Justin Catanoso, professor of the practice, has been a working journalist for more than 30 years. He was Director of Journalism from 2011 to 2016, teaches courses in reporting and editing, and created the minor’s first study abroad program in travel journalism in 2014. His professional focus is covering the impact of climate change and climate change policy internationally; he is a regular contributor to mongabay.com, a leading online environmental news organization. Catanoso has written for daily newspapers in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and North Carolina, and was the founding executive editor of the Triad Business Journal (1998-2011). He is the author of the family memoir My Cousin the Saint: A Search for Faith, Family, and Miracles (HarperCollins, 2008). He has a BA in journalism from Penn State University (1982) and a MALS from Wake Forest University (1993). catanojj@wfu.edu
You can learn more about Catanoso’s work on his website, here: http://www.justincatanoso.com/

Paul Garber, adjunct, is a multimedia journalist and a reporter with WFDD who teaches radio journalism. He got his first taste of radio as a DJ for WAKE Radio. He credits Professor Kathy Smith’s class on Politics and the Mass Media for spurring his interest in journalism. He has master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication (now the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media). His award-winning work has appeared in newspapers including The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the News & Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal. He has been affiliated with WFDD since 2013 and is the adviser for WAKE Radio. 

Maria Henson (’82), part-time lecturer, joined Wake Forest as Associate Vice President and Editor-at-Large in June 2010. She oversees Wake Forest Magazine, teaches journalism and serves on Advancement’s senior leadership team. Henson spent her career at newspapers throughout the country as a reporter, Washington correspondent, columnist, editorial writer, investigative editor and editor. She won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing for her series about battered women in Kentucky at the Lexington Herald-Leader and edited the series about Yosemite National Park in The Sacramento Bee that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, an Arthur Burns Fellow in Germany, and a Jefferson Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii. Wake Forest Magazine, under Henson’s direction, has won numerous international awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) including the gold award this year for the best magazine for universities with circulations 75,000 and above. hensonm@wfu.edu

Ivan Weiss, assistant professor of the practice, is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and photographer. He teaches a variety of multimedia and environmental journalism classes, and he seeks out interdisciplinary education opportunities for his students. In 2019, he co-founded The Truth and Authenticity Lab, a 6-credit course using the tools of journalism and documentary storytelling to explore urgent philosophical questions in the contemporary digital age. He currently leads a committee to develop an anti-racist curriculum for Wake Forest’s Journalism Program. Weiss is committed to experimenting with new forms in his journalistic and documentary work, which focus on such issues as marginalized communities and individuals, the creative process, personal experiences of place, and the possibilities and limits of visual representation. Learn more about his work at his website. In May 2014, he completed an MA in visual communication at UNC-Chapel Hill. weissij@wfu.edu

Barry Yeoman, adjunct, is a freelance magazine journalist based in Durham, North Carolina, who specializes on putting human faces on complex issues. His investigative reporting has taken him around the world, from a coastline in India where industrialization threatens traditional fishing families to a training ground in North Carolina for private soldiers on secret missions. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, National Wildlife, The Nation, Audubon, The Assembly, Popular Science, The American Prospect, Texas Monthly, and many other publications. It has also been published by journalism non-profits like the Food & Environment Reporting Network and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Yeoman is the author of The Gutbucket King, a longform multimedia profile of the New Orleans bluesman Little Freddie King, and has produced podcasts and radio documentaries about Southern music and food culture. He has won numerous journalism prizes, including the National Magazine Award for Public Interest for an exposé of the poultry industry. barry01@barryyeoman.com
Learn more about Yeoman’s work on his website, here: https://barryyeoman.com/

Michael Venutolo-Mantovani, adjunct, is a freelance writer who has contributed to The New York Times, National Geographic, WIRED, The Guardian, Condé Nast Traveler, The Toronto Star, Travel + Leisure, Bicycling Magazine, Our State, Garden & Gun, The New Republic, and GQ and several others. He’s written stories on topics as wide ranging as international espionage, NASCAR, snowboarding, bicycle racing, travel, veterans affairs, mortality, trees, animation, curling, politics, and food and drink. Before transitioning to writing, Michael spent many years in the music business, working both as a full-time touring musician and at a handful of some of the most influential record labels in independent music. Expatriated from New York City, Michael lives in Chapel Hill with his wife and their children, where he can most often be found riding bikes. venutom@wfu.edu
Learn more about Ventuolo-Mantovani’s work on his website, here: https://www.therealmichaelvm.com/.

