COLUMBIA, Mo. — The AHCJ board of directors has elected new officers who will serve two-year terms beginning Oct. 1.
Felice J. Freyer was elected president. She has served as vice president since 2017 and has chaired AHCJ’s Right to Know Committee since 2009, spearheading the committee’s efforts to intervene and speak out when reporters encounter obstacles to information. The committee has sponsored two membership surveys, met with HHS public affairs officials to push for greater transparency, held yearly workshops, and established a portal for tracking and responding to information blockades. As a health care reporter for The Boston Globe, she has covered almost every aspect of health and medicine, with a focus on mental health and addiction. During the pandemic she embedded at a hospital ICU, revealed the plight of COVID-19 “long-haulers” and tracked the vaccine roll-out. Previously, she was the medical writer for The Providence (R.I.) Journal. Follow her on Twitter at @felicejfreyer.
Gideon Gil was elected vice president. He currently serves as treasurer and chairs the Finance and Development Committee. He is managing editor for enterprise and partnerships at Stat, a Boston-based online publication covering health, medicine, and life sciences. He was the health and science editor at The Boston Globe for a decade and a medical reporter and an editor at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., for 19 years, and had a hand in three Pulitzer Prizes. A 2014-15 Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT, he lives in Wellesley, Mass. Gil, elected to the board in 2011, was chair of the local planning committee for Health Journalism 2013, and leads AHCJ’s Boston chapter. You can follow him at @GideonGil.
Jeanne Erdmann was elected treasurer. Erdmann is an award-winning health and science writer based in Wentzville, Mo. Her work has appeared in Discover, Real Simple, Family Circle, Women’s Health, Spectrum, The Washington Post, Nature, Nature Medicine and other publications. She is co-founder and editor-at-large at The Open Notebook, a craft-focused website for science and health writers. She is also the chair of AHCJ’s Freelance Committee. You can follow her at @jeanne_erdmann.
Sabriya Rice was elected secretary. In 2018, Rice was named the Knight Chair of Health & Medical Journalism in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. She previously was a health business reporter at The Dallas Morning News, wrote about quality and safety at Modern Healthcare and was a health producer with CNN for eight years. She was a member of the inaugural class of AHCJ Fellows on Comparative Effectiveness Research in 2015. As a freelance producer with Quest Network’s Blue Zones, she traveled the world writing about longevity. You can follow her at @sabriyarice.
Ivan Oransky, M.D., the board’s outgoing president, will serve as immediate past president. Oransky is editor-in-chief of Spectrum and Distinguished Writer In Residence at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He also blogs at Embargo Watch and at Retraction Watch. Formerly, he was vice president, editorial at Medscape; global editorial director at MedPage Today; executive editor at Reuters Health; managing editor for online at Scientific American and deputy editor of The Scientist.
The Association of Health Care Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing public understanding of health care issues. With more than 1,500 members across the U.S. and around the globe, its mission is to improve the quality, accuracy and visibility of health care reporting, writing and editing. The association and its Center for Excellence in Health Care Journalism provide training, resources and a professional home for journalists. Offices are based at the Missouri School of Journalism.
