Andrew McGregor - President and Founder

Andrew McGregor founded The Tiziano Project in 2007 in an effort to answer the moral dilemma of living in a world with YouTube and mass genocide at the same time. As a photojournalist, Andrew has worked in Rwanda and DR Congo for Reuters, AFP, the AP, and the EPA. He is also the founder of the Los Angeles Chessboxing Club and fought in the first sanctioned bout in North American history, which he won by checkmate in the fifth round. He holds a master's degree from the University of Southern California School of Professional Writing and has a B.A. in philosophy from Connecticut College.

» andrew@tizianoproject.org

Jon Vidar - Executive Director

Jon Vidar is a freelance photographer who focuses on capturing moments and telling stories through new media and visual imagery.

Based out of Los Angeles, CA, Jon works regularly for the Associated Press with photos published by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today and NEED Magazine. His work has received honors from Getty Images, the National Press Photographers Association, FotoweekDC, and Microsoft.

In 2007, Jon joined The Tiziano Project and helped establish the first base of operations in Kigali, Rwanda. In the Summer of 2008, he piloted a two-week long multimedia workshop in Northern Iraq and recently secured the project a $25,000 grant from Chase Trust to conduct a three-month program in Iraqi Kurdistan during the summer of 2010.

Jon earned a master's degree in Communication Management from the Annenberg School for Communication with concentrations in Information Technology and Strategic Corporate Communications.

» jvidar@tizianoproject.org

Victoria Fine - Director of Advancement and Outreach

Victoria Fine is a new media journalist and an editor for Huffington Post Impact. Her work has been featured both in the U.S. and abroad, including the Chicago Tribune, AOL.com, and L'Officiel, a fashion magazine based in Paris. She is also the managing editor of Modern Overland, a travel guidebook series dedicated to providing tech savvy travelers the information they need to make global exploration socially sustainable and ecofriendly. Fine has authored two books, including "Fundamental Talent," a handbook on top-level management succession. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and holds a master's degree in new media storytelling.

» vfine@tizianoproject.org

Chris Mendez - Director of Technology

Chris Mendez is currently a Web Applications Developer for the University of Southern California. He is interested in all areas of usability and experience design, from social interoperability to user collaboration. Chris has contributed to many online projects including multimedia packages for LaTimes.com and ChannelOne.com.

Chris is currently earning a master's degree in Communication Management from the Annenberg School for Communication from the University of Southern California with concentrations in web marketing and management.

In his free time Chris enjoys recording and producing music as well as traveling to remote destinations.

» cmendez@tizianoproject.org

Jessica R. Yurasek - Art Director

Jessica R. Yurasek is a Creative Strategist and Visual Communications Designer who has also worked internationally as an art director, designer, brand strategist, and photographer. Among other things, she is interested in social media strategy and transmedia storytelling.

Currently earning her Master's in Communication Management and Brand Strategy from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Jessica also holds a double BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art and Design in both Design and Photography with a minor in the History of Art.

» jyurasek@tizianoproject.org

Grant Slater - Multimedia and Videography Specialist / Mentor

Grant Slater is a multimedia journalist and writer. He has written for The Associated Press from the Middle East, the former Soviet Union and the United States. His work has also appeared in Chicagoist, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency and publications in his home state of Oklahoma.

He holds bachelor's degrees in journalism and Russian language from the University of Oklahoma and is currently pursuing a master's degree in journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

Starting in 2007, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the countries of the former Soviet Union, traveling widely across the region. His coverage included the 2008 conflict in Georgia and the local fallout from the global financial crisis.

» gslater@tizianoproject.org

David Torstenson - Multimedia and Videography Specialist / Mentor

David Torstenson is a journalist, teacher, and musician based out of Los Angeles. A native of rural Nevada, David earned a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Southern California. He worked as an associate producer for Good Morning America, MTV News, and ABC-TV's World News Tonight before relocating to northern Iraq in 2005 to teach science, music, and math to Kurdish middle school students.

Since returning to LA in 2007, David has been producing an independent feature-length documentary on the subculture of Volkswagen owners and enthusiasts in America (http://www.circlethewagen.com). He helped usher the Tiziano Project into northern Iraq during the Summer of 2008.

» dtorstenson@tizianoproject.org

Nadine Farid

Nadine Farid is an assistant professor of Law at Gonzaga University. Previously, she spent nearly three years as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard University. At Harvard, she taught in the First-Year Legal Research and Writing Program. She established and served as a principal advisor to an international intellectual property and trade-related clinical advocacy project with Harvard's Human Rights Program done in collaboration with Harvard Medical School and Partners in Health.

Before entering academia, she worked in private practice in New York with the intellectual property firm Darby & Darby in the litigation of patent, copyright, and new media. Her pro bono work has included handling issues of cybercrime and assisting in capital case appeals; she has also worked on immigration and refugee law and is an alumna of the U.S. Department of Justice Honors Program.