Phoebe Zerwick, director and professor of the practice, is an investigative journalist, narrative writer, and web-based documentary maker who teaches writing and journalism in the Journalism and Writing programs. She came to teaching after 20 years at the Winston-Salem Journal, where she was a reporter, columnist and editor. In 2003, Zerwick wrote a series about the wrongful murder conviction of Darryl Hunt, which led to his exoneration. Zerwick is the author of Beyond Innocence: The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt. She has written for a wide range of publications, including Glamour, Parents, National Geographic,  O, The Oprah Magazine, Our State, the Duke Law Magazine, and The Nation and her work has been recognized by The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, Columbia University, and the North Carolina Press Association. Zerwick has a BA from the University of Chicago in General Studies (1982) and an MS from Columbia University in Journalism (1987). zerwicp@wfu.edu
You can learn more about Zerwick’s work on her website, here: https://www.phoebezerwick.com/

 

 

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Affiliated Faculty

Peter Gilbert, Creative Director and Outreach, professor of the practice, affiliated with the Department of Communication, the Documentary Film Program, and the Journalism Program.

Peter Gilbert teaches courses in documentary storytelling, sports storytelling, cinematography and sound and entrepreneurship. Gilbert has had a distinguished career in producing, directing, and photographing documentaries, feature films, commercials, and music videos. He is one of the filmmakers who made Hoop Dreams, serving as a producer and director of Photography. Also with Kartemquin Films and Steve James, he also directed At the Death House Door, which premiered at South by Southwest in 2008. In 2004, he produced and directed, With All Deliberate Speed, the first work in the new series “Discovery Docs,” for the Discovery Network. The nationally released film portrays the drama of the monumental Brown V. Board Supreme Court decision that helped change the racial fabric of our country in 1954.  gilberpm@wfu.edu

Woodrow Hood, Director of Film and Media Studies, professor of the practice, affiliated with the Department of Communication, the Documentary Film Program, and the Journalism Program.

Woodrow Hood joined WFU in 2011 as a member of the performance faculty, specializing in on-camera performance. Dr. Hood is active as a theatre director,  reviewer, and consultant for other theatre programs and with several arts boards and councils. As an author, critic, and theorist, he has just completed the sixth edition of the co-authored textbook, Theatre, Its Art and Craft, and wrote a section for the recently published book, Women in American Musical Theatre. He has written for national and international journals and publications such as American Theatre magazine, Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation, Theatre Journal, PAJ (Performing Arts Journal),Postmodern Culture, The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Theatre Topics,TheatreForum, and others.  Dr. Hood is a founding member of the Terra Incognita theatre company.  He directed Dr. Janice Moore Fuller’s DIX (Minneapolis Fringe Festival, 2004) for the company. In the fall of 2004, his production of ISLANDwon Metrolina Theatre Award for Outstanding College Production.  In 2010, he received an award from the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival for “Excellence in Direction” for his production of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away.  His research interests include film studies, pop culture, Japanese theatre and film, performance art, and copyright law. hoodwb@wfu.edu

Melissa Painter Greene, adjunct professor of the practice, affiliated with Department of Communication

Melissa Painter Greene teaches broadcast journalism. She works as a news anchor and reporter for WGHP, a television station that covers the Piedmont-Triad. Painter Greene began her career at WTVF in Nashville and reported for WBKO in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and WBBH in Fort Myers, Florida. She won a RTDNA award for her coverage of a legal loophole that allowed convicted sexual offenders to evade the National Sex Offender Registry. Senator Richard Burr referenced her reporting when he introduced legislation to close that loophole. Painter Greene’s reporting also disclosed unreported test results that showed high levels of lead in the water at some Guilford County Schools. After her series of investigative reports, the school system replaced water fixtures and retested the water at every school in the district. Painter Greene has earned four Emmy award nominations and two Associated Press awards. She graduated from Wake Forest University. paintemj@wfu.edu

Julia S. Jordan-Zachery, professor and chair of the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at Wake Forest University.

