Speaker Bios

Caitlin Dickerson is an award-winning investigative reporter and feature writer for The Atlantic magazine. Dickerson has reported on immigration from three continents and dozens of American cities. She has broken news about changes in deportation and detention policy, and often profiles the lives of immigrants, including those without legal status. Previously, Dickerson spent nearly five years as a reporter at The New York Times, and five years as a producer and reporter for NPR. She is a Peabody, Edward R Murrow, and Silvers-Dudly Journalism prize recipient, and a three-time finalist for the Livingston Award. She is currently writing a book for Random House about the systemic impact of deportation on American society and is a Shorenstein Center Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School.
@itscaitlinhd

Adefemi Akinsanya is an international correspondent and anchor for Arise News in Lagos, Nigeria. She has covered a variety of topics including police brutality, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Nigerian population, crisis management, business and economic development, plastic pollution, health and race. She previously worked as a producer for Al Jazeera English, the Turkish public broadcaster TRT World and Reuters. In October 2021, Akinsanya was assaulted by Nigerian police live on air while covering the anniversary of the #EndSARS anti-police brutality protests. As a 2023 Nieman Fellow at Harvard, she is studying how deteriorating media freedom in her country is connected to the protests against police violence. She also is working on building a news management platform to expand journalism jobs and help reporters tell the stories of marginalized communities.
Twitter: @femmefemi |Instagram: @femmefemi

Angie Drobnic Holan is editor-in-chief of PolitiFact, the national politics fact-checking website at the Poynter Institute. From Washington, D.C., she leads PolitiFact’s coverage of U.S. politics, political campaigns and the federal government and its fact-checking of misinformation on social media. She was a reporter with PolitiFact when it launched in 2007 and was on the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2009. She started her career as a reporter at local newspapers in New Mexico, Louisiana and Alabama, where she covered local government, politics and business. A 2023 Nieman Fellow, she is studying whether journalism can have a causal effect on the preservation of democracy and, if so, how.
@AngieHolan

Mark Holan is a journalist and historian specializing in Irish issues. In addition to his published work, he has presented original research at history conferences and museum programs. Mark is using his time as a Nieman affiliate to write a book about American press coverage of the Irish revolution, 1919-1921.  

Natasha Khan is an Asia correspondent for The Wall Street Journal based in Hong Kong. She is a two-time finalist for The Livingston Award for Young Journalists and has been recognized for stories on cancer and bankruptcy in China, the rise of China’s economic might, Hong Kong’s political turmoil and women’s health issues in India. Before joining the Journal in 2017, she spent six years at Bloomberg News covering health and science. There, she also worked on a series of stories that uncovered the financial holdings of China’s ruling class, which received numerous honors, including the George Polk Award for foreign reporting. Kahn is a 2023 Nieman Fellow studying the acceleration of global inequality during the pandemic and how media organizations can advance coverage of stories from developing regions.
@natashakhanhk

Romy Neumark is a senior anchor at Kan, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation. Based in Jerusalem, she most recently created and hosted the daily television program “Night News” and hosted a weekly radio interview program. She uses the news as a tool for social change, promoting gender equality, diversity and inclusiveness through the unconventional use of the Hebrew language. Neumark leads Kan’s peer mentoring initiative, which cultivates excellence in journalism and growth in the work environment. She previously worked at the nationally broadcast Channel 10 News, where she anchored a daily news program and reported in-depth magazine stories. At Harvard as a 2023 Nieman Fellow, she is developing a large-scale training program for journalists that emphasizes professional newsroom culture and inclusion.
@romy1n | Romy Neumark on Facebook

Dr. Katherine Porterfield is a consulting psychologist at the Bellevue Hospital Program for Survivors of Torture. Dr. Porterfield has provided clinical care to adults, children and families who have experienced war and refugee trauma and torture for over 22 years. She has written and edited numerous publications pertaining to the care and evaluation of survivors of trauma. She regularly consults on issues pertaining to trauma and torture, including in cases at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, in US federal and state courts, and the International Criminal Court. Dr. Porterfield has worked extensively with journalists, attorneys, and human rights organizations on recognizing and managing secondary traumatic stress. Dr. Porterfield is a founding staff member of the Journalist Trauma Support Network, an initiative at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. Dr. Porterfield was the Chair of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Psychosocial Effects of War on Children and Families Who Are Refugees from Armed Conflict Residing in the United States. She regularly teaches and works with groups around issues of wellbeing, stress management and team communication. She was trained at the legendary Second City theater and was one of the founding instructors in the Second City Training Centers in Detroit and New York. As a group facilitator, Dr. Porterfield has developed workshops and interactive programs for organizations such as the International Women’s Media Foundation, Physicians for Human Rights, Committee to Protect Journalists, NPR, Major League Baseball, Pfizer, Ford Foundation, and MTV/Viacom.

Ruth Tam is co-host of the podcast “Dish City,” which explores local food culture, and is a digital editor at WAMU in Washington, D.C. She also guest hosts NPR’s “Life Kit,” where she covers the future of work, personal finance and other topics. Additionally, as an independent illustrator and writer, she often explores personal identity and family traditions. Her visual reporting for DCist on the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement was honored by the Society for News Design and the National Association of Black Journalists. A 2023 Nieman Fellow, she is studying how personal identity shapes journalism and will research the rise of first-person writing, personal branding and audience interest in the background of those who deliver the news.
@ruthetam

Hanaa’ Tameez is a staff writer for the Nieman Journalism Lab, where she covers innovation in the news media industry. She previously worked at WhereBy.Us as a newsletter editor and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as its diversity reporter. She had internships at The Wall Street Journal and the Council on Foreign Relations, among others, and she is a graduate of Stony Brook University and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
@HanaaTameez

Viktorya Vilk (she/her/hers) is the director for digital safety and free expression at PEN America. She created and runs the organization’s Online Abuse Defense Program, which equips writers and journalists with self-defense resources and training, partners with media organizations and publishers to strengthen protections for writers and journalists, and conducts research and advocacy to hold technology companies accountable for online harms. Her work has been featured on PBS Newshour, The New York Times, Slate, and Harvard Business Review and she regularly speaks about digital safety and press freedom, including for the Online News Association, RightsCon, International Journalism Festival, and Journalism and Women’s Symposium, among others. She completed graduate degrees, as a Marshall Scholar, at the University of London, and has over a decade of experience working in nonprofits to expand access to the arts and defend creative and press freedom.