Building Communities and Creating Change through Digital Storytelling

Caitlin Thompson is Director of Content at Acast. She previously worked as WNYC.org's executive editor, and oversees the Empire Recap Podcast, Soundcheck and produced Duplicast and the Mad Men Pre-Game Show. She was WNYC's political editor during the 2012 election, graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism and is the titleholder of the women’s tennis team’s pizza eating contest. Thirteen slices. Caitlin covered the 2006 and 2008 elections for the Washington Post, where she produced the daily Post Politics Podcast and Citizen K Street, an investigative series on the rise of lobbying. From there, Caitlin went on the campaign trail for TIME, where she profiled the McCain campaign’s resurgence in New Hampshire, the Barackstar effect and how to eat a Huckaburger, among other stories.

Christopher Sopher is an entrepreneur and journalist. Previously, he was project manager on the media innovation team at Knight Foundation, and a consultant for media organizations on audience research. Most often found: wherever there’s bourbon, music, or moros.

Jeanne Brooks is an ecosystem architect in the tech community. As the Director of Global Communities at DataKind, she works with the global network’s leaders to harnesses the power of data science in the service of humanity. Previously, she’s served as the first-ever Executive Director at Hacks/Hackers and the Digital Director at the Online News Association, where she created the Midway and produced robust training programs for journalists, including the organization’s annual conference and ONACamps. A former fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute, Brooks speaks widely on connecting and empowering communities and is active in her own communities.

Miranda Mulligan is a designer, journalist and digital strategist. She is Creative Director with National Geographic Digital, and a co-founder of #SNDMakes, the Society for News Design's prototyping event. Until recently, she was with Northwestern University Knight Lab as its Executive Director and served as Digital Design Director at the Boston Globe. In 2011, she led the responsive design approach to BostonGlobe.com. Miranda cares deeply about community and connections, designing for the audience and has focused her attention to the intersection of content and technology for the past decade.