leadership
Christopher Tyree
co-founder & Senior Director
For more than 30 years, the Virginia native has carried his cameras and pens to report on stories from around the commonwealth and nearly every continent. His projects have been published in hundreds of the world's leading periodicals and broadcast networks including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, CNN, National Geographic TV, BBC, The Guardian and Mother Jones. He spent almost a decade as a multimedia journalist at The Virginian-Pilot.
Tyree's photography, films, writing and editing have been recognized nationally and internationally, earning him numerous awards from esteemed competitions including the Association of British Science Writers, Pictures of the Year international, National Press Photographers Association, Communication Arts, Society for Environmental Journalists, and The Associated Press.
His ground breaking reporting on micro plastic contamination of global drinking water in 2017-2018 led the World Health Organization to investigate the human health implications and has led to millions of dollars being devoted to research on the topic.
Reach him at chris.tyree@vcij.org
Louis Hansen
Cofounder & Senior Editor
Hansen has been a journalist for more than 20 years in New York, Philadelphia, Hampton Roads and Silicon Valley. He was an enterprise and investigative reporter for The Virginian-Pilot for more than a decade, covering state government, military affairs and criminal justice. He served as a combat correspondent in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, covered the Virginia legislature and state and federal elections.
Hansen has won national and state awards for his work. His profile of a teenage gang member, “The Girl Who Took Down the Gang,” was published in a collection of the ten best newspaper narratives of 2012.
In 2015, he was one of 20 journalists from around the world chosen for a year-long, John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. He most recently covered Tesla, renewable energy and the housing crisis in California.
Reach him at louis.hansen@VCIJ.org and on Twitter, @HansenLouis
Advisory Board
Maria Carrillo
Maria Carrillo spent more than 25 years as a journalist in Virginia, leading dozens of projects that won national acclaim. She is was deputy editor/enterprise at the Tampa Bay Times and a visiting faculty member at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
Bruce Bradley
Bruce Bradley spent 34 years with Landmark Communications. He is the former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and one-time president of Landmark's publishing division. He currently serves on the boards of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Hampton Roads Community Foundation and ACCESS College Foundation. He is also on the Gordon-Connell Theological Seminary's Board of Trustees and Old Dominion University's Board of Visitors.
Carole Tarrant
Carole Tarrant is the former editor of The Roanoke Times and served on the Associated Press Managing Editors national board. After leading the Roanoke newsroom during the Virginia Tech shootings, she was recognized with a Mimi Award from the Dart Center for Trauma and Investigative Journalism. She started her journalism career as an intern at The Daily Press in Newport News and today administers Virginia’s largest “free college” program at Virginia Western Community College.
Katrice Hardy
Hardy, a Baton Rouge, La.-native, is South Region editor for Gannett. She previously served as managing editor of The Virginian-Pilot based in Norfolk, Virginia, where she worked for two decades. During her time in Norfolk, Hardy has served roles on the watchdog and enterprise beats, as well as metro editing positions. Under her leadership, the newspaper won several state and national honors, including state FOIA and Virginia Press Association awards. Other recognition came from the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference and the National Education Writers Association.
Michael Morisy
Morisy is co-founder and chief executive of MuckRock, a collaborative, nonprofit news site focused on bringing transparency to government. Morisy was previously an editor at the Boston Globe, where he launched the paper's technology vertical. He was a 2014-15 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University and a 2012-13 Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Network Fellow at Harvard University. He graduated in 2007 from Cornell University with a degree in English.
Larry “Bud” Meyer
A career editor, newsman and nonprofit leader, he is co-founder and chair of Foothills Forum, a community news organization in Rappahannock County, Va. Bud served as vice president and secretary at the Knight Foundation for 14 years. He spent the previous two decades in Florida print journalism, including 14 years at The Miami Herald as an editor and member of the executive team. A strategic communications consultant for foundations and nonprofits, Bud is also founder of Morningside Press and author of the award-winning environmental novel Mother Fracker.
