Journalism Faculty and Lecturers

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Professors

Rosemary Armao returned to her hometown as the newest faculty member of the Journalism Program in 2008. For more than 32 years she was a reporter and editor at various wire services and newspapers. She has trained journalists and worked on media development projects throughout Eastern Europe and Africa. She is a former Executive Director of Investigative Reporters and Editors and former President of the Journalism and Women Symposium.

Thomas Bass is the author of The Eudaemonic Pie, Camping with the Prince, Vietnamerica, The Spy Who Loved Us, and other books. Cited by the Overseas Press Club for his foreign reporting, he is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Wired, Smithsonian, The New York Times, and other publications. His teaching in the Journalism Program includes courses in narrative journalism. visual culture, science writing, and the political economy of the media.

Nancy Roberts is Professor of Communication and Director of the Journalism Program (on leave, Fall 2010). She received her Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Professor Roberts's work focuses on communication and journalism history, especially the history of alternative periodicals, literary aspects of journalism, and magazine writing and editing. She has published numerous books and articles, including The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media, with Michael Emery and Edwin Emery; Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker; and 'As Ever, Gene': The Letters of Eugene O'Neill to George Jean Nathan (coedited with Arthur W. Roberts). Her articles have appeared in Americana, Commonweal, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Minneapolis Tribune, Boston Globe, Christian Century, Christian Science Monitor, U.S. Art, and many other publications

Editor-in-Residence

Donald Forst has been a copy boy, cop reporter, court reporter, financial editor, project director, rewrite person, and editor-in-chief on 14 newspapers and one magazine. These publications include The New York Times (Culture Editor), Newsday (Managing Editor), New York Newsday (Editor-in-Chief), The Los Angeles Herald Examiner (Managing Editor), The New York Post (Assistant City Editor), The Houston Press (Reporter), The Boston Herald (Editor-in-Chief), The Village Voice (Editor-in-Chief), and Boston Magazine (Editor-in-Chief).

Lecturers

Steve Barnes is senior writer and restaurant columnist for the Albany Times Union, where he previously worked as arts editor. Educated at Boston University and a past recipient of a National Arts Journalism Program fellowship, Barnes is one of the most widely-read columnists in the Capitol District.

Sebrina Barrett is the senior director for public affairs at the New York State Bar Association, where she oversees the Department of Media Relations and Public Affairs for the largest voluntary state bar association in the nation. Prior to joining NYSBA, she was a senior court clerk for the Court of Appeals. She received her law degree from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and her bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

David Guistina is anchor of Morning Edition on WAMC / Northeast Public Radio, host and producer of the Legislative Gazette, a statewide program about New York state government and politics, host and moderator of WAMC's Student Town Meetings, and producer of the Media Project, a nationwide program about issues confronting the media. He is also host of Masterminds, a cable channel quiz show for Capital Region high school students.

Michael Hill is a reporter for the Associated Press. He covers New York state government, politics, food, science, crime, demography, and business. He is also a regular contributor to Adirondack Life magazine.

Michael Huber is the interactive audience manager at the Albany Times Union. He holds a B.A. in political science from the State University of New York at Geneseo and has completed coursework toward a master's in history at UAlbany. He previously served as the newspaper's community publishing editor. He produces the daily timesunion.com web site and supervises the timesunion.com blogs, which are the fastest-growing section of the newspaper's web site. He speaks frequently to local groups about issues involving journalism and social media and how newspapers can remain relevant in today's changing media landscape.

Ronald Kermani is a former newspaper reporter and editor who currently works as an advertising executive. He has served as vice-president of communications, director of public relations, and editor at a variety of New York State agencies and other groups, such as the New York Trial Lawyers Association. For a dozen years, he was a reporter for the Albany Times Union, working as the paper's chief investigative reporter, specializing in white-collar crime and political corruption.

Barbara Lombardo is managing editor of The Saratogian, in Saratoga Springs, and managing editor of three weekly community newspapers and a monthly magazine. She holds a B.A. in political science from Binghamton University and a master's in journalism from Ohio State University. She is a past president of the New York State Associated Press Association and winner of numerous state and national awards for her editorials and columns.

Darryl McGrath earned a Master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has been a reporter for a number of newspapers in the Northeast and Midwest, including the Meriden (Connecticut) Record-Journal, the Times Union, the Chicago Tribune, the Buffalo News, and the Boston Globe. She is a longtime contributing writer for Metroland, who covers public policy, Albany politics, and stories on nature and the environment. Her forthcoming book on bird conservation in New York, Flight Paths: New York's Watch List Birds and the People who Save Them, will be published by SUNY Press in spring 2011.

Holly McKenna has written for Reuters and The New York Times. She is working on three book projects and hosts the "Meet the Author" show on Time Warner's public access Channel 17.

Shirley Perlman is a former national correspondent for Newsday. In her eighteen years at the paper, she covered a broad range of stories including the O.J. Simpson trials and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. She has taught as an adjunct professor at New York University and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She is former president of the Press Club of Long Island.

Claudia Ricci, a former staff writer for The Wall Street Journal and investigative reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, currently teaches English, journalism, and writing. Dreaming Maples, her first novel, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in 2002. Her second novel, Seeing Red, will be published soon. She is a regular contributor to Huffington Post and edits My Story Lives, a community writing space. Ricci, a graduate of Brown University (B.A.), UC Berkeley (M.A. in Journalism), and SUNY Albany (Ph.D., English), taught in the M.A. program at Georgetown University in 2009, before returning to Albany, where she has worked since 1998.

Katherine Van Acker is the director of PresStock at The Image Works in Woodstock, New York. She holds a B.S. degree from the School of Film and Photography at Montana State University. Van Acker was executive photo editor at the Albany Times Union for nearly a decade. Prior to that, she was a photo editor on the national and international desks of The Associated Press in New York City and a staff photographer with The Daily Journal in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She has been an officer with the National Press Photographers Association and has won numerous state and national awards for her work as a photographer and photo editor.

Emeritus

William Rainbolt, at UAlbany since 1984 (ret. 2011), has directed the Journalism Program twice, from 1984 to 1988, and from 1999 to 2008. He has reported and written for several daily newspapers and as a freelance writer and historical novelist. He was also a member of the Documentary Studies Program and holds a Ph.D. in history.