Our Team
Teena Apeles
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Teena Apeles is the national engagement editor at the Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism. A native Angeleno, prior to joining the Center, she spent two decades covering art, culture, activism, history, and beyond for print and online media, including the Los Angeles Times, KCET, PBS SoCal, National Geographic, LAist and Stacker. Apeles has authored two nonfiction books and contributed to and edited books on a wide range of topics, from public parks and urban wildlife to pop culture and social justice. In 2016, Teena founded the creative collective Narrated Objects, which produces community-generated books and interactive, intergenerational experiences to showcase the diverse voices of the region. Collaborators have included Homeboy Industries, USC Pacific Asia Museum, Mayo Clinic, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the Autry Museum of the American West, the National Wildlife Federation, the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, and the Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles initiative LA Original.
Apoorvaa Mandar Bichu
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Apoorvaa “Apps” Mandar Bichu has served as communications strategist for the Center for Health Journalism since May 2023. She previously worked as a growth and justice reporter for MoCo360, a local news publication in Montgomery County, Maryland. She graduated from Northwestern University with a master's of science in journalism, specializing in social justice reporting. She has previously written for organizations such as The Chicago Reporter, Education Week, Omaha Magazine and Illinois Latino News, among others. She completed her bachelor of arts in journalism with a double specialization in news and public relations at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. While at Creighton, she served as the opinion editor of her college newspaper, “The Creightonian.”
Michelle Levander
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Michelle Levander is the founding director of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and editor-in-chief of its online community. Since she launched the Center in 2004, its journalism fellows have published more than 2,500 articles in partnership with the Center. Fellows’ stories have won distinction and changed laws, reinvigorated policy discussions and provoked new community discussions nationwide. Michelle launched the Center after more than 15 years as a staff reporter and editor in New York, California, Hong Kong and Mexico, working for Time Magazine Asia, the Asian Wall Street Journal and the San Jose Mercury News. She has received journalism awards from the Overseas Press Club of America (Best Reporting in Latin America), the Inter American Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists L.A. (Distinguished Work in New Media) as well as a Northern California Co-Producer Emmy Award (Spanish-language Outstanding Achievement Health Journalism). A former Inter American Press Association fellow, she spent a year in Mexico, at Mexico City's El Colegio de México and at El Colegio de Michoacán and researched migrant culture from rural Mexico. She has a bachelor’s degree in history and literature from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Jane Oh
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Jane Oh is administrative budget assistant for the Center. She joined the team in 2022. She started her professional career at USC School of Cinematic Arts as an accounting technician. She received a bachelor’s degree in business administration, with a minor in enterprise information systems, from USC in 2017.
Jaya Padmanabhan
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Jaya Padmanabhan is the collaborative editor at the Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism. Prior to joining the Center, she worked as an editor for Ethnic Media Services and India Currents and as a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, covering critical issues for communities of color. Her freelance work has been published in the New York Times, PBS Next Avenue, Medium, Forbes, KQED and India Currents, among others. Jaya has received over 30 journalism awards for her columns and articles from the San Francisco Press Club, New America Media, and the Writer’s Digest. She previously served on San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, working to ensure government transparency and accountability. Jaya has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in computer science.
Andrew Perez
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Andrew Perez is project specialist for the Center. He earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Southern California after transferring from El Camino College in Torrance, California. He has a background in theater costuming and fashion and was involved in LGBTQ+ student leadership during his time at USC.
Jacqueline Stenson
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Jacqueline Stenson is the manager of projects at the USC Center for Health Journalism. She has worked as a health reporter and editor with multiple media outlets, including NBC News/MSNBC, The New York Times Syndicate and Condé Nast Publications. Her freelance work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, NBC News, TODAY, Health, Self and more. She has taught journalism and nonfiction writing classes for two decades at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. She earned her master’s degree from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism and her bachelor’s degree from the Pennsylvania State University College of Communications.
Shelly Wang
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Shelly Wang, project manager, joined the Center in 2015 after seven years in accounting and financial analytics in several industries. She received bachelor’s degrees in applied math and management science, with a minor in Chinese studies, from UC San Diego.
