Mitch Stephens

Mitchell Stephens is the author of A History of News, an extended history of journalism that has been translated into four languages and was a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year." His latest book, The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word, is a historical analysis of our current communications revolution and was published by Oxford University Press.

Professor Stephens is also the author of Broadcast News, the most widely used radio and television news textbook, and the co-author of Writing and Reporting the News. In recent years, he has written numerous articles on media issues and aspects of contemporary thought for publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the Columbia Journalism Review.

Professor Stephens recently completed a trip around the world during which he reported on globalization for the public radio program "Marketplace" and the webzine Feed. He also wrote essays on travel for LonelyPlanet.com. His commentaries have aired on National Public Radio's "On the Media." Professor Stephens also has been a consultant to the Newseum.

Alla Bespalova

Alla Bespalova graduated from Rostov State University in 1979. She finished post-graduate studies in 1992 with a doctorate degree in journalism. She presented and defended her thesis "The Formation and the Development of Domestic Audio-Verbal Mass Media" in Rostov State University under the supervision of Professor Evgeny Kornilov.

Since 1979 she has worked as a teaching assistant, lecturer and assistant professor of the Department of History of Journalism of the School of Philology and Journalism. She serves as head of the Department of International Journalism.

Professor Bespalova has extensive experience with New York University and Dortmund University. After training at NYU, she created a course "Reporting" based on American journalism education for the students of the Department of International Journalism. Also, she created courses "Empirical Research of the Modern Russian Press " and "Skill of the Domestic Publicists." She is also the organizer and executive director of a joint project with Dortmund University.

Alexander Korochensky

Alexander Korochensky teaches journalism at Rostov State University. He is the author of the monographs: The Fifth Estate?; The Phenomenon of Media Criticism in the Context of Content Market; Ethics of Journalism: the Foreign Experience; The Journalism of Jose Marti; and co-author of the monograph The History of World Journalism. Professor Korochensky has served as visiting lecturer and researcher at Schools of Journalism of La Universidad de La Habana (Cuba), Silesian University (Poland) and New York University.

Adrian Mihai

Adrian Mihai, the broadcast coordinator of NYU's Department of Journalism, is a freelance videographer, independent producer and multi-media designer. He produced and directed several documentaries, E Pluribus Unum (1994), a film that investigates the spiritual milieu of first generation immigrants from Romania as they become integrated into the various folds of the American society. Someone Has Killed The Sphinx (1995), is a film that offers an analysis of Romanian social realities after the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship--as seen through the staging of Oedipus at the Romanian National Opera House, Crossroads (1998) looks at Columbia University's Graduate Acting Program, which was created and steered by renowned Romanian-American director Andrei Serban, E Biagoresqo Drom / The Endless Journey is a documentary about the Rroma/Gypsy communities of Romania. Professor Mihai works as a freelance cameraman for various news organizations, such Bloomberg, BBC America, Austrian TV and CNN. Since 1996, he has taught undergraduates and graduates in "Electronic News Gathering."

Vitaly Vinichenko

Vitaly Vinichenko received his master's degree in journalism from the School of Philology and Journalism at Rostov State University and was awarded his doctorate in journalism in 1995 for research devoted to the history of the International Herald Tribune. He serves as the deputy to the dean of the School of Philology and Journalism for information technologies.

Adam Ellick

Adam B. Ellick is a Visiting Professor from Ithaca College. He spent four years in Eastern Europe and Russia, where he launched EllickNewsLink, a freelance news service selling content to media outlets in North America, Europe and Asia. His stories have appeared in USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jerusalem Post, Rollingstone.com, ARTnews and dozens of other publications. Today he is a Fulbright Scholar based in Jakarta, where he researches the professionalism of Indonesian journalism. In 1999, he was awarded the Pulliam Journalism Fellowship at the Indianapolis Star and earned a B.A. from Ithaca College in Journalism.

Maria Kolesnikova

Maria Kolesnikova teaches in the departments of Romance-Germanic Philology and Mass Communication Media of Rostov State University. She graduated cum laude from the Romance-Germanic Department, took a postgraduate course in journalism and defended her doctoral thesis, “Online Periodicals: A Typological Aspect,” in January, 2003. Her research focuses on the Russian online periodicals and the language of the present-day newsmedia. She contributed to the RSU ezine www.relga.ru for four years. In 2003 she traveled to Ithaca College to study print journalism and teaching methods.

Meline Toumani

Meline Toumani is a writer in New York City. She has written features, commentaries and criticism for The New York Times, The Nation, Mother Jones, Ms., Alternet, and other publications. She earned her master's degree in journalism in 2003 in New York University's Cultural Reporting and Criticism program, and graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1998 with high honors in English and a minor in public policy. This is Meline's second year working for the Russian-American Journalism Institute in Rostov-on-Don. In addition to spending time in Russia, she has traveled in Armenia, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Hong Kong, Iran, Italy, Malaysia, and The Netherlands.

Steve Bryant

Steve is a writer living in New York. He graduated from New York University's graduate department of Journalism in December 2004, and from the College of William and Mary in 1999 with honors in English and a minor in anthropology. He works as a freelance writer and web designer, and as a frequent contributor to the New York Daily News. In addition to helping coordinate the Russian-American Journalism Institute in Russia, Steve has worked in Italy and traveled throughout New Jersey. Several times, actually. He doesn't want to talk about that.

Julia Savenkova

Julia Savenkova is a post-graduate student at Rostov State University in the School of Philology and Journalism. She is the managing editor of "Kaktus," a weekly magazine devoted to arts, culture, entertainment, and politics for young people. In 2003 she traveled to Ithaca College to study print journalism and teaching methods.

Anastassia Serdyukova

Anastassia Serdyukova is an instructor at the School of Philology and Journalism at Rostov State University. She teaches English for journalists and philologists and she has concentrated on the peculiarities of the British and American mass media and instructing her students in writing and analyzing newspaper articles. She is working on compiling a English-Russian vocabulary of mass media terms for journalists and philologists. She graduated with honors from the School of Philology and Journalism in 2002. In 2003 she traveled to Ithaca College to study print journalism and teaching methods.