Julia S. Jordan-Zachery’s interdisciplinary research focuses on African American women and public policy. She is the author of the award-winning book “Black women, cultural images and social policy,” “Shadow Bodies: Black Women, Ideology, Representation, and Politics,” and “Erotic Testimonies: Black Women Daring to be Wild and Free,” and several articles and edited volumes, including “Black Girl Magic Beyond the Hashtag,” “Black women and da ‘Rona” and “Lavender Fields: Black Women Experiencing Fear, Agency, and Hope in the Time of COVID-19”. Jordan-Zachery has also produced the documentary Healing Roots. jordanzj@wfu.edu

Cara Pilson, Documentary Film Program Director, teaching professor, affiliated with the Department of Communication and the Journalism Program.

Cara Pilson teaches in the areas of documentary storytelling, research, clearance and fair use, ethics and documentary history. She has worked as associate director, chief researcher and web producer on multiple award-winning films that were broadcast nationally and internationally, including, Negroes With Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power and Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore. Both films aired nationally on PBS and received the Erik Barnouw Award for Outstanding Historical Documentary.  She also served as Associate Director and Director of Research on The Last Flight of Petr Ginz an award-winning documentary that has screened in more than 40 countries and is distributed by First Run Features and Forward Entertainment.  Other past films include Giving Up the Canal, Campaign for Cuba and Last Days of the Revolution, all of which aired nationally on PBS. Through her work with the Documentary Film Program at Wake Forest, and previously with the University of Florida’s Documentary Institute, Pilson has helped students produce work that has received national and international attention. pilsoncm@wfu.edu

Mark Rabil, Director of Innocence and Justice Clinic, Associate Clinical Professor of Law. 

Mark Rabil has been  Director of the Innocence and Justice Clinic since 2009, and he also teaches Trial Advocacy and Criminal Procedure. Rabil’s zealous advocacy led to the release and exoneration of Darryl Hunt after 19 years of incarceration. Rabil had been practicing law for four years in 1984 when he was court-appointed to assist a senior partner in his law firm in representing Hunt, a 19-year-old black man charged with raping and stabbing to death Deborah Sykes, a young, white, newspaper reporter. He continued to represent Hunt for the next 20 years, through trials, hearings, investigations, appeals, and clemency and pardon proceedings. In December 2003, Rabil’s efforts forced more DNA testing that led to the arrest of the true killer, and the release of Hunt. From 2003 until 2013, Rabil was an assistant capital defender in North Carolina and represented individuals charged with first-degree murder and facing the death penalty. Prior to becoming a full-time professor, Rabil served the Wake Forest University School of Law as a supervising attorney for the Litigation Clinic from 1983 until 2013, and as an adjunct professor of trial advocacy from 2003 until 2013. In 2004, the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers awarded Rabil the Thurgood Marshall Award for his work representing Darryl Hunt. The story of the case is told in Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s award-winning documentary, “The Trials of Darryl Hunt,” which premiered on HBO in 2007, and won numerous film festival awards around the world.  Rabil tells his story about his work in the Hunt case in his law review article, “My Three Decades With Darryl Hunt.” 75 Albany L. Rev. 1535 (2012). rabilsm@wfu.edu

Chris Sheridan, Online & MA Program Coordinator, associate professor of the practice, affiliated with the Documentary Film Program and the Journalism Program.

