Introducing the 2026-27 class of Shorenstein Fellows

The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy is excited to introduce the 2026-27 class of Shorenstein Fellows. 

Shorenstein Fellows join the center for a year of research, events, and engagement with HKS students, faculty, and the wider university community. This year’s cohort brings expertise in social science, public health, journalism, AI and newsroom technology, product design, creator and influencer studies, government, philanthropy, and civic accountability. Together, they represent perspectives from independent and major newsrooms, technology companies, academic and public institutions, and communities across the United States, Europe, and Africa. 

“Information is shaped by the people who create it, the systems that distribute it, and the communities that decide whether to trust it,” said Shorenstein Director Nancy Gibbs. “This cohort convenes journalists and technologists, scholars and product leaders, public servants and community-centered storytellers—people working from very different vantage points across the information landscape. That breadth is driving Shorenstein’s work: the opportunity to learn across old boundaries, test new ideas, and work together toward a more trustworthy information environment that helps people make sense of the world and gives societies a better chance to act on what they know.” 

2026-2027 Shorenstein Fellows: 

Wen-Ying “Sylvia” Chou | Shorenstein Fellow 

Wen-Ying “Sylvia” Chou, PhD, MPH is a health communication and public health scholar with expertise in health misinformation, social media, and relationship-centered communication. She is a co-author of the Bethesda Declaration, an open letter protesting the harmful policies at NIH. She resigned from her position as Program Director at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, in January 2026, after an 18-year tenure. With over 125 peer-reviewed publications and invited editorials, she is now writing, speaking, and organizing to uphold the integrity of academic research. A current major project is a book about the Bethesda Declaration and the broader civil service dissent movement. At Shorenstein, Sylvia looks forward to leading efforts to protect and improve future US research infrastructure through collaborations made possible by the Fellowship. 

David Craig | Shorenstein Fellow 

David Craig is Associate Professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and a leading scholar of global media industries and creator and influencer studies. His books include “Social Media Entertainment,” “Creator Culture,” “Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China,” and “Apocalypse Television.” During his fellowship, he will be completing books about Creator Nationalism and Global Entertainment Media, Volume II (both with Tanner Mirrlees), and co-editing “The Routledge Companion to Creator and Influencer Studies.” He directs USC’s master’s program in Global Media and Communication with the London School of Economics, is a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, and a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. Before academia, he was a Hollywood producer and television executive. 

Greg M. Epstein | Shorenstein Fellow 

Greg M. Epstein serves as the humanist chaplain at Harvard and MIT, where he advises students, faculty, and staff members on ethical and existential concerns from a humanist perspective. His first book was the New York Times-bestselling Good Without God, and he has been called a “symbol of the transition in how Americans relate to organized religion” (The Conversation). Greg’s multi-award-winning 2024 book “Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why it Desperately Needs a Reformation” examines Silicon Valley tech as a moral issue. At Shorenstein, he will explore collaborations across academia, journalism, and popular culture, to promote critical thinking and interfaith dialogue around emerging AI technologies that are changing our understanding of what it means to be human. 

Lars Adrian Giske | Shorenstein Fellow 

Lars Adrian Giske is Head of AI and Editorial Tools at Polaris Media, leading editorial AI development across a federated network of newsrooms in Norway and Sweden. He was previously Head of AI at iTromsø, one of Polaris Media’s five regional AI labs, where he led the development of DJINN, which surfaces news stories from large volumes of public data and is now used by newsrooms across Norway, and Polaris Databank, an editorial data platform for investigative and data-driven journalism. He continues to supervise iTromsø’s industrial PhDs in AI. A former investigative journalist, his work won Norway’s Data-SKUP award in 2023 and 2024, Digital Journalist of the Year 2025, and other national honors. As a Shorenstein fellow, he will explore probabilistic journalism—where predictive modeling meets data journalism—and its implications for public trust and democratic information systems. 

Kelly Jin | Shorenstein Fellow 

Kelly Jin is an advisor and former senior government and philanthropy executive specializing in AI, data, strategy, and public impact. Previously, Jin held multiple leadership roles at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, including Vice President for AI & Insights, Vice President for Communities, and Chief of Staff to the President & CEO. In her community role, she managed a national team and oversaw more than $230 million in investments across 26 U.S. cities. As New York City’s Chief Analytics Officer, she optimized operations and led the nation’s largest municipal open data platform. Earlier, she served in the Obama White House and held roles in management and strategy consulting. Jin serves on the board of iNaturalist and holds an economics degree from the University of Pennsylvania. At Shorenstein, Jin will explore how information ecosystems, media, and emerging technologies shape how civic issues gain visibility, legitimacy, and philanthropic support. 

Robin Kwong | Shorenstein Fellow 

Robin Kwong is co-founder of Contemporary Narratives Lab, which brings journalists together with theatre-makers, artists and researchers to co-create plays and immersive performances with communities. He is also a director of Perspectives, a project to introduce journalists to tactics, strategies, and frameworks from outside news to tackle some of journalism’s biggest challenges. Kwong joins us after recently serving as Director of Product Management for Data Services at Yahoo News, where he led a team building AI-powered products that pair machine intelligence with editorial judgment. Prior to that, he spent two decades at the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal in roles spanning reporting, editorial leadership, and newsroom innovation, and created “The Uber Game,” an award-winning interactive newsgame. During his time at Shorenstein, he will explore whether and how AI can ethically enhance the deeply human work of in-person, relational collaborations to enable new forms of collective storytelling. 

