Guidance & Management
RNS’ work is guided by our Board of Managers, our Journalism Advisory Council and our staff. This team is made up of experts from all fields, from media and communications, to nonprofit fundraising, to government and policy making, and more. Our team is guided by the conviction that accurate research and reporting on religion is a powerful force for change in the world.
RNS Board of Managers
Muhammed Chaudhry
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Muhammed Chaudhry
Muhammed A. Chaudhry (MAC), board member since 2018, has spent most of his career uniting leaders of the business, technology and academic communities. MAC is General Partner at DJM Capital Partners, a leading private equity real estate firm. Prior to this, MAC served as Founder, President & CEO of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation (SVEF). Under his stewardship, SVEF raised over $100 million and became the leading education resource preparing students for college and careers. MAC is a Board Member of the Wall Family Enterprises, Horizon Education, American Leadership forum Silicon Valley and several startup boards. He resides in San Jose with his wife, Rabia and their boy/girl twins.
John Terrill, Ph.D.
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John Terrill, Ph.D.
John serves as the Executive Director of the Stephen & Laurel Brown Foundation, which includes Upper House—a Christian study center located at the heart of the University of Wisconsin-Madison—and Dottie’s Ranch—a leadership development and spiritual retreat house located near Oregon, Wisconsin. John previously served as Director for the Center for Integrity in Business at Seattle Pacific University; before that, he worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA as the National Director for Professional Schools Ministries, as well as campus minister at Harvard Business School and National Director for MBA Ministry. John is a graduate of Indiana University (Bloomington), holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University), master’s degrees in theology (MATH) and religion (MAR) from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and a PhD from Seattle Pacific University in industrial and organizational psychology. John and his wife, Vanja, lived in Middleton, Wisconsin, with their daughter, Elena.
RNS Journalism Advisory Council
Dilshad D. Ali
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Dilshad D. Ali
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
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Ruby Bailey
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.
Vikas Bajaj
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Vikas Bajaj
Vikas Bajaj has been a member of the editorial board of The New York Times since 2012. Earlier, he was a correspondent in Mumbai and covered the financial crisis based in New York. Born in Mumbai, Mr. Bajaj grew up there and in Bangkok, and he received a bachelor’s in journalism from Michigan State University. Before the Times, he worked as a business, metro and religion reporter at The Dallas Morning News.
Patton Dodd
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Patton Dodd
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
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Samuel Freedman
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.
David Gibson
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David Gibson
David Gibson is the director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University. He is an award-winning journalist and author with extensive experience covering religion and the Catholic Church in the United States and internationally, including six years at Religion News Service.
Ari Goldman
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Ari Goldman
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.
Sharon Grigsby
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Sharon Grigsby
Sharon Grigsby is a Metro columnist for The Dallas Morning News. She was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for her work on sexual assault at Baylor University. She was the founding editor of The Dallas Morning News Religion section, serving in that position from 1994 to 1998.
Nicole Neroulias Gupte
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Nicole Neroulias Gupte
Nicole Neroulias Gupte is an editor at Global Press Journal, executive editor of Trailing-Spouse.com, and a member of the Alumni Board of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. She previously worked in nonprofit communications and religion reporting, including covering Judaism and national trends for RNS. Find her in Delhi, Seattle, or somewhere in between.
Caitlin Hendel
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Caitlin Hendel
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
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David Kurpius
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
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Ju-Don Marshall
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
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Bob Mong
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.
Paul Raushenbush
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Paul Raushenbush
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 Rosenthal
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Robert Rosenthal
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
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Amy Sullivan
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
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Robyn Tomlin
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
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Diane Winston
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
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Michael Wolf
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
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G. Jeffrey MacDonald
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.
