Page Text: Associate Professor | Director, Online Master’s in Journalism Program | Director, Undergraduate Studies
B.A., Economics, Reed College
In a wide-ranging career as a writer, editor, columnist, and film producer, Professor Penenberg has written for Fast Company, Forbes, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, Slate, Playboy, and the Economist. A former senior editor at Forbes and a reporter for Forbes.com , Penenberg garnered national attention in 1998 for unmasking serial fabricator Stephen Glass of the New Republic. Penenberg’s story was a watershed for online investigative journalism and portrayed in the film Shattered Glass (Steve Zahn plays Penenberg). He wrote the popular “Media Hack” column for Wired News, was a columnist for Slate, and a contributing writer to Fast Company magazine.
Melanie Hicken
Adjunct Faculty
Melanie Hicken is an award-winning investigative reporter for CNN. Her work has exposed everything from widespread sexual abuse in nursing homes to one of the longest-running scams in history. It has also inspired legislative action and government investigation.
Hicken and her longtime reporting partner, Blake Ellis’s groundbreaking investigation into the secret world of government debt collectors won the prestigious Heywood Broun Award of Distinction and inspired lawmakers to take action with legislation aimed at closing the loophole highlighted in the stories. They were finalists for a Peabody Award for CNN’s coverage of guns in America, and the two journalists have been honored by the International Association of Broadcasting, the National Press Club, the National Endowment for Financial Education, the Radio Television Digital News Association and the National Association of Consumer Advocates. Hicken regularly appears on CNN and other television and radio networks to discuss her investigations.
Nidhi Prakash
Adjunct Faculty
Nidhi Prakash covers politics for BuzzFeed News. For the past year, she’s been on the campaign trail covering the presidential election and specifically the Biden campaign. Before that, she worked on Capitol Hill, reported on federal agencies, the Syrian refugee crisis, and broke news on the death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria.
She previously worked in the UK, Chile, and started her career in Australian public radio.
Garnette Cadogan
Adjunct Faculty
Garnette Cadogan is an essayist. His writing explores the promise and perils of urban life, the vitality and inequality of cities, and the challenges of pluralism. He writes about culture and the arts for various publications, and, in Fall 2017, was included in a list of 29 writers from around the world who “represent the future of new writing.”
He is editor-at-large of Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas (co-edited by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro), and is at work on a book on walking.
Julia Dahl
Adjunct Faculty
Julia Dahl has worked as an associate features editor at Marie Claire, a city desk reporter for the New York Post, the deputy managing editor of The Crime Report, and a crime and justice reporter for CBS News. She has been the recipient of a John Jay/H.F. Guggenheim fellowship in criminal justice journalism, as well as a fellowship from the Nation Institute Investigative Fund. Julia has a BA from Yale, an MFA from The New School, and an MA in journalism from American University.
Julia is also the author of four novels – INVISIBLE CITY, RUN YOU DOWN, CONVICTION, and THE MISSING HOURS (2021). INVISIBLE CITY and CONVICTION were both named best books of the year by the Boston Globe, and INVISIBLE CITY was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and has been translated into eight languages.
Liza Hogan
Adjunct Faculty
Liza Hogan is a founder and longtime senior producer for CNN.com where she covered a number of major stories from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 presidential campaign, and the 2008 election of Barack Obama. Later, as a founder and editor for PBS’s NextAvenue.org , she helped design and manage a startup news website for adults 50 and older. She earned her master’s in journalism from Northwestern University and currently works as a digital strategies consultant in Washington, D.C.