Chris Sheridan teaches courses in documentary and sports storytelling, digital and social media, and the business of sports media.  He also supervises student internships. Sheridan is an award-winning, journalist, content creator and media executive who has built and led content teams at some of the biggest media companies including ESPN, CNBC, NBC and ABC. A true cross-platform executive, he has helped those major brands adapt to the digital space including leading the digital video team at ESPN, helping launch the SportsCentersocial media experience, launching The CNBC Digital Workshop and running abcnews.com  The editorial, management and thought leadership in the digital space comes after a distinguished 17-year career in television news where he quarterbacked coverage of some of the biggest news and sports stories of the decade for ABC News and NBC News. He began his career in local television. sheridcj@wfu.edu

Joel Tauber, Associate Professor of Art, affiliated with the Documentary Film Program, the Film Studies Program, and the Journalism program.

Tauber teaches filmmaking and video art production classes, empowering students to make single channel work for the theater and multi-channel work for presentation as public art, flash video mobs, and sculptural video installations. As an artist, Tauber sparks discourse about ethics, environmentalism, and mysticism by creating video installations, films, photographs, public art, and written stories. Tauber’s work has been shown in solo art exhibitions at a number of locations, including Galerie Adamski in Berlin as well as Aachen, Germany; KOENIG2 by_robbygreif in Vienna, Austria; the University Art Museum at California State University Long Beach; the Helen Lindhurst Fine Arts Gallery at the University of Southern California; the Rocky Mountain School of Photography (Montana); the Smith Gallery at Appalachian State University (North Carolina); the Aiken County Historical Museum (South Carolina); and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects (California). Film Festivals include the Atlanta Film Festival (Georgia), the Sedona International Film Festival (Arizona), the San Francisco Documentary Festival (California), and the Downtown Film Festival – Los Angeles, where his movie, Sick-Amour, was awarded “Best Green Film.” Tauber won the 2007 Contemporary Collectors of Orange County Fellowship (California), the 2007-2008 CalArts / Alpert Ucross Residency Prize for Visual Arts (USA), and a 2015 grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation For The Visual Arts in conjunction with a residency from The Grand Central Art Center (California). His project “Sick-Amour” was shortlisted for a 2011 International Green Award (England). tauberjl@wfu.edu
Find more on Tauber’s work here: https://joeltauber.com/

Corey D. B. Walker, Ph.D., Interim Dean for the Divinity School, Director of the Program in African American Studies, and Professor of the Humanities.

A scholar committed to a broad and inclusive vision of human flourishing, Dr. Corey D. B. Walker is Interim Dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, and Director of the Program in African American Studies. His research, teaching, and public scholarship span the areas of African American philosophy, critical theory, ethics, and religion and American public life. Dr. Walker is author and editor of several books and has published over sixty articles, essays, and book chapters in a wide variety of scholarly journals and publications. He is currently completing his next book, Disciple of Nonviolence: Wyatt Tee Walker and the Struggle for the Soul of Democracy, to be published by the University of Virginia Press. A much sought after speaker, he has appeared on a variety of media programs and has served as a commentator for a number of outlets in the United States and abroad.

Hubert “Hu” Womack, Associate Librarian for Instruction and Outreach at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library.

Hu Womack co-teaches a first-year seminar on “Mis/Disinformation Online” with Director of Research, Instruction and Outreach, Rosalind Tedford, and a course on research resources for social science majors. Womack received his BA and MBA from Wake Forest University and his MLIS from UNC-Greensboro. He also serves as the library liaison to the Department of Sociology, the Department of Communication, and the Journalism Program. 

 

Chris Zaluski, Graduate School Media Director, assistant teaching professor, affiliated with the Department of Communication, the Documentary Film Program, and the Journalism Program.

Christopher Zaluski teaches courses in editing and visual storytelling and supervises Wrought Iron Productions, a student production company housed in the graduate school.   He is an award-winning multimedia producer specializing in video production, web design and writing/reporting. He is also a freelance documentary videographer, editor and producer for Honest Eye Productions. Zaluski has won awards for multimedia storytelling and filmmaking from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Broadcast Education Association, American Association for Sunday and Features Editors, Virginia Press Association, National Broadcasting Society, and the Online News Association. His documentaries have screened at festivals nationwide and his film, Wagonmasters, was acquired by PBS and Amazon for distribution. zaluskem@wfu.edu
Find more on Zaluski’s work here: https://zaluskifilm.com/