Medill News Service

Elizabeth Shogren

Elizabeth Shogren is an associate professor for Medill in Washington, DC. She teaches graduate and undergraduate reporting and audio journalism classes. 

She came to Northwestern after a rich and varied career reporting for Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, NPR, the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets. At the Center for Investigative Reporting, she created documentary-style radio episodes and podcasts as well as long-form investigative stories. 

Previously, she was an on-air national and science correspondent for NPR.

While at NPR, she was a lead reporter for Poisoned Places, a data-driven series about communities suffering from toxic air pollution. The series received several honors, including a Science in Society journalism award from the National Association of Science Writers. 

Early in her career, as a freelance foreign correspondent, she covered the fall of communism in Eastern Europe before joining the Los Angeles Times’ Moscow bureau. Later, she moved to the paper’s Washington bureau, where she covered the White House, Congress, political campaigns, poverty and the environment. Shogren is based in Washington, D.C.

Matthew Orr

Matthew Orr is an assistant professor at Medill, teaching video and broadcast production. Before joining Medill, Orr was director of multimedia and creative at STAT, a media company at the Boston Globe that tells compelling stories about health, medicine and scientific discovery. While at STAT, he led a multimedia team that won numerous awards, including three Online Journalism Awards, three Webby Awards, a National Headliner Award and a George Polk Award. His work ranged from short Facebook videos that garnered millions of views and several online video series to short and long-form documentaries that have appeared at national film festivals and on broadcast television.

Prior to STAT, Matthew was the first full-time staff video journalist at The New York Times and spent 13 years as a senior video producer and reporter there. He wrote, produced, filmed and edited breaking news, live video, social videos, feature stories, online series and documentaries. His projects included “The Debt Trap,” about the 2008 mortgage crisis; “Breakdown,” an investigation of animal abuse in the horse racing industry; “Portraits Redrawn,” profiles of families affected by the Sept 11 attacks; and “The Last Word,” advanced obit interviews with prominent personalities discussing their legacy that publishes upon their death.

His international reporting experience includes work from China, Japan, Myanmar, Ukraine, Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Dominican Republic. He is the director and producer of Augmented, a feature documentary that appeared on NOVA on PBS.

Contact: 202.661.0103 or matthew.orr@northwestern.edu

Ivan Meyers

Ivan Meyers is a senior lecturer for journalism courses at Medill, and is director of operations of the Washington newsroom. Meyers holds an undergraduate degree in radio/television/film, as well as a master’s degree in music technology, where he focused on immersive installation experiences. Between degrees, he worked as a production specialist in the eBusiness and digitization department at NBC News in New York. While at NBC, he ushered in a new era of video editing on desktop computers and laid the groundwork to transition the network’s video workflow to a tapeless environment. He has worked at various production and post-production capacities in the Washington , New York and Chicago areas, and also enjoys live event production. He is a professional web programmer, data migration specialist and semi-professional computer science enthusiast.

Meyers oversaw television studio operations at Medill for more than a decade. In addition to video journalism classes at Medill, he has also taught video courses geared for journalists at other institutions, including the National Press Club, the American Red Cross and Georgetown University. After freelancing for many years, Meyers founded Out of the Cave Production and Technology Company, comprising a wide range of multimedia and technological offerings.

Jonathan Allen

Jonathan Allen is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning political journalist. 

A senior national politics reporter for NBCNews.com, he previously served as Washington Bureau Chief for Bloomberg News and White House Bureau Chief for Politico. While reporting for Congressional Quarterly, he won the Everett McKinley Dirksen and Sandy Hume awards.

Allen is a co-author of three books with Amie Parnes: “HRC,” “Shattered” and “Lucky.”

A graduate of the University of Maryland, he lives on Capitol Hill with his wife and two children.eyers is a lecturer for journalism courses at Medill.

Fenit Nirappil

Fenit Nirappil is an adjunct lecturer at the Medill School of Journalism, where he teachers local and state government reporting in the Washington Program.

Nirappil is a national reporter for The Washington Post’s Health & Science team where he covers the coronavirus pandemic with a focus on emerging hotspots and trends. Before moving to the national desk in late 2020, he spent five years on the local politics team covering government in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. In his role as a D.C. government and politics reporter, he chronicled the District’s showdown with the Trump administration as it deployed federal forces against racial justice protesters and focused on accountability reporting that led to reforms in housing inspections and contributed to the downfall of the city’s longest serving council member.

After graduating from Northwestern University in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science, Nirappil spent three years reporting for The Oregonian as a suburban government reporter and the Associated Press in Sacramento, California covering the state house. He arrived at The Washington Post through a graduate fellowship with American University, where he received a master’s degree in journalism while working on the newspaper’s local section.

Nirappil is a member of the Association of Asian American Journalists, National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association and Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Sean McMinn

Sean McMinn is an adjunct lecturer at the Medill School of Journalism, where he teaches data visualization classes at the Medill Washington Program. He works at Politico as the editor of data and graphics. In this role, Sean leads the Data & Graphics Desk to deliver smart, visually driven policy reporting to subscribers.

He previously was a reporter at NPR, where he worked as data editor on NPR’s Investigations team and news apps team. Some of his biggest stories there focused on climate change’s effects on humans, including wildfires and extreme heat. He’s also written extensively about disparities in the healthcare system during the coronavirus pandemic. Before that, he spent three years covering Congress as a data reporter at CQ Roll Call.

Sean’s stories and graphics have been recognized by some of our industry’s top honors, including a Scripps Howard award and a National Press Foundation award.

Gracie Cohen

Gracie Cohen is the senior program coordinator for Medill in Washington, DC. In her role, she specializes in operations and events management while providing support to students and faculty.

Gracie brings a strong background in communications, marketing, and event coordination to Medill. Most recently, she served as the publications coordinator at Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI), where she managed and created student recital programs for the Summer 2024 season. Before BUTI, Gracie worked as the communications and marketing associate at Women of Reform Judaism. There, she developed and managed digital and print content, including newsletters, website updates, annual reports, and social media campaigns. She also supported international and domestic conferences.

Gracie is fascinated with language and how we use the power of words to share stories. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Creative Writing from Seattle University and a Bachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Sciences from Portland State University.  Currently, she is pursuing a certificate in Leadership through Northwestern’s School of Professional Studies. 

Outside of work, she enjoys exploring local farmers’ markets, diving into a good book, and trying to maintain her Connections winning streak.