Janesse Nieves participated in the Radio Rookies program at WNYC in 2001.

Marianne McCune is a staff reporter for New York Public Radio. She thinks of New York as the center of the world because that's how she covers it: more than a third of New York residents were born in another country and Marianne reports on the resulting cultural, economic, and political links between New York/New Jersey and almost everywhere else on earth. McCune is also the founder and editor of Radio Rookies, an award-winning series of stories written, reported, and produced by New York teenagers.

Czerina Patel is the Executive Director of Yenza – an organization which helps the global community better know the African people and which seeks to reveal the brightness, talent, and beauty of Africa. She is the Senior Producer Emeritus of WNYC’s Radio Rookies – a program that works with NYC youth to record stories about their own lives (Patel ran this program until 2006.) She is a Peabody Award-winning radio producer, a photographer, and a political activist.