Board of Directors

The Investigative Project on Race and Equity was created by a group of seasoned journalists and civic leaders who came together to preserve the distinctive brand of investigative journalism pioneered at The Chicago Reporter.

Kevin B. Blackistone
Blackistone is a longtime national sports columnist now at The Washington Post, a panelist on ESPN’s “Around the Horn,” a contributor to National Public Radio and coauthor of “A Gift for Ron,” a memoir by former NFL star Everson Walls. Blackistone is also a professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

Tonika Lewis Johnson
Johnson is a photographer, social justice artist and life-long resident of Englewood. Her art often explores urban segregation, and the nuance and richness of the Black community to counter media depictions of Chicago’s violence. She is the founder of Folded Map, was named one of Field Foundation’s Leaders for a New Chicago in 2019 and serves as an appointed member of the Chicago City Council's Cultural Advisory Council of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and was selected as the National Public Housing Museum’s 2021 Artist as Instigator.

Rui Kaneya
Kaneya was a senior editor at ProPublica, where he helped oversee projects for the Local Reporting Network. Prior to ProPublica, he served as a senior reporter at the Center for Public Integrity. He was also an investigative reporter for Honolulu Civil Beat, a correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review and investigations editor at The Chicago Reporter.

Jack Roberts, Treasurer
Roberts is the managing principal of the content marketing and communications firm New Street Group. Roberts has served in many newsroom roles throughout his career — including editor, columnist, reporter and editorial board member at large — at various publications including the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Business Journal, Crain's Chicago Business and The Chicago Reporter.

Teresa Puente
Puente has spent her career reporting on immigration and Latino issues in the U.S. and Mexico. Currently, she is an assistant professor at California State University, Long Beach. She previously served as a staff reporter at the Chicago Tribune and on the Chicago Sun-Times’ editorial board.  She has served on the boards of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, California Chicano News Media Association and JAWS – Journalism & Women Symposium. She is a past president of the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Laura S. Washington, President
Washington is a Chicago Tribune contributing columnist and political analyst for ABC 7-Chicago. Washington brings more than two decades of experience as a multimedia journalist and nonprofit professional. From 2003 to 2009 she served as the Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor at DePaul University and is a former editor and publisher of The Chicago Reporter. 

Charles Whitaker
Whitaker is dean and professor at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Before joining Medill’s faculty, he was a senior editor at Ebony magazine, and worked with the Miami Herald, the Louisville Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, Jet Magazine, Essence Magazine and other publications.

Sharon McGowan, Interim Chair
McGowan is an award-winning reporter and editor. She was formerly the Collaborations Editor at the Institute for Nonprofit News and the founding editor of Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, which covers the city’s communities of color. She was inducted into the Milwaukee Press Club Hall of Fame in 2019. McGowan started her career at The Chicago Reporter, and went on to leadership roles at CBS stations WBBM-AM and WBBM-TV. She taught journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and Marquette University for more than two decades.

Kevin B. Blackistone, Vice Chair and Governing Board Member

Tom Brune
Brune is the Washington Bureau Chief at Newsday. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Brune has worked as a reporter, investigative and data journalist, and editor at the Seattle Times, Chicago Sun-Times and The Chicago Reporter. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and The Christian Science Monitor. 

Alejandra Cancino
Cancino is a senior reporter at Injustice Watch, a Chicago-based nonprofit newsroom investigating the Cook County court system. Her award-winning investigations focus on the intersection of government and business and combine data with personal stories that expose how people are affected by systemic failures. In 2022, she spent a year as an editor training emerging journalists at City Bureau. Earlier in her career, she covered manufacturing, economic development and labor as a business reporter at the Chicago Tribune.

Angela Caputo
Caputo is an award-winning investigative reporter who specializes in using documents, databases, mapping and other analytical tools to expose abuses of power and lax government oversight. She got her start in journalism as an intern for The Chicago Reporter and went on to produce investigative work as a staff journalist for American Public Media, the Chicago Tribune and Daily Southtown. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Investigative Project and teaches journalism at Loyola Marymount University.

Thom Clark
Clark is a co-founder of the Community Media Workshop. During his 35 years as an editor, photojournalist and social enterprise entrepreneur in Chicago’s nonprofit sector, Clark has developed affordable housing; co-founded and directed the Chicago Rehab Network; and served as editor of the award-winning monthly, The Neighborhood Works. 

