A Rochester native, James has written for the Syracuse Post-Standard and interned as a film critic and events reporter for RocLoop, Gannett's New York college news website. James is a devotee of social media, and a graduate of SUNY Brockport. There, he majored in journalism, minored in film studies, and served as the Communication Department's first social media intern. To complete his degree, he wrote his honors thesis on film criticism throughout history and into the digital age. He enjoys zombie movies, cream soda, and Pink Floyd whenever he isn’t catching up on the latest in film and TV online. He writes for The Film Stage, and his blog can be found at www.jamesbattaglia.com.

Lily Betjeman interns at Light Work, an artist-run photography center, where she updates the blog with weekly written features and videos. Her work has appeared in the Syracuse New Times and the Post-Standard. She has been a fashion and features intern at British Vogue, Associate Editor at Hampton Style magazine, and a regular contributor to local publications in her native Westchester County, New York. She graduated cum laude from SUNY Geneseo in 2007 with a degree in English.

Kathleen is the social media intern at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park in Syracuse, NY, producing video packages of the zoo's animals and events, and has also interned at NewsChannel9 for the lifestyle/entertainment morning show “Bridge Street." Her food blog can be found at Kat Eats Syracuse. She has also published multimedia packages for one of Syracuse University's online publications, NewsHouse. Kathleen graduated magna cum laude from Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. with a B.A. in broadcast journalism and a minor in theater. For three years she hosted a radio show covering theater news on Quinnipiac’s station WQAQ-FM. She interned at CNN in New York City for “CNN Heroes” and WFSB-TV in Hartford, CT, and was the Entertainment Anchor for two years and main news anchor at the university’s TV station, Q30 News. Kathleen is a member of Lambda Pi Eta (National Communications Honor Society) and Alpha Psi Omega (National Theater Honor Society).

Samantha grew up in Virginia, but has been following a winding path toward an arts career in New York City since she went there to see musicals on Broadway with her family in grade school.  In January 2011 she began an internship at TV Land digital with MTV Networks in New York City.  There she helps with social media and writes blog posts for the TV Land website (http://www.tvland.com/blogs).  Prior to working at TV Land, she worked as an editorial intern at The Post-Standard (http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/), the daily newspaper in Syracuse, writing stories about local musicians, art galleries and theater.  Samantha hopes to live and work in New York City after graduating from SU in May 2011, and to eventually write screenplay for television.

Sarah is an editorial intern at the rock music magazine Relix in New York City and writes news updates for Jambands.com. She has been an editorial intern for the magazine International Musician, researching, reporting, and writing profiles. She worked for three years as a community editor at a weekly newspaper in Northeast Tennessee and freelanced for Athens Blur magazine where she wrote band profiles, music industry stories and features. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Tennessee with a minor in cinema studies; at UT, she helped launch a school of communications magazine, worked as a reporter, and interned at Atlanta magazine.

Deandra is honing her online writing, video editing and social media skills with two internships based in Boston this spring. She is a multimedia editor for TheNextGreatGeneration.com and a writer for MySecretBoston.com. Both positions are helping her learn about the East Coast city and her fascination with popular music continues to grow as she dives into its lively music scene. Deandra earned a B.A. in English and a minor in writing studies at Niagara University in Lewiston, N.Y. Her past experiences include working as an online content coordinator at The Buffalo News, a writing internship with Buffalo.com, and contributing to Niagara’s school newspaper. To see her work, visit: http://mysecretboston.com/writer/modica and http://www.thenewshouse.com/users/dlmodica

Chiderah is an entertainment journalist, movie reviewer and all around pop culture junkie. Currently, Chiderah hosts and produces a movie review television show in Syracuse called “The Review Crew,” and spends the rest of her time in the Big Apple, interning at E! News. A graduate of the prestigious Newhouse School, she holds a B.S. in Broadcast Journalism, along with a minor in Acting. Chiderah has been a reporter and assistant producer for entertainment website BlacktreeTV, and worked for NBC News, VIBE Magazine, and Yourblackworld.com. Chiderah’s movie reviews on her blog www.thatgirlontv.com get a lot of buzz, and she has interviewed celebrities such as actors Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, and the cast of the Harry Potter films.