Odanga Madung | Shorenstein Fellow 

Odanga Madung is a Kenyan data journalist and researcher whose work exposes how technology reshapes power, democracy, and public accountability. He is also the co-founder and Managing Director of Odipo Dev, a Nairobi-based impact and media advisory firm, where he leads groundbreaking inquisitions into political participation and consumer affairs across Africa. Through his journalism, Madung has uncovered several systemic failures in how tech platforms protect consumers and democratic processes in the Global South, and most of all got them to do something about it. His data-driven journalism has appeared in WIRED, The Guardian and CNN where his columns dissect the intersection of tech, policy, and social justice. Odanga currently serves on the board of Amnesty International Kenya. He was formerly a platform integrity researcher at the Mozilla Foundation and a fellow at the Carr-Ryan Center at the Kennedy School. At the Shorenstein Center, he plans to build on his tech accountability body of work by researching and reporting on AI’s emerging role in electoral processes and governance in Africa. 

Anna Mancusi | Shorenstein Fellow 

Anna Mancusi is a consumer product executive with 10+ years of experience launching and scaling products at the intersection of technology and journalism. She is currently a Vice President of Product at CNN, where she plays a pivotal role in driving the network’s digital innovation across its app, web, and CTV platforms. Before CNN, she spent nearly a decade at The New York Times working to improve consumer products ranging from audio, to the home feed, to the flagship news app. In her most recent role at The Times, she led a team that helped redesign the app from the ground up (winning the Fast Company Innovation by Design General Excellence award in 2025). At Shorenstein, she will build on this work by examining best practices in digital transformation and how organizations can adapt to ever-evolving trends in media consumption. 

Tara Palmeri | Shorenstein Fellow  

Tara Palmeri is an investigative journalist who left legacy media to found The Red Letter, a subscriber-funded publication, and hosts The Tara Palmeri Show. She previously served as a senior political correspondent at Puck, chief national correspondent at POLITICO, White House correspondent for ABC News, and a correspondent for POLITICO Europe in Brussels. She has reported from North Korea, was a fellow at American University’s Sine Institute of Policy and Politics, and hosted the investigative podcasts “Broken: Jeffrey Epstein” and “Power: The Maxwells.” At Shorenstein, Palmeri will build a working model for participatory investigation — tips, documents, and expertise moving from audience to reporter — testing whether an audience that helps produce journalism comes to trust it. 

Zeve Sanderson | Schuster Media & Technology Fellow 

Zeve Sanderson is a social scientist at Google working on emerging technology and emerging regulations, with a focus on information integrity. He was previously the founding Executive Director of the NYU Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics, and a research fellow at the NYU Center on Technology Policy. His research and policy analysis have been published in leading academic journals and popular outlets, and he has advised across government, civil society, and industry. At Shorenstein, he will examine how AI-generated media impacts public trust and develop frameworks for understanding the new information environment.   

Teresa Mondría Terol | Schuster Media & Technology Fellow

Teresa Mondría Terol leads AI products and platforms at NPR, where she was the first hire on the AI Labs team, leading how NPR uses generative AI to enrich its content metadata and power better search and personalization. Previously, she was an engineer on The New York Times’ A.I. Initiatives team, helping build Cheatsheet, the newsroom’s investigative LLM tool and recent winner of a WAN-IFRA Digital Media Award for Best AI-Driven News Product. She was part of the engineering team of Times’ Epstein Files coverage, and she worked with reporters and bureau chiefs across desks worldwide. Before The Times, she worked on product operations and model behavior at The Browser Company, specializing in AI quality and LLM evaluations for Dia Browser. She has held roles in data science and A.I. at Chartbeat and the United Nations, and performed machine learning research with the Brown Institute for Media Innovation and Columbia Climate School. She graduated from Columbia University with a master’s in quantitative methods, supported by the “la Caixa” Fellowship, from Miguel Hernández University with a master’s in journalism innovation, and from University Carlos III with a dual bachelor’s in journalism and media studies. She has spoken at national and international conferences. As a Shorenstein fellow, she will be researching artificial intelligence implementation in journalism and investigative reporting.

Memo Torres | Shorenstein Fellow 

Memo Torres is an award-winning multimedia journalist recognized for his reporting on ICE raids for L.A. TACO. He is also the host of the Daily Memo, and writes a food guide for Apple Maps called “Where Memo Eats in L.A.” You can see him on Netflix’s “Taco Chronicles” and “Pressure Cooker,” and hear him on KCRW’s “Good Food” occasionally. He is the proud son of an immigrant, UC Berkeley Alumnus, and a former 3rd-generation landscaper. During his time as a Shorenstein fellow, he will examine the impact the immigration raids have had on the relationships between media, communities, and politics. 

Jessica Yellin | Shorenstein Fellow 

Jessica Yellin is the founder of News Not Noise, a Webby Award-winning digital news brand delivering fact-driven information in context to help audiences stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. A graduate of Harvard University and former CNN chief White House correspondent, she is an Emmy, Peabody, and Gracie Award-winning journalist who has also reported for ABC and MSNBC. Early to recognize the shift in trust from institutions to individuals, Yellin launched News Not Noise in 2018 and became a pioneer in social-first independent journalism. Meta has used her straight-to-camera videos to train newsrooms worldwide on reporting for social media. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and the Los Angeles Times. At Shorenstein, she will focus on convening evidence-based creators, journalists, and technologists to develop shared standards for trustworthy digital content and identify the resources and infrastructure the field needs to grow. Find her on Substack at News Not Noise and on Instagram at @jessicayellin. 

Please reach out to Jay Kemp if you’d like to get connected with any fellows or learn more about their work. To learn more about the Shorenstein Fellowship program and apply to be a fellow visit shorensteincenter.org/fellowships/.