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Former Visiting Scholars

2007-2008

Dev Chatterjee is a Mumbai-based senior assistant editor with The Business Standard, a business daily published from major cities in India. He has written extensively on the Indian stock markets since he began his career in 1991 as an editor in training at The Financial Express. He holds a B.A. in economics and journalism from the University of Mumbai.

Chatterjee hopes his year at Berkeley will enable him to learn the latest trends in online journalism.

Fu Tao has been a full-time journalist for five years. He wrote breaking stories for local newspapers before graduating from Fudan University's Journalism School in 2002. He joined Caijing, a business news magazine renowned in China as perhaps its most daring investigative publication, and became its Shanghai correspondent after working at the Shanghai Morning Post as a financial reporter.

He'll work hard at Berkeley, studying financial news writing, online media and history.

Hossam el-Hamalawy has been a Cairo-based journalist for the past eight years. He began his news career with The Cairo Times and worked as a freelance researcher for publications such as the Chicago Tribune, The Economist, and The Washington Post. In 2003, el-Hamalawy began reporting on Egyptian and regional politics for The LA Times. He has experience reporting for TV and radio and is an advocate for labor rights and social change. He now hosts a popular multi-media website, 3arabawy.

While at Berkeley, el-Hamalawy hopes to enhance his photography and multi-media reporting skills. He also aims to exchange experiences with fellow journalists and activists.

Shen Ying has worked for six years at Southern Weekend, one of China's top investigative newspapers. She covers social, political and environmental issues and in 2006 spent two months reporting on illegal experiments on hospital patients. Shen won a legal battle brought against her and her newspaper.
At Berkeley, Shen plans to focus on investigative, medical and education reporting. She is also interested in international reporting and public policy analysis.

Vanaja C is a journalist and filmmaker with over 13 years of experience in print, broadcast and electronic media. Leaving mainstream media three years ago, she made three documentaries that won popular and professional recognition.

She holds degrees in communications, journalism and linguistics from Osmania University. She has won the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, a prize described as India's Pulitzer, for her journalistic writing. She has also earned a Silver Pearl, an award for her recent documentary at the 2007's Hyderabad International Film Festival. C aspires to hone her skills and learn new technologies in film, online journalism and multi media. Her interests include reading, writing, music and technology.

Zhang Jin is a senior journalist at The Beijing Times. During the past five years, he has focused on international and political affairs and has written a series of features on litigation between China and the Japanese government, including issues on the Sino-Japan war.

At Berkeley, Zhang is researching investigative reporting and participatory media.

Masako Sakata first experienced America as an exchange student in Maine in 1965.
The experience opened her eyes beyond Japan, though she returned to study sociology and anthropology at Kyoto University in 1970. After graduating, she became interested in photography.

Faced with the sudden death of her husband in 2003, Sakata decided to make a documentary
film on Agent Orange, the suspected cause of his death.

Sakata comes to Berkeley with the hope of enhancing her second career as a filmmaker.

Liu Jianqiang is a senior investigative reporter with Southern Weekend, one of China's top investigative newspapers. He has produced a series of influential reports on the environment, and his stories have led China's central government to suspend illegally constructed dams.

Liu was featured in the Wall Street Journal last December. He has an M.A. in journalism from Tsinghua University and a B.A. in political science from East China University of Science and Technology.

During his stay at Berkeley, Liu will enhance his knowledge of environmental and political reporting.

Umesh Raghuvanshi has been a full-time journalist for 25 years. He is the deputy bureau chief [Lucknow] at The Hindustan Times, a leading English daily in India, where he has worked for 10 years. He covers political developments, proceedings of the State Legislature, finance, human interest and environmental issues.

Raghuvanshi is a science graduate and holds an M.A. in political science from Garhwal University of Uttarakhand. He was Metcalf Fellow at the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting at University of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography (USA) in 2000. He is interested in new media, online journalism and investigative journalism.

He hopes that his year at Berkeley will enable him to gain a broader perspective on key issues concerning American journalism, politics and society.

Wang Beibei is the chief editor of Natural History Magazine, owned by China National Geographic. She graduated form Renmin University's journalism school in 1999 and then worked for XinHua News Agency as a business reporter. In 2003, she joined CNG and was appointed to create Natural History Magazine, where she is the editor in chief.

