Bill Celis is an associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in Los Angeles. As a former associate director and associate dean at the school, he chaired the school’s diversity committee that led to USC Annenberg winning the 2012 Diversity and Equity Award from the Association of Educators of Journalism and Mass Communication; in 2018, for his work in diversity, inclusion and mentoring, he was awarded the Barry Bingham Fellowship from the American Society of News Editors. As an administrator, he led curriculum and assessment reforms at USC Annenberg’s journalism undergraduate and graduate programs, building a paid internship program for the graduate program. 

Celis is a former national correspondent for The New York Times and a former reporter and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He serves on the executive committee as secretary of the Institute, where he previously served as a member of the editing program advisory committee in 1995-1997 and the strategic planning committee 2017-2018. Celis earned his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and his bachelor’s degree in English and journalism from Howard Payne University in his native Texas.

Christian (Chris) Hendricks has been President for the Local Media Consortium (LMC) since 2018. He joined the LMC after a 25-year career at McClatchy where he led its digital efforts for more than two decades. During his McClatchy stint, Hendricks also served on the boards of Careerbuilder, Cars.com, and Apartments.com. 

Hendricks is also Managing Partner for Extol Digital, a business consultancy focused on helping media and media-related companies with strategy, go-to-market planning, and operations. In addition to the previously mentioned roles, he serves on the board of directors for Moonlighting, Recruitology and ITEGA. He is also a venture partner for Impact VC, a west-coast venture capital firm.

John X. Miller is the former Senior Editor for Sports, Business and Features at The Dallas Morning News. Previously, he was senior editor for news, commentary and HBCUs for Andscape (formerly known as The Undefeated), ESPN’s website that reports on the intersection of race, sports and culture.

Miller was managing editor of the Winston-Salem Journal newspaper for 21/2 years before moving to ESPN in 2016. He is a native of Winston-Salem and was the first African-American managing editor of the Journal.

He is a veteran journalist of more than four decades, having been a top editor at several newspapers across the country including the Detroit Free Press, USA Today, the Charlotte Observer, Winston-Salem Journal and Myrtle Beach Sun News. He was also the top editor at the Hickory (NC) Daily Record and Lansdale (PA) Reporter.

Significantly, he was a founding staffer of USA Today in 1982 and an original staff member of The Undefeated in 2016, making his decades-long career truly unique.

He has led award-winning newsrooms in Winston-Salem, Hickory, Myrtle Beach and Lansdale, capturing awards for public service, general excellence, reporting, editorial writing, multimedia journalism, online breaking news, diversity, newspaper design and outstanding cooperation as an Associated Press member.

He currently serves as board chair for the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, and has served on various ASNE and APME boards and committees over the years. He has been a Pulitzer Prize Juror, a facilitator at the American Press Institute and was the first Donald W. Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism at Washington and Lee University in 2005. He is a HistoryMaker, a member of Omicron Delta Kappa, the national leadership honor society, and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc.

From 1999 to 2008, he was at the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit Media Partnership, first as the Free Press’ Public Editor, then as the DMP’s Director of Community Affairs. His primary responsibilities as Public Editor were writing corrections, handling accuracy, credibility, readership and ethical issues for the newspaper, and he also wrote a column in an ombudsman role.

He is a 1977 graduate of Washington and Lee University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, where he serves on the Advisory Board for the School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Amani Hamed earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the San Jose State University School of Journalism and Mass Communications.  

As a freelance journalist she covered crime, COVID-19 regulations, nursing strikes and the Bay Area arts and culture scene. She most recently wrote for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. 

As Community Engagement Manager, she oversees social media content, curates the Maynard Institute newsletter, and manages the Maynard Institute website, blog, and Medium page.

Alida Birnam joined the institute in December 2017 as executive administrator and keeps the Institute’s operations infrastructure running smoothly. From accounting to human resources, Alida is an integral member of the Maynard Institute team. Prior to joining the Maynard Institute, Alida worked at the Center for Investigative Reporting assisting with the logistics for their diversity fellowship program. She received her BS in Business Administration from U.C. Berkeley and holds a Master’s degree in International Business from Monterey Institute of International Studies (now Middlebury). She also homeschooled her three children who are now adults pursuing careers in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Rasheed Shabazz is a multimedia journalist, with experience in print, digital, and broadcast journalism. Rasheed was born in Oakland and grew up in West Alameda.