Ryan White
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Ryan White is content editor of CenterforHealthJournalism.org, where he oversees daily content across a range of health topics. He also is the lead for the Center’s Health Matters webinar series. Ryan has nearly two decades of experience reporting, writing and editing for newspapers in California, national magazines and online outlets. After graduating from UC Berkeley in 2003, Ryan reported widely on the environment, local politics, urban planning, affordable housing and public health issues throughout the Bay Area and Los Angeles. In the past, he’s worked on KQED’s public television program “This Week in Northern California,” served as the editor of the Alameda Sun, worked as a reporter and editor for Marinscope Community Newspapers and freelanced for a long list of outlets. He was a 2012 California Fellow, reporting on the plight of the “anchor out” community in San Francisco Bay.
Our Advisory Board
Bob Ortega (Board Chair)
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Bob Ortega is a senior writer for CNN Investigates. He joined CNN in 2017 after six years at the Arizona Republic as a specialty writer covering the border and focusing on child welfare. He also served as managing editor for Honolulu Civil Beat, which focuses on accountability journalism. He began his journalism career as a television reporter in Fairbanks, Juneau and Anchorage and moved into print journalism at the Anchorage Times. He served as managing editor of the Homer News before moving to the Seattle Times and the Wall Street Journal, where he reported on child labor and other issues. While at the Journal, he wrote "In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and Walmart, the World's Largest Retailer." He served as a Knight International Press Fellow in Paraguay. On behalf of several organizations, he trained journalists in 17 countries on four continents. He has received the Hillman Prize for social justice reporting; the Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism; and the Sidney Award, for reporting on a deeply flawed and widely used screening test for cervical cancer, among other awards. He has also been a professor of journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto. He grew up in Mexico City, and holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Princeton University and a master’s degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He was a 2014 Center for Health Journalism National Fellow and has served frequently as a Senior Fellow for the Center’s National Fellowships.
Tracie Potts (Vice Chair)
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Tracie Potts became executive director of the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College in October 2021. The institute promotes nonpartisan discourse and critical analysis of issues of long-term importance, educating and engaging the public, and preparing undergraduates to assume their responsibility as global citizens. Previously, she worked as a Washington correspondent for NBC News Channel for almost 25 years, reporting on the federal government, the administration, Congress and important consumer and health topics. She began her career as a local health reporter at WAFF 48 News in Huntsville, Alabama and also worked as an anchor and reporter at local NBC and ABC stations in Alabama and Tennessee. She was a 2017 Center for Health Journalism National Fellow and is vice chair of the Center’s Advisory Board. She has been a fellow of the National Press Foundation, the Poynter Institute and the Journalism Center on Children and Families. She won the Michelle Clark Fellowship from the Radio Television Digital News Foundation and has twice received NBC’s “Ovation” Award for outstanding employee contributions. She has taught journalism at Knoxville College and Biola University and edited the debut issue of “Influence” magazine. She earned bachelor and master of science degrees from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Bill Allman
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Bill Allman is a digital entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience creating new business and content ventures in digital media and nonprofit institutions. He is a seasoned business manager, marketing expert and content creator able to build a strong and sustainable digital strategic vision, bring it to fruition and transform organizations to rapidly adapt to changes in their industry. For nearly a decade, he served as the chief digital officer for Smithsonian Enterprises, where he was cited as one of the "100 most innovative CDOs globally.” Previously, he was senior vice president and general manager of interactive media for Discovery.com, vice president of digital media for Bonnier Corp, co-founder of the digital startup HealthCentral.com and founding general manager for US News & World Report’s Digital division. He serves on the Governing Board for Publishing for the American Chemical Society.