Donald Vinik Fellow, 2010-11
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Leah graduated cum laude from the University of Rochester with bachelor’s degrees in music and English and a certificate in ethnomusicology from the Eastman School of Music. In Syracuse she has been active in the Irish community, performing regularly in music sessions and working at a local pub. Her work has appeared in the Post-Standard, the Syracuse New Times, and is forthcoming in CNY Woman. She studied cello with Eastman String Chair, Alan Harris, for three years. Leah toured Chile as principal cellist of the UR Chamber Orchestra, and also won the 2009-10 UR Concerto Competition. Leah is also an Irish dancer, and toured to Ireland with the Rochester chapter of Comhaltas last June.

Following her love for fashion across continents, Avantika is currently a fashion intern at Conde Nast’s W magazine in Manhattan. Her fashion blog covers fashion on the streets and on the runway, and her work has appeared in the Syracuse New Times. In her native India, Avantika worked as a sub-editor at an English national daily newspaper, The Indian Express, in New Delhi and an English news website in Mumbai. She earned her undergraduate degree in journalism from University of Delhi and a post-graduate diploma in mass communication from Xavier Institute of Communications in Mumbai.

Jessica can’t tear herself away from the collaborative artistry of creating, viewing and writing about live theater. She works as an editorial intern for American Theatre magazine in New York City and spent her fall semester crafting program features at Syracuse Stage, as the social media and publications intern. Jessica graduated summa cum laude from the University of Missouri with degrees in magazine journalism and international studies. As an undergraduate, she worked as assistant editor for Global Journalist, a non-profit magazine that covers press freedom around the world and goes to more than 120 countries. She also wrote reviews for the National Critics Institute at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for her region and reported arts features for the Columbia Missourian.

Seth likes music, so he writes about it. He's done so for SPIN.com, The Pacific Northwest Inlander, his own site Long Live The Album, and a host of other alt weeklies, newspapers, student publications, websites, zines, and the like.  As a Montana native who did his undergraduate work at Gonzaga University (it's in WA), Seth insists that the West Coast is, in fact, the best coast. Still, he's quite enjoying his time out East.

From a young age, Diep knew she was going to be a writer, the question was what she was going to write about. Marry that with a love of show tunes and French painters and the answer is arts journalism. She is currently a CNY intern at the Syracuse Post- Standard, writing front-page pieces about the theater scene in Syracuse. She has also written feature stories and reviews for Back Stage, The Newshouse, TheCelebrityCafe.com, The Daily Bruin and Orange County Weekly. Diep graduated from UCLA in 2010 with a bachelor's in English and art history. Her clips and other miscellaneous thoughts can be found at her blog Diep Thought. In her spare time she sings, paints & bakes.

Though she started out in film criticism, Amanda has tried broadening her horizons. After graduating with a B.A. in film studies from the University of Pittsburgh, she has spent the last five years interning at publications like The Pittsburgh City Paper, writing and performing sketch comedy and working as an arts reviewer for websites like www.pop-damage.com. Since coming to Newhouse, she has published articles in the Syracuse Post-Standard and the New Times, co-produced a movie review show on OTN, and secured an internship as a reporter and arts feature writer for WAER. She was also hired as a part-time Community Journalist at the Scotsman Press. See more of her work at www.amandawaltz.com.

Xueying is a dedicated amine and manga reviewer, and an aspiring manga publisher. She currently interns for Anime News Network, America’s most renowned news/review website about Japanese pop culture. She is also a freelance translator for Digital Manga, Inc. (DMI), one of the industry’s most innovative publishing companies. In her college years, Xueying not only wrote about her passion but helped local comic authors publish their comic stories as well.  Xueying published an anime-related piece in the Syracuse Post-Standard.

Jes Zurell is a cultural journalist from northern Connecticut. She fills her time with fashion, fine art and music when she's not busy writing. In the fall of 2010, she was fortunate enough to intern for WCNY-TV, the Syracuse area PBS affiliate. In the future, you can expect to see her covering artistic happenings all over the world.