At Berkeley, Wang will focus on new media and environmental reporting.

Young Jun Lee is a senior producer at the Korean Broadcasting System in Seoul. He has worked as a television producer/director for 16 years and holds a B.A. in sociology. He has launched programs on terrorism and Korea's elderly.

He was a winner of the 2002 Korean Broadcasting Grand Prize and was selected as producer of the year in 2001.

His focus at Berkeley is on deepening his understanding of American and online media.

Wen Jin became the first female editor of China's online media giant Sina nine years ago. She is now deputy chief editor and is responsible for the site's media development and brand management. In 1999, she was appointed as manager of Sina’s cultural and entertainment news. She was first to report on China’s concept stock "china.com" and its listing in the American market. She also produced segments on the first case of website copyrights infringement in China.

At Berkeley, Wen hopes to expand her international perspective and to inform others about China's online media.

Myint Zaw is an editor at Ju Publishing House, based in Yangon, Burma. He has experience as an editor for a weekly international affairs publication called Eleven International. In 2006, he began working for the Environmental Journalism Network to train Burmese journalists on environmental issues.

He holds an M.A in international development studies from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and is involved in community development activities in Burma. He served as an Inter Press Service fellow from 2004-2005.

While in Berkeley, he plans to sharpen his knowledge of journalism skills, the environment and third world development.

Ai "Ally" Qun is currently working at China Central Television as an editor and director. She has been a journalist for 14 years. She has a degree in journalism from Jilin University and earned a Masters degree in TV journalism from the Communications University of China in 1995.

In her year at Berkeley, she will concentrate on environmental issues and public health.

2005-2006

Thu Nguyen holds a bachelor's in English language from Hanoi National University and a bachelor's in business administration from the National Economics University in Vietnam. She has worked in Vietnam for Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal and the former Far Eastern Economic Review, for nine years. She managed the editorial section of the Hanoi Bureau of the Asian Wall Street Journal and also contributed her reporting to the diverse coverage from Vietnam. The coverage included stories in business, politics, culture, education, health, the environment and agriculture. She also freelanced for the Wide Angle-VNET, New York station to produce the “H5N1- Killer Flu” documentary and the International Data Group.

Ms. Thu used her time at Berkeley to study media science, freedom of the press and the business climate in the United States.

Wang Yichao is a senior journalist at Caijing Magazine - a leading business and financial publication in China - where he covers energy, telecommunication and technology. He recently began covering environmental issues. Yichao graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1999. He has a master's in physics. Before he joined Caijing Magazine in October 2001, he was a reporter for Yangcheng Evening News and China News Service.

Wang spent the spring semester at Berkeley, his second after a one-semster turn in 2004-05. This time, his focus was on the environment and economic issues, as well as Japan, South Korea, and North Korea.

Ling Huawei is one of Caijing Magazine's premiere journalists. She has worked for Caijing for 5 years and focuses on banking reform in China. Her investigative report, "Trap of Guangxia," the cover story for the August 2001 issue of Caijing, exposed fabrication of reported corporate profits. For writing the article, she received the 2002 honorable mention for the Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism, from Columbia University.

Huawei received her bachelor's in economics from the Central University of Finance and Economics.

She came to Berkeley to study the West's practices of maintaining press freedom under pressure and also to learn about professionalism in journalism.

Laure de Gonneville is an independent French journalist. She finished a master's in journalism from the French Press Institute (IFP) in Paris in 2005, and holds a degree in contemporary history from the University of La Sorbonne. She has contributed to the largest Swiss daily newspaper, 24 Heures, and for Radio France Internationale (RFI), an international radio station based in Paris.

She is especially interested in social issues all around the world, particularly in former soviet countries, and would like to work as an international reporter. While at Berkeley, Laure has focused on documentary photography and multimedia reporting.

Setsuko Kamiya has worked for eight years as a staff writer for The Japan Times, the oldest independent English-language newspaper in Japan. With beat reporting experience on judicial issues and the Japanese auto industry, she has covered many topics for a mixed readership of Japanese and foreign nationals. For the past three years, Setsuko has written general feature stories, mainly on social and cultural issues on Japan.