Academic advisory board
Battinto Batts: Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication atArizona State University
Battinto L. Batts Jr. is the dean, a professor and an award-winning journalist and educator with deep experience in philanthropy and nonprofit administration. He recently served as director of journalism strategies for the Scripps Howard Foundation in Cincinnati, Ohio. Batts holds a doctorate in higher education management from Hampton University, a master’s degree in media management from Norfolk State University and a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Virginia Commonwealth University.
William (Bill) Kovarik: Radford University
William (Bill) Kovarik, PhD, teaches science journalism, media history, media law, digital imaging and environmental history at Radford University. His research is located at the intersection of history, communications and the environment. Kovarik’s background as a professional journalist has involved reporting positions with The Associated Press, The Baltimore Sun, The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C. and with columnist Jack Anderson. Kovarik has also served on the board of Appalachian Voices and as an academic representative on the board of directors of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Toni Locy: Washington and Lee University
Toni Locy is a professor of journalism and mass communications at Washington and Lee University. She joined the journalism faculty in 2008 after working as a reporter for some of the nation’s biggest and best news organizations. In 2008 a federal judge in Washington held her in contempt of court for refusing to identify sources for stories she wrote for USA Today about the FBI’s investigation into 2001’s anthrax attack. During a 25-year career in news, Locy covered federal courts for the Washington Post, Philadelphia Daily News and Pittsburgh Press.
Gwyneth Mellinger: James Madison University
Gwyneth Mellinger was the director of the School of Media Arts & Design at James Madison University since 2016. Her media history research focuses on the democratic paradox, with a particular focus on racial inequity, and the journalist’s ethical struggle against self-interest. Her book, Chasing Newsroom Diversity: From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action, received Kappa Tau Alpha’s 2013 Frank Luther Mott Book Award. Mellinger was a journalist for 16 years, working at newspapers in Kansas, before her academic career. She taught previously at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Baker University in Baldwin City, Kan. Her doctorate in American Studies is from the University of Kansas.
Tom Mullen: University of Richmond
Tom Mullen is the director of Public Affairs Journalism at the University of Richmond. Mullen began his career in journalism by walking into the newsroom at the Kingsport Times-News in Kingsport, TN, to cover the night police beat when he was 19 and refusing to leave for good until he was compelled to graduate from college. He has worked as a reporter, copy editor, assignment editor, night editor, weekend editor, assistant metro editor and photographer at daily and weekly newspapers including the Amelia Bulletin-Monitor, The Newport News Times-Herald, The Richmond News Leader and the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Jeff South: Virginia Commonwealth University
Jeff South is associate professor emeritus, Robertson School of Media and Culture at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) where he joined the journalism faculty in 1997 under the mistaken impression he’d have summers off. Before moving into academia, he was a newspaper reporter and editor for 20 years in Texas, Arizona and Virginia. As both a journalist and a journalism educator, South has carved out a specialty in using technology to find, report and tell powerful news stories. Over the years, his students have won more than 40 awards for political reporting and other coverage
Lynn Waltz: Hampton University
Lynn Waltz is an author, journalist and assistant professor of journalism at The Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University in Hampton, Va. Her book Hog Wild: The Battle for Workers’ Rights at the World’s Largest Slaughterhouse, an expose of Smithfield Foods’ illegal labor practices, was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2018. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by The Virginian-Pilot for her expose of a state legislator's abuse of power and won a national award for her feature on Virginia’s death row chaplain. She is most proud of her stories that helped an innocent man get out of jail. Waltz received a master of fine arts in creative nonfiction from Old Dominion University in 2011.
Howard Witt: Miller Center at the University of Virginia
Howard Witt is director of communications at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, a think tank that studies the presidency. Before joining the Miller Center in September 2015, Witt was the executive editor of the Lafayette (Ind.) Journal & Courier, an award-winning digital and print news operation in northwest Indiana. For his coverage of civil rights issues in 2007, Witt was recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in national reporting. Witt started at the Tribune as a summer intern in 1982 and during his 25-year career there served as a national correspondent, foreign correspondent and editor. From 1987 to 1994, Witt was stationed in Toronto, Johannesburg and Moscow.