I am the Chair of the Journalism Department at UMass.
My focus is visual storytelling, and I'm lucky to work with talented and enthusiastic students. Since joining the faculty of the Journalism Department in 2009, I've developed and taught courses in data journalism and visualization, web design and development, advanced photojournalism and narrative video journalism. I've also taught sections of Introduction to Journalism, Introduction to Multimedia Reporting and Introduction to Digital Photojournalism.
In 2014, I received the Outstanding Teaching Award from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UMass.
Other teaching forays include working as a faculty member of ieiMedia's Perpignan Project in 2011, where I also built the study abroad program's website. In late 2010 I helped the National Press Photographers Association restart their Student Quarterly Clip Contest, which I chaired until the summer of 2014.
In 2014 I received a $10,000 grant to produce a series of blended learning video lessons on visual storytelling. During the summer of 2013, I produced and taught the first MOOC at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to regional acclaim.
I developed blended learning lessons on web design and visual storytelling.

In 2015, I published a series of six video-based lessons covering the basic principles and practices of visual storytelling. The project was supported by a grant from the Five Colleges via the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Paired with self-guided Moodle exercises, these lessons help us offer a more creative and comprehensive visual curriculum.
During the summer of 2013, I developed and taught Building a Basic Website, the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) at UMass Amherst. You can read more about the class in the Boston Globe's list of the "most interesting" regional MOOCs and in the Hampshire Gazette's front page story.
I summed up my philosophy on blended learning in a 2014 piece for Quartz called Here's Why I Never Have To Teach Anything Boring Again. The illustration above is by Kim Rosen.
I worked as a photojournalist in New York City, Montana, Pittsburgh and elsewhere.
I'm a journalist and I write about journalism.
As a journalist, my focus has been predominantly visual, but I have written for many publications as well. Those outlets include Quartz Magazine, where I published a piece making the practical case for better media design. I've also written and produced multimedia packages for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, The New York Times and many other outlets.
Since 2007, I have written extensively about photojournalism. I've reported and written a piece for the NPPA on the Top Five Photojournalism Stories of 2012, and written pieces for News Photographer on subjects from 2008 election photojournalism to new approaches to photography online to the ethics and law of using visuals taken from social media.
Over the past few years I've written on other journalism subjects, too. They include Face Recognition Software, Visual Journalism and a Wary Public, An Ad Buyer's S.E.O. Advice for Online News Publishers, What the 'Ground Zero Mosque' Flap Says About the State of Journalism, and Can Bottled Water Save Journalism Online?
Since 2006 I have been photographing Saturday Nights.
In January 2013, Flying Object hosted a solo gallery show of the project, curated by Soft Spot. You can hear a New England Public Radio story about it, and see a series of portraits I took opening night. The project is casually ongoing.