A 2005-2006 Fulbright journalist, she used her time at Berkeley to explore the jury system and the mechanism of how it is experienced, studied and appreciated in American society.

Chen Tao is the deputy chief editor of the Bund Pictorial (Waitan Huabao), a news weekly based in Shanghai. He has worked at several news organizations in China, such as Global Times, Caijing and Southern Weekend. His main research interest involves studying why a country, such as China, with a rich history and hardworking people, cannot be rich. To explore this idea, he chose business reporting as his beat.

Besides news, he is interested in economics, politics and history. He majored in philosophy and got his master’s degree in 1995 from Beijing University.

Kyaw Zwa Moe, from Burma, is the news editor of The Irrawaddy news magazine, which covers Burma and Southeast Asia. The magazine, based in Thailand, is published monthly in English. He writes news stories, features and analysis on various Burma-related topics. He was a journalist fellow of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance in 2004.

Before he became a journalist, he was a pro-democracy activist. His political work resulted in his eight-year imprisonment. While at Berkeley, he concentrate on international relations in Southeast Asian, development studies, and the way the media covers Asia.

Junho Kim is a reporter for KBS, a nation-wide South Korean television network. He has covered many issues, including social affairs, information technology and cultural news. He has also been a member of a news-editing team. Junho has a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's in public administration from Seoul National University.

At Berkeley, his major research concerns were natural disaster coverage, journalism and democracy, and the impact of the internet on the media industry.

Sue Chang is a reporter from Korea where she was the Seoul bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswires. During her 12 years in journalism, she has reported on many subjects for publications such as the Korea Daily, Knight Ridder Financial and Bridge News. As a real-time financial wire service reporter, she covered Korea's financial crisis in the late 1990s and the country's subsequent recovery.

She has a bachelor's in English literature from UC-Irvine with an emphasis in creative writing. Although a native of Korea, she has lived in numerous countries, including Lebanon, Oman and Taiwan.

Rebecca Newman Rebecca Newman is a British journalist from London. After graduating in English from Cambridge University, she was a freelance reporter before joining the 'Peterborough' Column of the Daily Telegraph. She later became deputy diary editor for the Daily Mail where she wrote for and edited one of the most popular pages of Britain's second biggest selling daily.

At Berkeley, she pursued interests in longer-form writing; and in the crisis facing print journalism -- with global sales falling, how can editorial independence be maintained in the face of increasing reliance on, for example, advertising?

Wang Xiu is a senior journalist and editor in economics and business who worked for the China Economic Times as the director of the industry and economy section. She holds a B.A. in politics and second one in journalism. The Chinese government awarded her financial support to pursue research in America. Wang Xiu has written four books and created several columns, including "In Talks with CEOs."

She has written in-depth reports on China’s WTO membership, the electric and gas industries, multinational companies in China and land ownership by Chinese farmers. While at UC-Berkeley, Wang Xiu explored economic reporting and also how to help Chinese media become more modern.

Li Xin got her bachelor's and master's degrees in literature from Beijing Normal University. She is a staff writer and editor at World Screen, Beijing's largest-circulation movie magazine. She is also a film reviewer, free-lance writer and columnist for Chinese magazines such as Globe, Point, the New Beijing News, China Radio Film & TV, Contemporary Cinema and Harper's Bazaar.

Li Xin's background includes graduate study in Chinese film and six years of professional experience in the media industry; she has published three books about the Chinese film industry and its directors. Currently she's working on a book about underground Chinese films and film piracy in China.

Zhao Ling was a highly regarded senior reporter for Southern Weekend, a nation-wide Chinese newspaper, where she worked as Beijing-bureau staff. She has reported throughout China for seven years. Ling focuses on various social issues related to contmporary China, such as government reform, social conflict, legal reform, civil rights, education and NGO development in China today.

She hopes to record Chinese society's development and contribute to China’s progress.

Omid Memariam is a reformist journalist and social activist in Iran. He contributed regularly to pro-reform papers such as Nowrooz, Yas-e-now, Vaghaye Ettefaghieh and Mosharekat, all of which were banned and shut down by Tehran's hardliner judiciary. He is the editor-in-chief of Volunteer Actors quarterly, published to support democracy in Iran.