Neil Bedi
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Neil Bedi is a reporter on the Visual Investigations team at The New York Times. He was previously an investigative reporter at ProPublica in Washington, D.C., where he covered the federal government. Before that, as an investigative reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, his 2020 National Fellowship project with 2016 National Fellow Kathleen McGrory focused on a local predictive policing program in Pasco County, Florida that harassed residents and profiled schoolchildren. It received the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting and led to a federal investigation and the forming of a coalition of 30 national and state organizations to oppose the program. His 2018 investigation with Kathleen into the alarming death rate at the cardiac surgery unit of a Florida children’s hospital won the George Polk Award and was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. He has also been honored with the Scripps Howard Award, the IRE Award, the Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Journalism and the National Headliner Award for Journalistic Innovation. Before becoming a journalist, he was a software developer. He studied computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Engineering.
Samuel Belilty
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Samuel Belilty has more than 30 years of experience in broadcast television, both in front of and behind the camera. He currently hosts a news-talk radio show "Sentido Comun" (Common Sense) on radio station WQBA 1140 AM in Miami and recently launched a Spanish-language podcast, "SyS," on YouTube with a Venezuelan colleague and directed the production of the Spanish audio book "Despertar: El Arte de Aprender a Morir," written by Maria Angelica Davila, a former journalist who is now a healer. His first novel, a thriller, was recently published in English as "M 7:15 The Return of God." Previously, he worked as vice president of news for Univision WLTV 23 Miami from 2017 to 2023 and as news director at KUVN, Univision Dallas, the highest rated newscast in the Dallas area, from January 2014 to October 2017. Before that, he was news director at KWEX, Univision San Antonio; creative services director, executive producer and news director at KFTV, Univision Fresno; and network news production manager and manager of a special reports unit at RCTV (Caracas, Venezuela). He has received Emmy, Edward R. Murrow, Gabriel, Telly and ADDY awards, in addition to several national awards in Venezuela. He earned a bachelor's degree in mass communication from Universidad Central de Venezuela and has done postgraduate studies in organizational development and bilingual/bicultural studies.
Otis W. Brawley, MD
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Otis W. Brawley is a globally-recognized expert in cancer prevention and control. He has worked to reduce overscreening of medical conditions, which has revolutionized patient treatment by increasing quality of life and reducing health disparities. He joined Johns Hopkins University as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in 2019 from the American Cancer Society, where he was chief medical and scientific officer and executive vice president for the American Cancer Society from 2007 to 2018 and a key leader in the society’s work to eliminate disparities in access to quality cancer care. He also was medical director of the Georgia Cancer Center for Excellence at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and deputy director for cancer control at Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. His research focuses on developing and ensuring the effectiveness of cancer screening strategies. He has championed efforts to decrease smoking and implement other lifestyle risk reduction programs, as well as to provide critical support to cancer patients and concentrate cancer control efforts in areas where they could be most effective. He currently leads a broad interdisciplinary research effort on cancer health disparities at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, striving to close racial, economic and social disparities in the prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer in the United States and worldwide. He also directs community outreach programs for underserved populations throughout Maryland. He is a graduate of University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine and completed his internship at University Hospitals of Cleveland, Case-Western Reserve University; his residency at University Hospital of Cleveland; and his fellowship at the National Cancer Institute.
James E. Causey
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James E. Causey is an award-winning special projects reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and a 2024 Senior Fellow for the Center for Health Journalism’s National Fellowship. He has spent more than 30 years as a professional journalist since becoming the first African-American high school intern at the Milwaukee Sentinel at age 15. He worked for the paper every summer through high school and worked as a night cops’ reporter while studying journalism at Marquette University, from which he earned his bachelor’s degree, followed by a master of business administration degree from Cardinal Stritch University. In 2008, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he studied the effects of hip-hop music on urban youth. On his return to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he joined the editorial board as a columnist until October 2014, when he was promoted to engagement editor. He is an active member of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), former president of the Wisconsin Black Media Association and a member of Phi Beta Sigma Inc. He was also named the 2013 Morse-Marshall alumni of the year and a Scripps Howard Award finalist in 2013. In 2018, he received an NABJ award for his work on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel special project, “50-Year-Ache.” He was a 2018 Center for Health Journalism National Fellow and grantee of the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism. He received several national awards for his Fellowship project, “Cultivating a Community,” including a first place award from the Society of Features Journalism. He was a 2019-2020 Marquette O’Brien Fellow and has self-published two fiction books.
