Civic Media group led … Continue reading

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Maddie’s Bio

I’m Maddie Perez, a second year MBA at MIT Sloan. Before coming to MIT I had a mixed bag of a career, including working in sports journalism, crisis communication, education PR, R&D research and consulting, and venture capital. I’m an aspiring venture capitalist with the hope of funding media companies that have found ways to create high-quality, accurate content with a profitable business model—we’ll see how long that takes. Here are a few more random facts about me:

  • I’m an army brat and moved around a bit growing up, but I consider Fayetteville, NC home
  • Coding-wise, I’ve focused primarily on front end work, and am pretty proficient in CSS/HTML and quasi-proficient in JavaScript
  • I’m currently working on a VR platform for autism therapy. The hope is that using different types of media in new ways (in this case building simulation exercises for VR) can improve the efficacy of autism therapy while drastically reducing costs
  • I was an English major in undergrad with a minor in policy journalism and media studies, so in some ways I feel like I get to relive some of my favorite classes
  • I’m a proud Slytherin

Tyler’s bio

I’m Tyler Dukes, and I’m a 2017 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. In real life, I’m an investigative reporter for the state politics team at WRAL News in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I work on longform stories and specialize in data and public records. I’m really interested in finding ways to use technology to enhance in-depth reporting and make data journalism more accessible to underserved media markets. That means (I think) developing better methods for training working journalists and educating journalism students in ways that allow them apply these skills practically on the beat.

At WRAL, I’ve led the reporting on deep dives into the state’s mental healthcare system, deaths in the prisons and, oddly enough, the search for sunken treasure off the Carolina coast. I also built systems that allow readers to search more than a million pages of records from a major university athletic scandal and explore the campaign cash fueling each state lawmaker’s election bid. Prior to working at WRAL, I managed a research project at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy called the Reporters’ Lab, aimed at finding ways to reduce the cost of investigative reporting. I also freelanced as a science and technology reporter for several newspapers and worked as an adviser to North Carolina State University’s (then-)daily student newspaper.

While my background is in reporting, writing, editing etc., I’m also proficient in Python, JavaScript and HTML/CSS (although far, far, far from being an expert). I’m also really good at prying records from the clutches of government officials.

I’m a native North Carolinian, devotee of Eastern-NC barbecue and fan of gas station coffee. I love all dogs and very few cats.

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram.

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Sruthi’s Bio

Hi, my name is Sruthi. I am a 2nd year MBA student at MIT Sloan and an engineer at heart. I have always been interested in understanding how technology can make a social impact. To be precise I am interested in how technology combined with business strategy could be used to make a social impact.

Prior to joining Sloan, I studied computer engineering and worked in fin-tech. Last summer, I interned as a data science intern at Microsoft, where I used data to influence internal strategy decisions. Combining my interest in both technology and strategy, I am going to be a future management consultant in the digital space.

I have always been fascinated with how news and media brings people on to a common platform to share their voices and identity. Given my interest in the social sector, I am taking this class to understand how the power of media can mobilize people behind a cause. My personal goals for the class are to:

  • Enter my stretch zone by utilizing more of the right side of my brain
  • Become more of an active contributor using media
  • Work with an interdisciplinary group of people (I was very impressed with the cultural and intellectual diversity in the class)
  • Understand how to use media / understand the power of media to engage global citizens

Apart from my “slightly obvious” skills in programming (Matlab, R etc), I like to travel and try/cook multi-cultural cuisines. I am coffee and chocolate snob and occasionally addicted to Instagram.

You can find me on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram

Anne’s Bio

[I’m Anne, spelled A-N-N-E but pronounced “Annie.”]

I’m a first-year MBA at MIT Sloan, and I’m interested in the intersection of tech and media, especially from the angle of understanding how consumers interact with and are affected by products or information. Before Sloan, I worked in the Boston office of Analysis Group as an economic consultant, where my favorite cases involved running survey experiments and analyzing market data to understand consumer behavior for a variety of clients.