Omid also created his own weblog. During an October 2004 government crackdown to silence Internet journalists and bloggers, he was arrested, held in solitary confinement and tortured. After his release, Omid risked his life by talking about his detention. In response, Human Rights Watch awarded him the Hellman/Hammett Award from for his courage in the face of political persecution.

He Yuxin is a senior writer for Caijing magazine, one of the leading business publications in China. She received her bachelors of science degree from Wuhan Technology University in 2000. Yuxin covers corporate reports while keeping an eye on the automotive and home appliances industries. Before joining Caijing in 2002, she worked as a business reporter for Global Entrepreneur Magazine and worked mostly on cover stories.

Yuxin spent one semester at Berkely studying business reporting, North Korea, and wider issues in Asia.

2004-2005

Yichao Wang is a senior journalist at Caijing Magazine, a leading business and financial periodical in China. He reports on industry and corporations in the energy and IT fields. Wang worked for China News Service and Yangcheng Evening News after getting his bachelor's in physics at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). His interests at Berkeley included corporate governance reform, American economic history, energy crisis and technology innovation.

Currently a master's student in mass communication, Zhang Hongjie obtained his bachelor's in English from the Beijing-based University of International Relations, where he developed a strong interest in international relations and foreign policy. He freelances and contributes to Global Times, a Chinese international affairs newspaper. Zhang focused on international reporting and Chinese foreign policy at Berkeley.

Pierre Langlais is an independent French journalist who recently graduated from the French Institute of Press (IFP) in Paris. He specialized in cultural journalism and worked during his studies for French newspapers and magazines such as L'Humanite, Le Point, and Telerama. He has a master's degree in French literature. While at Berkeley, he studied new media and developed his skills in photojournalism. Langlais also contributed to Francis Pisani's blog on anti- and pro-Americanism.

Yosef Ardi is Managing Editor at Bisnis Indonesia, a leading newspaper in Indonesia that covers the economy and business. Prior to beginning his reporting career in 1991, he studied agriculture technology at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture. Yosef's interests at Berkeley included best practices in journalism, globalization, and media positioning. See an in-depth profile of Yosef here.

Kathleen Kenna is from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and she has been a reporter with the Toronto Star since 1981. She has served as the Star's South Asia bureau chief, its Washington bureau chief, and its Arts and Entertainment Editor. Most recently, she reported from Afghanistan. See an in-depth profile of Kathleen here.

Zayar Ohn comes from Burma (Myanmar), where he is a reporter with a Rangoon-based magazine, Living Color. He has studied journalism with American journalists in Cambodia. Zayar focused on sociology and third-world development issues at Berkeley.

Liu Xiaobiao is an editorial writer for the Shanghai-based Waitan Huabao newspaper, where he has written extensively about economics and politics. Liu has won awards for his work from the National Social Science Foundation of China and from the Chinese Association for Middle East Studies. His Master's thesis in history was on Islam civilization and globalization. He also has experience in radio.

Zang Se is a business reporter for the Zhejian Daily, a newspaper that operates out of Zhejian province in the east of China. She has covered flood disasters, overseas IPOs of Chinese private enterprises, and food safety. At Berkeley, she researched business and financial reporting in mainstream U. S. venues.

Sun Yafei is a staff reporter with Southern Weekend, a weekly newspaper in Beijing widely considered one of the most progressive voices for social justice and political reform in China. She covers current affairs and politics and has written about China's public health system in the wake of SARS, the death penalty, and government reform.

Laurent Desbois is a junior television reporter. He just finished a master's in journalism at the French Press Institute in Paris. He also has a bachelor's degree in contemporary history from Leiden, the Netherlands, and a degree in political science from Nice University. After working as a reporter for television stations such as TF1, France 2, Canal+ and LCI, he decided to attend Berkeley to enlarge his perspective about journalism, especially as it relates to East Asian countries, as this region is often underreported in Europe.

Lay Hong Ong is from Singapore, where she is Vice President/Chief Editor for Chinese News and Current Affairs at MediaCorp News. She worked previously at Television Corporation of Singapore and at Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, but she began her career at WTTV, Channel 4, in Indiana. Lay Hong has nearly 25 years of experience producing TV news, and she is particularly interested in long form production.