Daniel Chang
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Daniel Chang is Florida correspondent for Kaiser Health News. He was previously a health reporter for The Miami Herald and was a 2014 National Health Journalism Fellow at the Center for Health Journalism. He grew up in South Florida reading The Herald. He earned a bachelor's degree in English from Florida International University, where he volunteered on the student newspaper. After graduation, he began his journalism career in 1995 at the Orange County Register. In 2000, he joined The Herald, initially covering arts news and Spanish-language TV. He began covering healthcare in 2013. His Fellowship project, which was supported by Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism, focused on the uninsured population in Miami-Dade County, which has a highly competitive and disjointed safety net system.
Anh Do
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Anh Do is the community engagement editor at the Los Angeles Times, working across the newsroom to connect with readers and helping to deepen relationships with audiences. Previously, she covered covers Asian American issues and general assignments at the Los Angeles Times. A second-generation journalist, she has worked at the Seattle Times, the Orange County Register and Nguoi Viet Daily News, the largest Vietnamese-language newspaper in the United States founded by her late father. Born in Saigon, she is a graduate of USC with degrees in journalism and English and she has reported from Cuba, India, Mexico, Peru and Vietnam. Her writing on race and culture has won awards from Columbia University, the Asian American Journalists Association and Freedom Newspapers Sweepstakes Award. She is a recipient of Yale's Poynter Fellowship in Journalism. Apart from words, she's passionate about all things canine and has spent 26 years in dog rescue around the globe.
R. Jan Gurley, M.D.
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R. Jan Gurley, M.D., has held a variety of leadership posts for the San Francisco Department of Public Health over 30 years, including special projects adviser on communicable diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic, director of public health emergency preparedness and response and medical director of clinics serving communities disproportionately impacted by structural racism, homelessness and trauma. She is currently special projects adviser and deputy health officer. She is a board-certified internist and freelance writer. Her health-related work experience includes basic science research in Jerome Groopman's HIV lab, health services research, public policy and administration and the joys and complexity of seeing patients one-on-one. She was a Center for Health Journalism California Fellow in 2010. For her Fellowship project, she produced a series of multimedia articles about the health impacts of homelessness, for which she was awarded the Saffron Foundation's Media Award. She is a frequent and popular speaker on topics ranging from "Making Meaningful Use Meaningful" for the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine to "Personalized Medicine" for Triple Ring Technologies, a biotech incubator. Her writing has also appeared in such diverse outlets as BlogHer, The New England Journal of Medicine, KevinMD, SFGate and Salon. After medical school at Harvard and residency training at the University of California at San Francisco, she received a Robert Wood Johnson joint UCSF/Stanford fellowship in epidemiology, public policy and ethics.
Kathleen McGrory
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Kathleen McGrory is the local investigations fellowship editor for The New York Times. She was most recently a reporter at ProPublica and before that was an investigative reporter and editor at the Tampa Bay Times, where she and her reporting colleague, Neil Bedi, won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for their work on a Center for Health Journalism National Fellowship project on a local policing program used to monitor and harass residents. The series also won the Scripps Howard Award for Local/Regional Investigative Reporting and was a finalist for the 2021 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. Their prior series on problems at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting and won the 2019 George Polk Award for Local Reporting and an IRE award. As a 2016 Center for Health Journalism National Fellow, she reported “In Harm’s Way,” revealing for the first time that between 2010 and 2015 firearms killed or injured nearly 3,200 children and youth in Florida. She started her career at the Miami Herald, where she covered breaking news, education and government. She is a graduate of Hamilton College and has a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Carmen Rita Nevarez, M.D., MPH
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Carmen Rita Nevarez, M.D., MPH, is a public health practice thought leader with over 40 years of experience working on collaborative leadership development for solving complex problems. An independent consultant since January 2023, she is senior vice president emeritus, external relations and preventive medicine at the Public Health Institute (PHI), where she held a senior executive position from 1998-2021 and was co-director of PHI Center for Health Leadership & Impact. She has experience across a broad variety of organizations in both the nonprofit and government sectors, including public health departments, Federally Qualified Health Centers, community health organizations, clinics and advocacy organizations. She is particularly interested in Latinx and women’s health issues, prevention of chronic disease and advocacy strategies. An innovator in the web-based communications space, she is the creator and director of Dialogue4Health.org, an internet-based broadcasting platform for conversations and skills building on a broad range of health topics. As past president of the American Public Health Association, a board member of the Langeloth Foundation and director of the National Leadership Academy for the Public’s Health, she contributes broadly to the national conversation about health. For 40 years, she practiced medicine part‑time, providing services in low-income diverse settings.