She is co-founder of two non-profits, one addressing the Middle East conflict and another, formed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, designed to help with the housing situation in New Orleans. She has spoken at the United Nations about the conflicts in East Timor and the Middle East, and speaks and writes on trademark rights, pharmaceutical patents, international intellectual property, copyright expansion, and perceptions of Islam in the courts.

David Deutsch

David Deutsch is the founder of Synergi Communications, a strategic communications consulting firm in Los Angeles. He also has a background in DC, working for the Office of Inspector General and collaborated with other branches of the federal government in criminal investigations prosecuting fraud. Previously, he studied Mandarin Chinese at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Deutsch earned a master's degree in Communications Management from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California where he focused on multicultural organizational change management.

Michael Parks

Michael Parks is a journalist and educator whose assignments have taken him around the globe, and whose "balanced and comprehensive" coverage of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa earned him the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. From 1997-2000, Parks served as editor of the Los Angeles Times, a period during which the Times garnered four additional Pulitzer Prizes. In March of 2002 he was named director of USC's School of Journalism.

From his first overseas assignment covering the war in Vietnam as the Baltimore Sun's Saigon correspondent, Parks has reported on major international news events from a variety of international capitals, including Beijing, Moscow, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, and Jerusalem. He joined the Los Angeles Times in 1980 and in 1995 was promoted to deputy foreign editor and later managing editor, before taking the helm as editor in 1997.

As editor of the Los Angeles Times, Parks was responsible for news coverage and editorial page positions of the largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States. He managed an editorial staff of 1,350 and a budget of more than $120 million. Under his direction, the Times' circulation increased 16 percent to 1,170,000 and also developed an enhanced online news site, www.latimes.com. With a sense of the educational and social responsibilities held by the newspaper, Parks helped launch "Reading by 9," a community program to ensure all 9-year-old children in Southern California would read at grade level by the end of the 3rd grade, as well as editorial advocacy for adoption of a new city charter for Los Angeles and education reform, including the election of a new school board.

At USC Annenberg, Parks guided the creation and adoption of an innovative core curriculum that trains students to report stories for print, broadcast, and new media. Under his direction, the School has expanded its international reporting programs and its focus on developing expertise in covering diverse communities. The School has also deepened its commitment to mid-career training for journalists through the work of the Online Journalism Program, the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, the Institute for Justice and Journalism and the newly-established USC Annenberg Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship program and Strategic Public Relations Center.

Parks has served the profession as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize, Gerald Loeb Awards, ASNE Writing Awards, and the Selden Ring Award. He has also served on the Western Selection Committee for the German Marshall Fund Fellowships and the South African Selection Committee for the Fulbright Fellowship. His memberships include the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Council on Foreign Relations, Pacific Council on International Policy, International Press Institute, Asia Society, and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Parks and his wife live in Pasadena, California. They have three grown children and three grandchildren.

KC Cole

For the past ten years, K.C. Cole has been a science writer and columnist for the Los Angeles Times; she has also written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Smithsonian, Discover, Newsweek, Newsday, Esquire, Ms., People and many other publications. Her articles were featured in The Best American Science Writing 2004 and 2005 and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002. She has also been an editor at Discover and Newsday.

Cole is the author of seven nonfiction books, including Mind Over Matter: Conversations with the Cosmos; The Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered Over the Edge of Emptiness and Found Everything; and The Universe and the Teacup, the Mathematics of Truth and Beauty. She is also a regular commentator on science issues for KPCC-FM.

She has developed and taught courses in science, culture and society as a Fellow at Yale and Wesleyan Universities and as adjunct professor of Science, Society and Communication at UCLA.

She has been honored with the American Institute of Physics Science Writing prize; the Los Angeles Times award for deadline reporting; the Skeptics' Society Edward R. Murrow Award for Thoughtful Coverage of Scientific Controversies; Los Angeles Times award for best explanatory journalism, and the Elizabeth A. Wood Science Writing Award from the American Crystallographic Association.

Cole has been associated with San Francisco's "museum of human awareness," the Exploratorium, since 1972, and is currently working on a philosophical biography of its founder (and her mentor), the late physicist Frank Oppenheimer. Before getting into science writing, she wrote about international politics, travel, women's issues, education and humor. She is an active member of JAWS (Journalism and Women Symposium).

Mohamed Keita

Mohamed Keita is a native of Mali who also lived in Senegal before moving to New York. Keita is a graduate of the City College of New York and is fluent in French and English. He is currently an Africa Research Associate for The Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ).

Prior to joining CPJ, Mohamed volunteered as a researcher with the World Federalist Movement-Institute of Global Policy NGO that works to build international democratic institutions. He was responsible for a project on the structures and mechanisms of the African Union and helped organize outreach activities in West Africa for a project on the UN's "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine. Keita also monitored various UN reform consultations at the United Nations. He has been on several panels and regularly advises and gives interviews on international press freedom issues in Africa.