Alumni News

ABBY AMUNDSON (B.A. ’21) joined Epsilon as an associate account manager.

HEATHER ARNTSON (B.A. ’05, M.A. ’09) is now director of digital marketing at OMG, Inc.

LUKE BEHRENDS (B.A. ’04) and his team at Words From the Woods, his ad agency in Maine, won 12 awards at the Maine Ad & Design Show across eight different categories.

JESSIE BEKKER (B.A. ’17) is now a second-year student at Saint Louis University pursuing dual degrees in law and health care administration. She returned to school after two years as the health reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where, speaking with the health industry leaders and patients suffering from the pitfalls of the healthcare industry in the U.S., she found a passion for innovation in health care.

EMMA CAREW GROVUM (B.A. ’09) joined News Product Alliance as program director.

VICTORIA CLOUSE (B.A. ’21) is an account leadership intern at broadhead.

LAURIE DENNIS (M.A. ’96) published her first novel in 2020. The Lacquered Talisman is a work of historical fiction set in 14th-century China. This is the first in an intended series on the founding of the Ming Dynasty, published by Earnshaw Books in Hong Kong/Shanghai. In her years at Murphy Hall, Laurie was a reporter for The Minnesota Daily and worked with her advisor, Chin-Chuan Lee at the China Times Center for Media and Social Research from 1989-92.

MCKENNA EWEN (B.A. ’09) was named Video Editor of the Year for the second consecutive year by the White House News Photographers Association. Ewen works at CNN.

PRECIOUS FONDREN (B.A. ’20) is a 2021-22 New York Times fellow.

JULIAN GREEN (B.A. ’21) is an intern with Minnesota Public Radio.

JIM HAMMERAND (B.A. ’07) is the editor of Journey, the travel magazine published by AAA Washington for its 1.2 million members in the Pacific Northwest. He was previously managing editor of the Puget Sound Business Journal—a top-performing market for the American City Business Journals chain—where his team’s analysis of the Seattle region’s homelessness crisis won a national SPJ Delta Sigma Chi award for public service journalism. Hammerand previously worked for the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, the Faribault Daily News, ABC News and the Minnesota Daily.

AMY HASLERUD (B.A. ’21) is a media intern at True Media.

CONNOR HUSSEIN (M.A. ’21) joined Colle McVoy as an assistant media planner.

EMILY JAMES (B.A. ’21) joined Monogram as a product designer.

BRETT JOHNSON (Ph.D. ’15) received the University of Missouri’s President’s Award for Excellence: Early Career, Humanities and Social & Behavioral Sciences for his efforts to advance the understanding of the role of journalism in democracy. In May, Johnson was also promoted to associate professor with tenure.

AUDREY KENNEDY (B.A. ’20) joined Axios Twin Cities as a lifestyle reporter.

LYNETTE LAMB (M.A. ’84) published Strokeland, A Memoir: My Husband’s Midlife Brainstorm and Its Ambivalent Aftermath.

JOCELYN LANDWEHR (B.A. ’21) joined Fast Horse as part of its Integrate Program.

ANDY MANNIX (B.A. ’09), along with other Star Tribune colleagues, won the Investigative Reporters & Editors “Investigations Triggered by Breaking News” award at the group’s annual data journalism conference in May for their coverage of Minneapolis police after the death of George Floyd. Mannix and colleagues also took home the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for their coverage of the death of George Floyd.

SEND US YOUR NEWS!

Get a new job, write a book, win an award, join a board, or do something else really cool? We want to know about it! Write to murphrep@umn. edu with your name, news and graduation year and we’ll consider it for the next issue.

LINDSEY (WARRINER) MCGUIRK

(B.A. ’10) accepted a position at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., as a communications professional.

LARISSA MILLES (B.A. ’21) is the morning producer and reporter at CBS 3 Duluth/KBJR 6 in Duluth, Minn.

JENNI PINKLEY (B.A. ’97) won first place during the National Press Photography Association’s Best of Photojournalism contest in the Online Visual Presentation - News and Issue category for “The siege, evacuation and destruction of a Minneapolis police station” in the Star Tribune. She also received honorable mention in the same category for “One Week in Minneapolis” from the Star Tribune.

MARGARET POTTS (B.A. ’21) joined Electric Advertising as a social content strategist.

CHELSEA REYNOLDS (Ph.D. ’17) was tenured and promoted to the rank of associate professor at California State University, Fullerton.

C.J. SINNER (B.A. ’08) won several Awards of Excellence from the Society for News Design 2020 Best of Digital News Design competition for her data journalism work with the team at the Star Tribune.

BRIANNA SISLO-SCHUTTA (B.A. ’21) joined BerlinRosen as a digital advocacy account coordinator.

ALEXANDRA SMITH (B.A.’ 19) joined KSTP-TV as a news producer.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI (B.A. ’88), legal counsel at the Office of the Legislative Auditor spoke about the role of journalists in exposing government corruption in a virtual conference in May, titled “Role of a Prosecutor in Proceedings against Journalists,” co-produced by Regional Dialogue, an independent, international organization, and Uzbekistan’s Prosecutor General’s Office.

GRACIE STOCKTON (B.A. ’21) joined KSTP as a content desk editor.

CHLOE TOWNSEND (B.A. ’21) is a social media intern at Xerxes Global.

EMMA VIK (B.A. ’21) joined Highway 29 Creative as a junior account coordinator. She was previously a social media intern for Highway 29.

CALLING FOR NSAC ALUMS TO BE JUDGES!

The American Advertising Federation (AAF) is working to build their list of potential judges for next year’s NSAC competition and would like to engage more NSAC alum in this great opportunity. Reach out to AAF if you’re interested.

The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) posthumously honored Hubbard School alum STEVE KOPPERUD, who died in October 2020, as an Honorary Board Director for his service to the animal food industry over his 35-year career. This is the first time AFIA has presented this honor. According to AFIA: “Kopperud served as the senior vice president of legislative affairs at the AFIA for more than 20 years and as a government affairs consultant for almost 15 years, before semi-retiring in 2019. He founded the Animal Industry Foundation, now the Animal Agriculture Alliance, in the 1980s as a forum for producer and industry organizations, dedicated to providing information on the vital role ranchers and farmers play in promoting animal welfare and act as a unified voice for agriculture in advancing positive animal welfare policy to the public and other industries.” In honor of this award, AFIA made a donation to the Steve Kopperud Scholarship in Business or Technical Reporting fund held by the Hubbard School.