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2011 Competition Judges

Shawn Allee is editor of WBEZ’s community bureaus, which cover developments in Chicago neighborhoods and Northwest Indiana. His own reporting and production work has run the gamut from investigations of nuclear waste policy to an obit of an almost-forgotten scientist who was obsessed with the unique life cycle of the lowly cicada. Allee’s work has appeared, among other places, in Michigan Radio’s The Environment Report, NPR’s Morning Edition, WNYC’s On The Media, and Chicago Public Media’s This American Life. (Radio Impact)

Mick Dumke writes about politics for the Chicago Reader. Previously he was a staffer at the Chicago News Cooperative, the Chicago Reporter, and small newspapers in Michigan and Virginia, where he covered everything from high school volleyball to the U.S. Navy. Along the way he’s also contributed to the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune Magazine, the Washington Post, and other publications. Before becoming a full-time journalist, Dumke taught at an alternative high school and studied at McCormick Theological Seminary. (Radio Impact)

Monica Eng is a watchdog/investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune. The lifelong Chicagoan has written about lifestyles, ethnic culture, entertainment and food for most of her 25 years in Chicago journalism, but today she mostly covers consumer issues and food policy for the paper when she is not listening to her favorite National Public Radio stations. (Radio Impact)

Sonari Glinton covers the auto industry and business for NPR. His reports can be heard on Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday. Glinton came to NPR in August 2007 and worked as producer and director of All Things Considered. Prior to NPR, Glinton worked his way up from intern at WBEZ, Chicago beginning in 2002. Glinton’s first name, Sonari, comes from the southern Nigeria language Ijo and means “God hears our cry.” (First round)

Julianne Hill is a correspondent for WBEZ. Her radio pieces have aired on This American Life, Morning Edition and Eight Forty-Eight. Her television work can be found on networks including PBS, The History Channel, and A&E, and her print pieces in Health, Real Simple and Advertising Age. Honors include a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship, a National Press Foundation Fellowship, three Peter Lisagor Awards from Chicago’s Headline Club. Hill lives with her son, Nicolas, in Chicago. (First round)

Tim Hinman is a British-born radio producer who has lived and worked in Denmark since 1996. As co-founder of the radio features show Ultrasound, he’s been at the forefront of experimental feature radio production for a number of years. Since leaving Danish Radio (the national broadcaster) in 2007, Hinman has worked on a wide range of audio-based arts projects. In 2009 he founded the monthly digital magazine Third Ear, which launched online and showcases radio features, musicians, and other artists. (Final round)

Nishat Kurwa is a Senior Producer for Turnstyle, Youth Radio's online information service for 18-34 year old audiences. She has been a co-developer of Youth Radio's digital and social enterprise strategies, and led the team that launched the company's music site, AllDayPlay.fm. In the commercial radio sphere, Kurwa worked as the producer of the seminal hip hop public affairs show Street Knowledge with Davey D on KMEL FM and as a news producer at KCBS Radio in San Francisco. (Final round)

Evin Marie is a playwright, poet, artistic director and curator of The Maekeen Room, a convertible loft space available for artists, entrepreneurs and other creative pioneers. Over the course of ten years as a teaching artist, she has facilitated opportunities for life changing creative encounters for children and adults alike. Her theater production, Shades of My Skin: A Celebration of the Black Experience debuted in Chicago in October 2009 at the Bruce K. Hayden Theater (Malcolm X College). (First round)

Roman Mars is a public radio producer and reporter. He is the host and program director of Public Radio Remix from PRX, a 24 hour, experimental public radio story stream broadcast online on XM satellite radio and public radio stations across the country. He is also the host and producer of KALW’s 99% Invisible, a 5-minute radio show about design and architecture. Mars produced Re:sound at the Third Coast Festival for three years and has also worked with Snap Judgment. (Final round)

Chicago bureau chief for FM News 101.1, Charlie Meyerson has delivered the news to the Chicago area for a long time -- including more than decade at each WXRT-FM 93.1 and WNUA-FM 95.5, and almost 11 years as chicagotribune.com's senior producer, Daywatch columnist and WGN-AM 720 correspondent. From 2009 to 2011 he was news director at WGN-AM 720. Meyerson has won dozens of journalism awards, including a national UPI award for investigative reporting. (First round)

David Mrazek has 18 years experience as an award-winning producer and writer of prime-time PBS and cable documentaries, as well as videos for non-profits. His credits span from Woodrow Wilson and The Duel for The American Experience to AFC at 25 Years, for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. Most recently he was Producer/Co-director on The Principal Story, which aired in 2009 on PBS‘ P.O.V. documentary series. He is currently developing a documentary on the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon. (First round)

