"Covering a Revolution" Reporting Fellowship: Speakers, Partners and Participants

The "Covering a Revolution" reporting fellowship is comprised of veteran journalists with decades of experience in the field and 17 of Egypt's and America's top, young reporters just breaking into the industry. Learn more about all of the participants, instructors, and partners who are joining the Open Hands Initiative in Cairo this October below.

Seminar Instructors & Field Reporting Leaders

Our veteran journalists leading the seminar discussions and field reporting include:

Charles M. Sennott

Charles M. Sennott is the Vice President, Executive Editor and co-founder of GlobalPost. An award-winning foreign correspondent with 25 years of experience, Sennott has reported on the front lines of wars and insurgencies in at least 15 countries, including the 2011 revolution in Cairo and the Arab Spring. Mr. Sennott is the lead instructor for the seminar and the field reporting project.

Gary Knight

Gary Knight is an award winning photojournalist and co-founder of VII Photo Agency and the Angkor Photo Festival and Workshops. He is spearheading the teams of photojournalists attending the fellowship. Mr. Knight is also the Director of the Program for Narrative & Documentary Studies at Tufts University. His work has been widely published and exhibited across the world.

Jon Jenson

Jon Jensen is the North Africa correspondent for GlobalPost and is a team leader for the field reporting portion of the fellowship program. Jon has worked with Time Magazine, Al-Jazeera English, the Oprah Winfrey Show, Current TV and the Travel Channel while living in Egypt. Before moving to Egypt in 2007, Jon worked as a producer and editor for National Geographic in Washington, D.C. He has lived in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Indonesia and has a Master's Degree from the journalism school at the University of Florida.

Kevin Grant

Kevin Douglas Grant is the Deputy Editor of Special Reports at GlobalPost. A native of Chicago, he holds an M.A. in Online Journalism from the University of Southern California's Annenberg School and is the former Operations Director of Web news enricher Inform.com. He was formerly the Executive Editor of Annenberg's thriving 24/7 news site NeonTommy.com. He continues to write about internet technology and social media at the Cape Town-based Memeburn.com. Grant also holds a B.A. in International Studies from DePaul University and has been published by Salon.com, American Public Media, Religion News Service, Huffington Post, and Truthdig.

Reporting Fellows

Seventeen promising, young journalists from the United States and Egypt make up the team of fellows. To learn more about them, click here.

Partners & Participants

The Open Hands Initiative, and our partner GlobalPost, are working with the following Egyptian and American partners in Cairo:

Al-Masry Al-Youm

Al-Masry Al-Youm for Journalism and Publication is an independent Egyptian media organization established in 2003. The Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper is Egypt's foremost Arabic-language independent daily, and was first published on 7 June, 2004. Its editor-in-chief is Magdy El Galad.

American University in Cairo

The American University in Cairo was founded in 1919 and serves as one of our lecture locations for the fellowship seminar. The School of Global Affairs and Public Policy is led by Founding Dean Nabil Fahmy and is home to the monthly journal The Cairo Review of Global Affairs.

"Covering a Revolution" Seminar Speakers

The seminars will serve as inspirational and informative sessions for the reporting fellows. The following experts are our panelists.

Jeffrey Fleishman

LA Times

Gigi Abraham

Blogger & Activist

Ahmed Maher

Co-Founder, April 6 Youth Movement

Egypt Staff Team

Meredith Dewitt, Executive Director

As Principal of Meredith J. DeWitt Consulting, Meredith provides clients with focused strategic counsel, aligning clients’ public interactions with their personal and organizational goals. Since forming her own consulting firm in 2004, Meredith has advised national political committees and candidates on fundraising strategy and has worked with an impressive roster of private individuals in managing their philanthropic interests as they seek to make a difference in their communities.

Kathleen Gasperine, Operations Consultant

Kathy Gasperine is the New England Finance Director for the Obama for America Campaign. Previously as a consultant, she served as the Finance Director for the successful 2010 re-election campaign of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and as New England Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee. Kathy’s previous clients include Massachusetts Ways and Means Chairman Charley Murphy, Be the Change, Inc, a nonprofit promoting and expanding community and national service opportunities and US Senate campaigns of Robin Carnahan and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

Tara Trombetta, Special Assistant to the Chairman

Tara Trombetta is the Special Assistant to the Chairman for the Open Hands Initiative. She graduated with a Master's degree in Global Affairs from New York University, where she specialized in transnational security and the Middle East. After graduating with a BA in Spanish and Multilingual Journalism from CUNY, she worked as an editor for online publications. Tara speaks Spanish, French, and some Turkish and Arabic.