Bo Ren is the news editor at Caijing Magazine, where she has covered government policy. Much of her work has focused on issues facing rural areas, and her articles on housing reform, corruption in public companies, the land market in China, and the instability of the food safety system brought under-reported issues to light among her magazine?s readership.

2003-2004

Salai Bawi Lian studied political science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He attended the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in April 1999, and lobbied the third committee of United Nations General Assembly in New York in November 1999. His experience includes six months as a volunteer Burmese interpreter for a United Nations refugee program in Bangkok in 1995 and a three month internship at Amnesty International in Washington, D.C. Bawi is completing a book on religious persecution in northwestern Burma. He co-founded the China Human Rights Organization.

Lili Sadeghi has been a journalist in her native Iran since 1978, and worked with Iranian and international news media organizations, including Reuters, ABC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times as well as Dutch, Australian, Norwegian, Canadian and Finnish media organizations. She was both a Visiting Scholar with the Journalism School and a fellow with UC-Berkeley's Human Rights Center.

Xiaobing Wang is a senior reporter with Caijing Magazine in Beijing and has covered economic and social issues in China. She has a master's in journalism from the People's University of China and researched social documentary at the journalism school.

Muzamil Jaleel has covered Kashmir for over a decade and is currently the bureau chief there for The Indian Express. He has also written for The Guardian, The Observer and The Times of London as well as for the Al Jazeera Web site. He has been awarded fellowships by the British Foreign Office, The Times of India and the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. He received the International Federation for Journalists Tolerance Prize and was nominated for the Natali Prize for excellence in human rights reportage from Kashmir.

Zhang Ping, an 11-year veteran of newspaper journalism in China, was the former editorial department director of Southern Weekend, widely considered the most ardent voice for social justice and political reform in China. Before that, he was with the Chengdu Economic Daily, the first market-oriented publication in the country.At Berkeley, he explored developing an understanding of the role journalism could play in the modernization process that transforms a developing and oppressed society.

Ardimas Sasdi is the Production/Night Editor of The Jakarta Post, Indonesia's only English language daily. In his almost 20 years with the Post, he has covered city affairs, court trials, education and health issues, political and military affairs and world issues. Ardimas has a bachelor's degree in English literature and a master's in communications, and has also lectured at the National University in Jakarta. He was a Colombo Plan scholar in 1988, studying journalism for five months in New Delhi.

Amantha Perera is the news features editor of the The Sunday Leader in Sri Lanka, a paper he joined in 1998. He is also a correspondent and Sinhala service coordinator with Inter Press News Service (IPS). He has covered a variety of issues for his paper, including the recent peace talks between the LTTE and the government. Amantha has won several Sri Lankan journalism awards and was a Jefferson Fellow (East-West Center) in 2001.

Pan Xiaoyan is the daughter of journalist and dreamed since childhood of being a reporter. She received a journalism degree from Fudan University, then became a reporter in 1997 for Baosteel Daily, a major daily newspaper in Shanghai. She won several national awards for covering the life of women workers fired when the outdated state industries collapsed. In 2000, she helped launch the business journal SmartFortune, the first magazine to focus on Human Resource Management in China. She is currently its vice editor-in-chief. Xiaoyan's first book, Office Politics, was published in Beijing. Xiaoyan is interested in media management, especially how to strike a balance between news ethics and market incentives. She's also interested in religion, ethnicity and press freedom.

Kyaw Kyaw Aung is the editor of the Living Color Business News Magazine in Myanmar/Burma and has been a journalist since 2000. He has a bachelor's in history and attended the International Advanced Journalism Workshop for three months at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He is interested in human rights and democracy, and hopes to learn more about the practice of journalism during his time in Berkeley.

Jiehua Zhong spent 15 years as a reporter, copy editor, executive editor and editorial director with the Hainan Daily News Group, in Hainan Province, China. He helped launch the group's metro daily, the Southern Urban Daily in 2001, and has since been one of its editors. Jiehua, who has a journalism degree from Fudan University, Shanghai, has also won awards from provincial and state governments and professional associations. He is interested in newspaper editing and design and media management.

Young Chul Shin is an anchor with the SBS station in South Korea and an adjunct professor at the Department of Communications & the Media at Seoul Women's University. He has a master's in both journalism and also public administration. At Berkeley, he focused on what makes morning American news programs, such as NBC's Today, tick.

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