Our Funders
The Center for Health Journalism depends on the support of foundations and individuals. We are committed to transparency in every aspect of funding our organization and make public all donors who give $5,000 or more per year.
The California Endowment
The California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation, provides primary core support to our family of programs. The California Endowment was created in 1996 as a result of Blue Cross of California's creation of WellPoint Health Networks, a for-profit corporation. The California Endowment’s mission is to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. Its work involves a dual focus: grant making and policy and advocacy.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
The Annie E. Casey Foundation, based in Baltimore, provides support for our National Health Journalism Fellowship and a related reporting grant, the Fund for Journalism on Child Well-Being. The foundation focuses its grantmaking on issues that negatively affect children: poverty, unnecessary disconnection from family and communities with limited access to opportunity.
Blue Shield of California Foundation
Blue Shield of California Foundation works to improve the lives of all Californians, particularly the underserved, by making health care accessible, effective, and affordable, and by ending domestic violence. It provides support for our California Fellowship.
California Health Care Foundation
California Health Care Foundation provides support for our Center for Health Journalism Data Fellowship and supported the Center for Health Journalism Collaborative “Uncovered California.” The foundation works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford.
The California Wellness Foundation
The California Wellness Foundation provides support for the Center for Health Journalism’s California Health Equity Impact Fund. The mission of The California Wellness Foundation is to improve the health of the people of California by making grants for health promotion, wellness education and disease prevention.
The Commonwealth Fund
The Commonwealth Fund provides support for our Health Matters series of webinars and the Center for Health Journalism Impact Fund for Reporting on Health Equity and Health Systems. The Commonwealth Fund is a national, private foundation based in New York City that supports independent research on health care issues and makes grants to improve health care practice and policy.
Doris Duke Foundation
Doris Duke Foundation provides support for the Center for Health Journalism Data Fellowship and its Child Welfare Symposium and Impact Fund. The mission of the Doris Duke Foundation is to build a more creative, equitable and sustainable future by investing in artists and the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research, child well-being and greater mutual understanding among diverse communities.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal innovator and entrepreneur Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life. The Foundation provides support for the Center for Health Journalism's Journalism and Community Engagement for Healthy Equity Initiative and its National Fellowship.
National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation
National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the U.S. health care system by funding and conducting research and educational activities and by fostering dialogue between public and private stakeholders. It provides support for our Health Matters webinars.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated solely to health. It works to build a national “culture of health” by placing well-being at the center of every aspect of life. It provides support for our National Fellowship and a related reporting grant, the Fund for Journalism on Child Well-Being.
Other Donors and Special Funds
The Hunt Family generously supports the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism, launched by friends and family of the late Dennis Hunt, co-founder of our programs, to honor his legacy.
The Kristy Hammam Fund for Health Journalism, an initiative of the Social Impact Fund, launched to honor the memory of the late journalist.
The Lori Yearwood Fund for Reporting on Homelessness was launched by the Center for Health Journalism to honor the memory of the late Lori Yearwood, who died in September 2023. Yearwood, a 2022 National Fellow with the USC Center for Health Journalism, chronicled the circumstances of people who are unhoused and the often unacknowledged role of trauma in their lives. The Lori Yearwood Fund is supported by generous individual, and foundation donations, including seed funding from the California Health Care Foundation.