Rasheed’s work has been published in the East Bay Express, East Bay Times, Indybay, Oakland Local, Oakland Post, San Francisco BayView, and The Final Call. He previously hosted and produced radio news at KALX and hosted the The Black Hour podcast with the Peralta College’s 9th Floor Radio. After receiving his Associates Degree in Journalism at Laney College in Oakland, he transferred to UC Berkeley and received Bachelors’ Degrees in African American Studies and Political Science. While at Cal, he received an inaugural Google-AP Journalism and Technology Fellowship to launch a news website for the student magazine, Onyx Express. After graduating, Rasheed received a year-long Visiting Scholar appointment to teach journalism and media literacy with students on University of California campuses. Rasheed is a yoga teacher and triathlete, photographer, writer and world traveler.

Odette Alcazaren-Keeley is a diversity communications and media executive, and currently Director of the Maynard Regional Training Series and Maynard Communities of Practice Programs. In 2022, she was the recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California chapter, Unsung Hero Award and received recognition for her role as Director of the Maynard 200 Fellowship program, “one of the most powerful incubators for journalists of color in the country.”

She is also the president and founding partner of Global MediaX, a strategic multicultural and international media consultancy group headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its lead clients include the Presidio Trust, recipient of a 2018 Public Service Award, the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Catholic Charities of San Francisco and the African Diaspora Network. Previously, she had served as a consultant for the Democracy Fund.

A respected broadcast journalist, Odette’s career spans 20-plus years in the United States and the Philippines. Previously, at New America Media [NAM], she was the national media network director, television and radio news anchor/executive producer, and chair and co-emcee of the NAM Ethnic Media Awards. She hosted and produced NAM’s weekly segment on 91.7 FM KALW in the San Francisco Bay Area, the TV show “New America Now” and its monthly TV news magazine on Comcast Hometown Network [CHN] with the same program name. She was also an alternate anchor and segment producer for ‘Upside’ on Comcast CHN 104. 

In the 9/11 aftermath, Odette led the core group that launched the U.S. news bureau of The Filipino Channel TV of ABS-CBN International, headquartered in the Bay Area. She simultaneously served as news executive producer, co-anchor and head writer for “Balitang America” [News in America], the network’s flagship newscast. In the Philippines, she had worked in the network’s parent company, ABS-CBN Channel 2 as a news reporter, associate producer and head writer for its various production, news and current affairs programs and broadcast affiliates. Previously, she was a regular commentator and featured panelist on KQED TV and KQED Radio programs in San Francisco including ‘This Week in Northern California’ and ‘Pacific Time.’

Odette is a board trustee of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy based in San Francisco and a board adviser for the Filipino Food Movement.

She graduated cum laude from the University of the Philippines Diliman, the country’s premiere state university, with a B.A. in Mass Communication and minored in Broadcast Journalism.

P. Kim Bui is a 2023-2024 John S. Knight Journalism fellow. Recently, she was senior director of product and audience innovation at the Arizona Republic. Originally from Iowa, she’s focused her career on leading real-time news initiatives and creating new storytelling forms for digital, print, and broadcast companies catering to local, national and global audiences. Prior, she was editor-at-large for NowThis News and deputy managing editor for reported.ly, a distributed social journalism startup. 

She was in the inaugural class of the Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership from City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. She’s spoken on journalism and leadership worldwide and written about empathy in journalism for a number of research outlets. She writes a newsletter for emerging news leaders called “The Middles.”

Aaron Glantz served as Executive-in-Residence for the Maynard 200 Fellowship’s Investigative Storytelling Track in 2023. He is California bureau chief and a senior editor at The Fuller Project, the global newsroom dedicated to groundbreaking reporting that catalyzes positive change for women.

Aaron is a two-time Peabody Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist, who produces journalism with impact. His work has sparked dozens of Congressional hearings and investigations by the FBI, DEA, Pentagon inspector general, and the United Nations Special Rapporteur for extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary execution. One project prompted the second largest redlining settlement in Justice Department history, against Warren Buffett’s mortgage companies.

In 2024 Aaron joined Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University, as a fellow.

Monique O. Madan is an investigative reporter at CalMatters and The Markup, where she uncovers the complex interplay between technology and societal issues. During her time at USA TODAY, uncovered botched construction and evidence of money laundering at the collapsed Surfside condominium building in south Florida in a project called “Left to Rot.” 

Before joining the investigations team, Madan covered immigration for the Miami Herald, where she was honored for “Immigration Pandemic,” her investigative series. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and The Dallas Morning News and led to the release of a man held in solitary confinement in ICE detention for an astonishing 11 years. She also exposed coercive self-deportation practices and significant gaps in immigration policies.

In 2019, she was a fellow at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. She is a graduate of Harvard University and Emerson College.