Justine Nagan is Kartemquin Films’ Executive Director and is currently Executive Producing several films with the company, including The Interrupters. With Kartemquin, she recently directed Typeface, and was Associate Producer on the Peabody award-winning Terra Incognita. Before moving to Chicago, she produced promotional spots for Public Television and worked for various companies ranging from M&C Saatchi, Australia to Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know? on NPR. (First round)

North Carolina Public Radio – WUNC is based in Chapel Hill. The station reaches listeners from Greensboro to the coast with the bulk of its audience in Raleigh-Durham. WUNC has the largest public radio newsroom in North Carolina with a staff of nine. Additionally, the station has two interview programs - The Story with Dick Gordondistributed nationally and The State of Things  with Frank Stasio. The station has been recognized by the Columbia/DuPont Awards, the PRNDI Awards, and the PRPD Awards. (Best News Feature)

Lu Olkowski is an independent producer based in New York. Her work has been heard on All Things Considered, Day to Day, Radiolab, Studio 360, This American Life and Weekend America. She has been honored by the American Women in Radio & Television; the National Association of Black Journalists; the literary magazine The Missouri Review and the Third Coast International Audio Festival. Prior to a career in public radio, Olkowski was a creative director at Nickelodeon. (Final round)

Dan O'Neil is the Executive Director of the Smart Chicago Collaborative, an organization devoted to improving lives in Chicago through technology. Prior to Smart Chicago, he was a co-founder of EveryBlock, a local news and discussion Web site in 16 cities. He has written three books of poetry and runs a number of civic innovation side projects. (First round)

Ken Pelletier is an 18-year transplant to Chicago from his native Boston where he studied Computer Science at Northeastern University, and began a lifelong career working at the intersection of technology, design and the arts. Most recently, he was an original employee and CTO of Groupon. Pelletier is a board member at the Old Town School of Folk Music and partner and board member of City Winery Chicago, a new venture that brings together a working winery, restaurant and intimate music listening room. (First round)

David Polk has covered youth culture for 98.7 WFMT, Chicago's fine arts station, as a producer, host and reporter since 2006. He currently produces Introductions, a weekly radio program featuring Chicago's finest young musicians. Before WFMT, he worked for Car Talk, the Ravinia Festival (Chicago), the cultural services of the US Embassy in Paris (Africa Bureau) and the Paris Orchestra. Polk graduated from Tufts University near Boston in 2005. (First round) 

Silvia Rivera is the Managing Director of Vocalo and responsible for all broadcast and online operations. She is the product of youth-media training, having started her career in 1998 at Radio Arte (WRTE-FM), a youth-driven Latino public radio station, where she rose through the ranks as a host/music & public affairs producer, Community Relations Director, Assistant GM of Marketing & Development, and ultimately became General Manager. Rivera serves on the board of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, The Community Renewal Society and the Latina Leadership Council. (First round)

Carrie Shepherd is interim senior producer for WBEZ’s morning news magazine Eight Forty-Eight. She covers everything from media to LGBT issues and religion. She also edits the show’s Web presence and supervises the social media efforts. Shepherd has won an AP Award and Clarion award for her radio work, and was featured at a Third Coast Listening Room. She serves as a moderator for ITVS’s Independent Lens documentary series, and also served on an advisory board for the Viva Doc student film competition at Columbia College Chicago. (First round)

Nikki Silva is one half of The Kitchen Sisters, producers of the duPont-Columbia Award-winning NPR series Hidden Kitchens, and two Peabody Award-winning NPR collaborations, Lost & Found Sound and The Sonic Memorial Project. The Kitchen Sisters are dedicated to creating intimate, sound-rich documentaries that bring seldom-heard voices to the air, mentoring young producers, and building community through storytelling. Their current NPR series, The Hidden World of Girls, explores the lives of girls and the women they become. (Final round)

Robert Smith is NPR's New York Correspondent. Before moving into his current position, Smith was NPR's education reporter and covered public schools and universities on the West Coast. Specializing in the offbeat, Smith has taken his microphone into some strange worlds. He traveled into the backcountry with Gearheads to talk about their obsession with camping technology; he has dressed up as Santa Claus for an undercover look at the wild night of Santarchy; and he has trained for the oft-mocked Olympic sport of curling. (Final round)

Alison True is a freelance editor living in Chicago with current projects involving food, law, and murder. Until 2010 she was the editor-in-chief of the Chicago Reader, where she started out in the proverbial mailroom. In addition to managing a large staff she oversaw investigative reports on police torture and governmental malfeasance, as well as nationally recognized features, restaurant coverage, and arts criticism. Special projects she initiated included annual fiction and comics issues.  (First Round)

George Zarr is a full-time faculty member of Columbia College Chicago. He was formerly manager of talk programming for Sirius Satellite Radio and senior producer of the SCI FI Channel’s Seeing Ear Theatre. His productions include Visit New Grimston, Anyway and Little Chills created for NPR, and The First (and Last) Musical on Mars at New Rock Theater in Chicago. (First round)