Andrew Smiley, Executive Director

Smiley is the new executive director of AHCJ and its Center for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. He also has been named an assistant professor of professional practice at the Missouri School of Journalism. Smiley comes to AHCJ from a sports broadcasting background, including nearly a decade at the Golf Channel/NBC Sports, where he most recently served as coordinating director. He also spent a decade at ESPN in programming and studio directing, where he won an Emmy, and a short stint with the PBS affiliate in Chattanooga, Tenn. Smiley holds communications degrees from Berry College in Georgia and the University of Hartford in Connecticut, and is completing coursework toward an executive MBA degree from Washington State University. (@andrewnsmiley) andrew@healthjournalism.org | Phone: 573-884-5606

Jeff Porter, Director of Education

Porter plays a lead role in planning conferences, workshops and other training events. He has trained journalists to use databases, spreadsheets and online resources since 1998 and continues that work for AHCJ members. Before joining AHCJ in 2008, he served six years as the database library director for Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. In that position, he conducted and directed data analysis for broadcast and print investigative projects, served as lead instructor for computer-assisted reporting boot camps, and provided journalism training across the United States and overseas. He has served as a CAR instructor at the Missouri School of Journalism. Previously, he worked 20 years as an award-winning newspaper journalist, served as adjunct college faculty, and co-created and hosted a weekly radio program. His last newspaper job was at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, where he served as CAR specialist, combining traditional investigative reporting techniques with advanced data analysis tools. jeff@healthjournalism.org | Phone: 573-884-5477

Pia Christensen, Managing Editor/Online Services

Christensen manages the content and development of healthjournalism.org and assists with the editing and production of AHCJ's publications, including books, conference programs and HealthBeat, the newsletter. In 2010, she was featured in "Journalists to Follow: 20 industry thinkers, innovators and practitioners we recommend you get to know" in Quill magazine, published by the Society of Professional Journalists. She previously was publications coordinator for Investigative Reporters and Editors, where she oversaw website content, edited IRE publications and assisted advertisers. She worked as a copy editor and an interactive producer at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, a producer for Tribune Interactive, a sports copy editor for the Marin (Calif.) Independent Journal, and was job and internship coordinator at the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism in San Francisco. (@AHCJ_Pia) pia@healthjournalism.org | Phone: 405-714-3867

Tina England, Membership Coordinator

England provides the first line of service for members and potential members. She also coordinates marketing efforts to inform both AHCJ members and other journalists who would benefit from AHCJ events, resources and support. She previously served in administrative, graphic design and conference planning roles in the University of Missouri’s College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the Department of Student Life. She also teaches fitness and Pilates classes. She is interested in helping members navigate all the association has to offer. tina@healthjournalism.org | Phone: 573-882-2955

Susan Cunningham, Events Coordinator

Cunningham heads up logistics on conferences, workshops and fellowship programs. She collaborates with hotels and other training sites to make sure events are well-planned and executed, and assists speakers, attendees and exhibitors with their training event plans. She also serves as point person for AHCJ's many fellowship programs. She most recently served as a catering sales manager with Marriott and is a former regional director with the Missouri Restaurant Association. susan@healthjournalism.org | 573-882-2203

Melissa Acton, Fiscal Officer

Acton is responsible for daily accounting, overall budget monitoring and grants reporting for the association and the center. She previously served as chief financial officer for Welcome Home Inc., a local nonprofit that provided housing and other support services to homeless veterans. She has a master’s degree in public affairs with an emphasis in nonprofit management and a bachelor’s degree in human environmental studies. melissa@healthjournalism.org | Phone: 573-882-2868 

Chris Colwell, Web Producer

Colwell is responsible for programming and content creation that will improve site navigation and the overall experience at healthjournalism.org. Before joining AHCJ in 2012, Colwell helped create commercial, educational and journalism-oriented sites and performed programming/development for sites owned by Quaker Oats, Celebrity Cruises and Pepsico brands. He attended the Missouri School of Journalism. chris@healthjournalism.org

Len Bruzzese, Senior Adviser

Bruzzese is the senior adviser for AHCJ and its Center for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. He assumed the consulting role after 15 years as executive director of the organization. Bruzzese, a founding staff member of USA Today, spent 20 years in daily journalism before entering the nonprofit and academic worlds. He served as a Missouri School of Journalism professor for 22 years, while also working as deputy director of Investigative Reporters and Editors and then AHCJ’s executive director. He was recently named professor emeritus to acknowledge his contributions to the university and the journalism profession. He is co-author of "The Investigative Reporter's Handbook," (fourth edition), and has edited 15 reporter beat books focused on different reporting topics of use to daily journalists. He has won several newspaper and magazine editing awards and was named Outstanding Alumnus in Journalism by the University of Alabama at Birmingham. len@healthjournalism.org | Phone: 573-884-5606

Student Assistants

Jessica Nguyen, Office Assistant

Nguyen studies art with an emphasis in graphic design and a minor in business at the University of Missouri. She aspires to either work in packaging or magazine design. She began working for AHCJ in February 2020 and assists on conference and workshop coordination. During her time at MU, she has been involved with the Greek community in her sorority Phi Mu. Currently, Nguyen has opened a Redbubble shop that mainly sells stickers.