Deborah D. Douglas
Douglas is director of the Medill Midwest Solutions Journalism Hub and a faculty member at Northwestern University. She is a founding co-editor in chief of The Emancipator and former Pulliam Professor at DePauw University. Douglas authored of the award-winning “U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler’s Guide to the People, Places, and Events That Made the Movement,” the first travel guide to follow the official civil rights trail in the South.

Adrienne Drell
Drell was an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism until her retirement in 2006. Prior to that, she was a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times. A winner of 30 journalism awards and a Knight Foundation Fellowship at Yale Law School,  she also worked as an investigative reporter for the News-Sun in Waukegan and City News Bureau of Chicago.

Jonathan Eig
Eig is the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of King: A Life as well as five other books, including four New York Times best sellers. He worked as a journalist at The Wall Street Journal, Chicago magazine, The Dallas Morning News, and The Times-Picayune. He lives in Chicago.

Kathleen Humphries
A former reporter at The Chicago Reporter, Humphries is an award-winning writer/creative director in Chicago’s Black advertising industry. Now a creative consultant, she provides creative and production services to local and national clients and agencies, targeting multicultural consumers. She also wrote and co-produced two award-winning documentaries, “The Will to Survive: The Story of the Gullah/ Geechee Nation” and “The Invisible Men of Honor - The Legend of The Buffalo Soldiers.”

Rui Kaneya, Governing Board Member

Alden K. Loury
Loury is Data Projects Editor at WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, where he previously served as senior editor of the Race, Class and Communities desk. Loury also served as the director of research and evaluation for the Metropolitan Planning Council; was an investigator and policy analyst for the Better Government Association; and Editor and Publisher of The Chicago Reporter. 

Jawanza Malone
Malone is the executive director of the Wieboldt Foundation, where he has launched a cohort of grassroots community organizing groups, established an internship program and diversified the foundation’s investment strategy. Malone comes from the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), one of the oldest Black-led grassroots community-organizing groups in Chicago, where he served as executive director.

Josh McGhee
McGhee is a staff reporter at MindSite News, where he covers the intersection of criminal justice and mental health with an emphasis on public records and data reporting. He previously reported for Injustice Watch. He's spent the last 10 years covering Chicago on various beats at local outlets including The Chicago Reporter, WVON and DNAInfo Chicago. He uses public records and data to cover courts, policing and corrections.

Rita Oceguera
Oceguera is a reporter at The Trace, which investigates gun violence, and previously worked for Injustice Watch and The Chicago Reporter. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She is a native bilingual speaker in Spanish and English. 

John Schrag
John Schrag is co-founder of Oregon News Exploration, a new non-profit supporting news outlets throughout the state with a focus on rural residents and communities of color. He started in journalism at The Chicago Reporter as a reporter and managing editor. He was previously a reporter and editor for Willamette Week and was lead editor on a series which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. Prior to founding ONE, he was an executive editor of the Pamplin Media Group, which includes the Portland Tribune and two dozen community papers throughout Oregon.

Susy Schultz
Schultz is currently editing special sections for the Chicago Sun-Times and was contributing editor at The Chicago Reporter. She is a journalism and nonprofit executive who recently reshaped the Evanston Roundtable newsroom, a digital six-day-a-week newsletter. Her more than 25 years of experience spans newsrooms, classrooms, nonprofits and for-profits. An educator, editor, digital journalist, writer and strategist, her past titles include executive, managing, investigations and digital editor, columnist and editorial writer. She has also worked in government, academia, museums and the foundation world.

Christine Wachter
Wachter is the associate director of marketing and strategic communications at North Shore Country Day in Winnetka, Ill. Previously, she spent 15 years at The Chicago Reporter and its sister publication Catalyst Chicago, serving as presentation editor for both publications and operations and marketing manager for the Reporter. She led magazine and website redesigns, created a photojournalism fellowship and helped digitize more than 40 years of archives. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Medill School of Journalism.

Laura S. Washington, Governing Board Member

James Ylisela Jr.
Ylisela is co-founder and senior partner of Ragan Consulting Group, which provides strategic communication research and planning, brand journalism, and training in writing, editing, multimedia and social media, for corporations, government agencies and nonprofits. He is an award-winning investigative journalist with 30 years of experience in newspapers, magazines and television, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago magazine, Crain’s Chicago Business and The Chicago Reporter.

Committee Volunteers

Jaquie Algee
Ashir Badami
Christina Córdova-Herrera
Stephan Garnett
Matt Kiefer
Jim McGowan
Asraa Mustufa
Kristen Schorsch
Andy Shaw
Nikki Stein
Laura Wallace