I studied Math and Political Science at MIT as an undergraduate, while serving as a reporter, news editor, and finally Editor in Chief of the campus newspaper, The Tech. Newspapers have been a huge part of my life since the fourth grade, when I started a school newsletter with a handful of friends, inspired by the surprise removal of our playground’s bamboo grove. I’ve worked on school newspapers ever since, plus a short stint as a writer for the local newspaper of Charleston, SC.

Going forward, I want to learn from working with all of you and come up with solutions to the challenges facing the news media industry (or at the very least, through our discussions, I want to train myself to think critically about all the media I consume and maybe produce).

In my spare time, I play violin in a quintet through MIT’s Chamber Music Society, revisit 30 Rock and Parks and Rec, crochet tiny animals,cook, and drink tea while contemplating how to bring more “artsiness” into my life.

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Marie’s bio

Hi everyone!

My name is Marie Patino, and I’m an undergrad at MIT, more specifically an exchange student from France where I study at Sciences Po. Originally I am a social sciences / political sciences major which involves a bunch of reading and criticizing but rarely building anything, at least not at the undergrad level.
Which is also why I am here, as I would really like to take advantage of the class to learn how to build things. After a semester at MIT, I now know how to open a terminal. Well, maybe a little bit more.

Random interests: long feature journalism, radio ( not even podcasts, more like the radio in general), sociology, photography, writing, Swedish thrillers, Wes Anderson movies, Benedict vs OttersNicolas Cage memes and the ncage extension.

Also, I am interested in just learning and discovering everything outside my field – and inside it that I don’t know yet. I am very excited to be in class with you all, can’t wait to get to know you better, and work together.

You can follow me here: @mariepastora. Sometimes my feed is in French because our Presidential elections are being incredibly messy at the moment. Which means that I share a lot of articles about the candidates and complain about how corrupted some of them are.

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Katrine’s Bio

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Hello, you!  I’m Katrine, pronounced “Katrina” and spelled with an “e”.  Please, if you’re hesitant, just ask or pick one and go with it — you’re interesting and I want to get to know you.

Part 2 of our in-class tweet icebreaker:

  • tweet 1:  Katrine. Comp. Sci. M.Eng. student working with Ethan. Central Square resident. Born and raised Norwegian, increasingly American at heart.
  • tweet 2:  Why this class? Media matters. Raving reviews. Learning from all of you with totally different backgrounds from mine.
  • tweet 3:  Things that I like:  Code for good, slam poetry, rock climbing, behavioral econ., queer/feminist discussions, the music duo “Dresses”

If you’re interested in more of the ‘professional’ stuff, this website has something like that.

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Arthur’s Bio

Hi! My name is Arthur Sheyn, and I’m a 2nd year MBA student at MIT Sloan. To be quite honest, I was naively ignorant about the importance of the media for most of my life. Annnnndddd then this election happened. I distinctly remember that the moment I first read about whether or not Facebook should be held responsible for policing fake news was the moment I realized how important of a role the media plays in everyday society. (This John Oliver segment was also very eye opening.)

What started as the above nugget (or maybe epiphany) has now evolved into a full-blown curiosity and fascination for how news and media have evolved and must further evolve to serve an important purpose in society. This is why I am taking this class – to educate myself, and hopefully, explore some meaningful solutions for the future.

A bit about me:

  • I was born in Ukraine, and my family immigrated (as political refugees, a fact of my history that I have learned to appreciate so much more as of late) to the US in 1991
  • I grew up in San Francisco, which meant that for most of my life, I thought the diversity of my childhood was representative of the US (are you beginning to sense a theme of naiveté?)
  • Fun fact – I used to be a competitive ballroom dancer (check me out on youtube!). After I stopped competing to go to college, I took up coaching my university’s ballroom dancing team. That experience showed me just how meaningful and powerful communication can be.
  • I love action, adventure, nature, pretty much anything outside and remotely physical. One of my highlights of 2016 was going bungee jumping in New Zealand (twice!)
  • For my short professional career, I spent 3 years in management consulting and 2 years working for the digital innovation arm of a global retail company. I’ll spare you the details, since LinkedIn provides a pretty good summary!