Editorial Contributors

Joseph Burns, Topic Leader/Insurance

Burns provides resources for AHCJ members to cover the complex and changing landscape of health insurance through blog posts, tip sheets, articles and links to sources. An independent journalist, Burns has been covering health care since 1991 and writes frequently about health policy and the business of health care for a variety of publications, including Hospitals & Health Networks, Managed Care magazine, Ophthalmology Management and The Dark Report. One of the founding editors of the Practice Options newsletters, Burns has edited books on health care and business strategies for Faulkner & Gray and Panel Publishers. From 1991 to 1994, he was editor-in-chief of Business & Health magazine and later was a contributing editor and author of a monthly column for Managed Healthcare Executive magazine. He was the founding editor of The Financial Manager, a magazine for accountants and other business strategists. Burns, based in Massachusetts, began his career as a newspaper reporter in Connecticut. (@jburns18)

Cheryl Clark, Topic Leader/Patient Safety

Clark is compiling resources for journalists to cover the many aspects of patient safety, from diagnosis errors to post-discharge monitoring of patients. She is a MedPage Today contributor and inewsource.org investigative journalist. For most of 27 years, she covered medicine and science for the San Diego Union-Tribune. After taking a buyout in 2008, she became senior quality editor for HealthLeaders Media, writing about the Affordable Care Act until 2015. She won the National Institute for Health Care Management’s $10,000 prize for a 2014 magazine article on sepsis and more recently, was honored for a series on a network of diabetes clinics that many researchers and clinicians called a scam. (@CherClarHealth)

Carolyn Crist, Freelance Correspondent

Crist helps AHCJ’s freelance members find the resources, tips and contacts they need to create and run a successful business. A freelance journalist and author herself, Crist covers health, medicine and science stories for national news outlets such as Reuters, Runner’s World and Parade. She also writes for trade and custom publications in the health, business and education industries. A former newspaper reporter on local crime and government desks in Georgia, Crist still loves the look and feel of traditional print publications and enjoys talking about the future of the media industry, media strategy and social media marketing. Her first book, "The New Science of Narcissism," is scheduled to be published in 2020. She teaches at the University of Georgia and runs the Freelance Writing Roadmap website and podcast to help others on their journey to freelance freedom. (@cristcarolyn)

Katti Gray, Topic Leader/Mental Health

A former Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow, Gray is providing resources to help AHCJ members expand their coverage of mental health amid ongoing efforts to de-stigmatize mental illness and to place mental health care on par with all health care. She has covered, among other topics, mental health care in prisons and jails, the debate over whether mental illnesses are being over-diagnosed and efforts to persuade persons of color to be less skeptical about seeking counseling and other mental health services. Her work has been published by, among others, The Washington Post, Salon, Reuters, New York Newsday, Los Angeles Times, Health Affairs, Essence, Colorlines, CNN, CBS News, ABC News and AARP. Her writings appear in, among other books, "The Criminalization of Mental Illness" and "Narrative Matters: Writing to Change the Health Care System." (@kattigray)

Tara Haelle, Topic Leader/Medical Studies

Haelle guides journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enable them to translate the evidence into accurate information that their readers can grasp. Haelle is a freelance journalist and multimedia photographer who has particularly focused on medical studies over the past five years. She particularly specializes in reporting on vaccines, pediatrics, maternal health, obesity, nutrition and mental health. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, The Washington Post, Politico, Slate, NOVA, Wired and Science, and she writes regularly for HealthDay, Frontline Medical Communications, Forbes and her parenting science blog Red Wine & Apple Sauce. She's co-writing an evidence-based parenting book due in April 2016. (@tarahaelle)

Joanne Kenen, Topic Leader/Health Reform

Kenen, the health editor for Politico, is a Washington-based writer who specializes in health and health policy. She provides resources to help AHCJ members cover the complexities of implementing health care reform. Her work has appeared in the Atlantic, The Washington Post, Slate, the Washingtonian, Kaiser Health News, Health Affairs, Miller-McCune, the American Prospect, AARP Magazine and numerous other publications. She was the senior writer for the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation, and a Kaiser Media Fellow in a 2006-07, where she wrote extensively about palliative medicine, hospice, and aging. A longtime Reuters correspondent in New York, Florida/the Caribbean, and Washington, she has covered everything from voodoo festivals to U.S. presidential campaigns and she spent more than a decade covering health policy on Capitol Hill. Thanks to her particularly wakeful second son, she is co-author of a parenting book, "The Sleeplady's Good Night, Sleep Tight." Earlier in her career, she did a lot of reporting from Latin America, and co-authored a book on Costa Rica. (@joannekenen)

Liz Seegert, Topic Leader/Aging

Seegert is leading the effort to provide resources to help AHCJ members cover the complexities of aging by writing blog posts, tip sheets, articles and other resources. She has more than 25 years’ experience in print, broadcast and online media. Her journalism experience includes stints in Boston as a general assignment news reporter for public radio and a writer for all-news radio, and as a TV news associate producer/writer in New York City. Several years in the corporate world helped to sharpen her writing and immersed her in the world of health and wellness. Since 1995, she has flown solo as a writer/reporter. She is a regular contributor to the HealthCetera, blog and to the award-winning HealthStyles show (WBAI/Pacifica), both part of the Center for Health, Media and Policy at Hunter College, where she is also a senior fellow. (@lseegert)

Bara Vaida, Topic leader/Infectious Diseases

Vaida is covering the complex and changing topic and helping journalists recognize emerging stories, understand the science of diseases, as well as prevention and cures. She has been a journalist for more than 25 years and a freelancer since 2011. She has worked for the National Journal, Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg News and has been a guest on numerous radio and television shows. Vaida has written extensively about health care policy and the Affordable Care Act as a contributing writer with Kaiser Health News. Her stories on the business and legal issues raised by health reform, as well as special interest influence on health care policy, have been published in the McClatchy News Service, MSNBC, National Public Radio, Politico, and the Washington Post. She wrote an in-depth report for CQ Researcher titled "Pandemic Threat: Is the world prepared for the next outbreak?" (@barav)