Leadership

Dilshad D. Ali is the Blog/Content Editor at Haute Hijab, coordinating coverage of Muslim women in America. Prior to that she was the Editor-in-Chief at Altmuslim and Managing Editor for the Muslim portal at Patheos.com. She has spent the past two decades covering and coordinating coverage of American Muslim communities and freelancing for a variety of media outlets, including Beliefnet, Islam Online, The Atlantic and the New York Times, and was a 2015 White House Champion of Change honoree for her autism reporting/writing and advocacy work.

Ruby Bailey is the executive editor of the ColumbiaMissourian and holds the Missouri School of Journalism’s Missouri Community Newspaper Management chair, working with community newspapers across the state to help improve their coverage and operations. She previously served as news editor at the Sacramento Bee and assistant metro editor at the Detroit Free Press.

Patton Dodd is the executive director of media and communications at the H. E. Butt Foundation. He previously served as editor-in-chief of OnFaith and executive editor for Patheos.

Samuel Freedman is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he runs a rigorous book-writing seminar. He is the author of eight nonfiction books, including Jew vs. Jew, and wrote the “On Religion” column for The New York Times from 2006 to 2016.

Ari L. Goldman is the director of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s Scripps Howard Program in Religion, Journalism and the Spiritual Life. He is the author of four books, including The Search for God at Harvard, and previously covered religion for The New York Times.

Caitlin Hendel recently served as CEO and publisher of National Catholic Reporter. Previously, she worked as an editor at CQ Roll Call in Washington, D.C., and directed coverage of the U.S. economy for Bloomberg News.

David Kurpius is the dean of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He previously served as a professor and administrator at Louisiana State University for almost 20 years, where he also served as director of the Office of Student Media.

Ju-Don Marshall is the chief content officer of WFAE 90.7, the NPR station in Charlotte, North Carolina. Previously, she was executive editor and senior vice president at News Corporation, overseeing Beliefnet, and spent 17 years at The Washington Post.

Bob Mong is the president of the University of North Texas at Dallas. Previously, he served as managing editor and editor-in-chief of The Dallas Morning News. He is a former chair of the Religion Newswriters Foundation.

The Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is the senior vice president and editor of Voices on Auburn Seminary. He previously served as executive editor of global spirituality and religion for The Huffington Post Religion section and as an editor at Beliefnet.

Robert J. Rosenthal’s career started at The New York Times, where he was an editorial assistant and part of the secret team that published The Pentagon Papers in June 1971. Later he joined The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he ultimately rose to become editor-in-chief in 1998. He joined The San Francisco Chronicle as managing editor in 2002, then became Executive Director of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting in 2008. Today he sits on the CIR board and several other nonprofit boards and is active in espousing the role of journalism in democracy and his belief that the nonprofit model can and does work.

Amy Sullivan has covered the intersection of religion, politics and culture as an editor for TIME, Yahoo, and The Washington Monthly. She co-hosts the “Impolite Company” religion and politics podcast, and contributes opinion and news analysis to NPR, The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is the author of The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing the God Gap.

Robyn Tomlin is the executive editor of The News & Observer and The Herald Sun in North Carolina, and the Carolinas Regional Editor for the McClatchy company. Previously, she served as vice president and managing editor of The Dallas Morning News.

Diane Winston is an associate professor and Knight Center Chair in Media & Religion at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She is the author of four books, including The Oxford Handbook on Religion and the American News Media.

Michael Wolf is president and co-executive producer of Unity Productions Foundation, the makers of numerous PBS documentaries on Muslim themes. A convert to Islam, Wolfe has written two books for Grove Press on the pilgrimage to Mecca and translated a collection of ancient Greek epitaphs for Johns Hopkins University Press. His journalism has been awarded by the Society for American Travel Writers and won the Wilbur Prize for Best Book on a Religious Theme.

G. Jeffrey MacDonald is an award-winning journalist and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. A graduate of Yale Divinity School, he covers religion, ethics and social responsibility, along with other subjects, for national news outlets. His stories have appeared in TIME magazine, The Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, Religion News Service and more.

Phil Haslanger straddles careers in journalism and ministry. He worked for The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin for three decades, ending his career there as managing editor. He is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and has been a pastor in several Madison area congregations over the past 15 years. He has a master's degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1973) and a master's degree in theology from Lakeland University in Wisconsin (2007). He was on the board for RNS from 2011 to 2017. He serves as chair of the advisory board for the Center for Journalism Ethics at UW-Madison.

Shahed Amanullah is the Managing Director of Frost Capital, a Palo Alto-based private equity fund manager and investment advisor. He is also known for co-founding Affinis Labs, an award-winning social innovation firm that was acquired by Frost Capital in 2019. In addition to his entrepreneurial ventures, Shahed also co-founded Zakatify, a social impact fintech startup in partnership with the PayPal Giving Fund. His expertise extends to growth strategy consulting, as he served as Senior Vice President of Digital Products and interim Senior Vice President of Marketing at Frost & Sullivan from 2020 to 2023. Shahed's public service record is notable, having served in President Obama's administration from 2010 to 2014 as the Senior Advisor for Technology at the US Department of State. During his tenure, he worked under Secretary Hillary Clinton on various entrepreneurship and technology initiatives. In 1998, Shahed created Zabihah, the world's first global Halal restaurant guide, which was later acquired in 2023. He also founded Altmuslim, an online magazine with 2.5 million annual unique users, and served as its editor-in-chief until its acquisition in 2011. Beyond his professional pursuits, Shahed actively contributes to the community by serving on the boards of the Muslim Public Service Network and the Islamic Scholarship Fund. He also takes on the role of an Entrepreneurship Mentor at the Aspen Institute, providing valuable insights to Aspen Digital's Digital Equity Accelerator program.

Robyn Tomlin is the Chief News Officer for McClatchy, with responsibilities that encompass all news, opinion, and multimedia content produced across the network's 30 local news sites and affiliated brands. Before assuming her current role, Robyn served as the Vice President of Local News for McClatchy and held the esteemed position of President and Executive Editor at The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, a newspaper under McClatchy's umbrella. Robyn's career boasts an impressive trajectory, as she previously worked as the VP/Managing Editor for The Dallas Morning News. Her contributions extend to the digital realm, where she served as the Chief Digital Officer and VP of Communications at the Pew Research Center. Additionally, Robyn led Digital First Media's Project Thunderdome and held executive editor positions at various local newspapers. In her commitment to the journalism community, Robyn currently serves as a faculty member and coach in Poynter's Media Transformation Challenge program. Her dedication to elevating media and news dissemination is evident through her extensive career in the field.