PRINCIPAL COLLABORATORS
(Alphabetical order)
Bill Densmore is director/editor of the Media Giraffe Project at the Univ. of Massachusetts-Amherst. A career journalist, he has covered space shots, presidents, politics and assassinations for The Associated Press in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. Densmore has also served as advertising director for a small, group-owned daily; and as an interim director of the not-for-profit Hancock Shaker Village. He edited trade publications in business and law, and freelanced for general circulation dailies including the Boston Globe. He has written for ComputerWorld Magazine on Internet and technology subjects. In 1994, after nine years owning and publishing weeklies in Berkshire County, Mass., Densmore formed Clickshare Service Corp., which provides user registration, authentication and transaction handling for Internet web content sites. Densmore Associates develops partner and other business strategies for independent media and print publishers, including newspapers. At the start of his career, Densmore worked briefly in public radio in Worcester, Mass., and Amherst, Mass. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in environmental policy and communications.
Mary Mazzio is directing the film and video aspects of the Media Giraffe Project. President of 50 Eggs Inc., an independent film production company, Mazzio wrote, directed, and produced the award-winning films A Hero for Daisy and Apple Pie as well as the highly-acclaimed film, Lemonade Stories. Each focuses on what makes individuals excel. Mary is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Georgetown Law School, and also attended Boston University's graduate film program. She was formerly a partner with the law firm of Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer in Boston. A recipient of numerous awards including the Gracie Award; the 2003 Myra Sadker Equity Award; the 2001 Women's Sports Foundation Journalism Award; a Henry Luce Foundation Fellowship (to Korea) and the Rotary Foundation Graduate Fellowship (to France), Mary, a former partner with the law firm of Brown, Rudnick Freed & Gesmer in Boston, has served on a number of Boards of Directors including Shackleton Schools (a school dedicated to serving high school students who do not thrive in traditional classrooms), Sojourner House (a homeless shelter), The Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, and The Head of the Charles Regatta.
Norm Sims, is grant principal investigator for the Media Giraffe Project. He is a professor and former department chairman of the journalism program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Sims also serves on the Board of Directors of the Appalachian Mountain Club. Sims holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana, an M.S. in American History from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Ph.D., in communications from the University of Illinois, Urbana. A former United Press International reporter, Sims taught at Illinois, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, before UMass. A specialist in literary journalism, he teaches nonfiction writing and courses on literary journalism, freedom of the press, history, and computer-assisted reporting. He has published articles and reviews in Journalism History, The Quill, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Gannett Journal; contributor to Foundations for Communications Studies (1981), Dictionary of Literary Biography. Author and editor, The Literary Journalists (1984), Literary Journalism in the Twentieth Century (1990), and co-editor of Literary Journalism (1995).
Scott Walker is literary advisor and agent and marketing director for the Media Giraffe Project. Over 20 years, Walker was founder and executive director of Greywolf Press, a not-for-profit literary publisher of 20 books per year, and was instrumental in founding Consortium Book Marketing, a national sales and distribution company for mid-sized and smaller publishers. Walker maintains strong contacts among booksellers, critics, agents and distributors. He then launched the Internet and book divisions of Utne Reader Magazine as editorial director. In 1995, he joined Tripod Inc., a dot-com startup that pioneered personal web-page publishing (now "blogs"). Over five years at Tripod, and later Lycos Inc., (which acquired Tripod) he served in senior management positions, including executive director, production director, VP marketing and VP business development. When Tripod moved from Williamstown, Walker chose to remain in the Berkshires with his consulting practice to commercial and non-profits seeking innovative thinking on which to base new ventures. He has been cited by Esquire magazine among "Men and Women Under 40 Who are Changing the Nation", has been a speaker on Internet, publishing and marketing issues, and has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Twin Cities Metropolitan Arts Commission. Walker maintains wide contacts among foundation, corporate and governmental philanthropy, and has been speaker at the national "Grantsmakers in the Arts" conference.
Rob Williams is an advisor to the Media Giraffe Project on curriculum and media-education issues. He is a professor of history and media studies at Burlington and Champlain colleges, Sacred Heart University, Burlington, Vt., and president of the non-profit Action Coalition for Media Education, a nationwide collaboration of teachers, health educators and other citizens whose goal is to teach democracy-centered access, evaluation, consumption and creation of media. Williams is a graduate of Princeton University, with a Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico, in U.S. western and modern U.S. history. He has taught history and social studies in grades 10-12 and was a Presidential Scholar in 2000-2001.
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