Penny Abernathy specializes in preserving quality journalism by helping the news business succeed economically in the digital media environment. As an executive, Abernathy launched new enterprises and helped increase revenue at some of the nation's most prominent news organizations and publishing companies, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Harvard Business Review. At The Wall Street Journal, she oversaw the international division and reversed its declining revenue to profitability in less than a year. At Carolina, Abernathy focuses her expertise on 21st-century economic models that will improve the ability of journalists to produce news in the public interest.

Alberto Cairo specializes in information design, educational and scientific graphics, and visual communication history. He was the James H. Schumaker term assistant professor at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication until 2009. He left UNC to become the director for infographics and multimedia at Globo group of communication in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He has now returned to teaching as both an adjunct in the MATC and as an instructor in information graphics and visualization at the University of Miami's School of Communication. Prior to joining the UNC faculty, Cairo was the director of infographics and multimedia at elmundo.es in Spain, which won more design awards than any other publication in the world between 2001 and 2005. Cairo’s book The Functional Art: an Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization will be published in August 2012 by Pearson’s Peachpit Press.

Brian Carroll's research interests are digital media, communication law and the black press. He created the course “Writing for Digital Media” for the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2003 and has taught it online every year since then. His textbook based on the class, “Writing for Digital Media,” was published in 2010 by Routledge. In addition to serving as an adjunct professor at UNC, Carroll is an associate professor of journalism at Berry College in Mount Berry, Ga. He also was a 2010-11 Duke University research fellow as part of the Project for Civic Discourse and the Public Sphere in the Age of the Internet. The project's seven fellows studied how to preserve the potential of the Internet and new media technologies to foster open communication practices vital to sustaining a healthy public sphere essential for democracy.

Heidi Hennink-Kaminski has more than 15 years of professional experience in senior marketing communications roles in both corporate and agency positions. Her research focuses on social marketing, health communication and ethical issues associated with physician marketing. She teaches marketing, advertising and social marketing courses. Hennink-Kaminski received the 2010 Edward Vick Prize for Innovation in Teaching for her guidance of a semester-long project for her students to develop a marketing plan for poweringanation.org, UNC’s News21 project funded by the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education.

Anne Johnston is associate dean for graduate studies, overseeing the School’s master’s and Ph.D. programs. Her research interests include political communication, political advertising, women and politics, and diversity issues in the media. She is the co-author of the 2001 book, Videostyle in Presidential Campaigns: Style and Content of Televised Political Advertising. During the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, Johnston served as a member of a national consortium of scholars, researchers and students studying the communication and media used during the election. She is co-director of The Irina Project (TIP), which provides resources for the responsible and accurate reporting of sex trafficking. Johnston was selected as the 2004-2006 Julian W. Scheer Term Professor in the School for overall excellence.

Sri Kalyanaraman teaches courses in communication technology, human-computer interaction, and media effects. His research focuses on the psychology of new media and human-computer interaction, information processing of persuasive health messages, and media effects of sexual and violent content. Kalyanaraman is director of the Media Effects Laboratory in the School. His research has been funded by both government and industry and has been published in communication, health, and technology journals such as the Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journal of Advertising, Media Psychology, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, AIDS Education and Prevention, among others.

Cathy Packer’s two major research interests are reporter’s privilege law and the law governing public and media access to government information. Packer teaches media law and Internet law to undergraduate and graduate students and is a co-editor of the North Carolina Media Law Handbook, to which she contributes the chapter on access to state and local government records. Packer was honored with the 2010 David Brinkley Teaching Excellence Award for her dedication to her students – undergraduate and graduate alike. She serves as faculty director of the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy, a joint program of the J-school and the UNC School of Law. Packer also organizes UNC’s First Amendment Day, a day-long, campus-wide event that both promotes a vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus and encourages tolerance for the ideas with which one disagrees.

Laura Ruel teaches visual communication and multimedia journalism. Before coming to UNC in 2004, she was inaugural director of the Estlow Center for Journalism and New Media at the University of Denver. She is the founder of the Society for News Design's Best of Multimedia Design competition. She was project leader for the Poynter Institute's Eyetrack III research and is co-founder of DiSEL, the Digital Storytelling Effects Lab. Since 2009, she has been executive producer of the award-winning multimedia project, poweringanation.org. Before joining the academic world she worked for more than 15 years at a number of publications including the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Omaha World-Herald and the Rocky Mountain News.

Genie Tyburski is a professional researcher who has worked with law firms for more than 20 years. She founded the website, The Virtual Chase, which provided information on legal, business and public records research strategies. Tyburski has written for trade journals and newsletters such as The CyberSkeptic’s Guide to Internet Research and was featured in the book, Law of the Super Searchers: The Online Secrets of Top Legal Researchers. She is editor of Introduction to Online Legal, Regulatory & Intellectual Property, a volume in the Business Research Solution Series by South-Western Education Publishing. In conjunction with research consultant Gary Price, Tyburski created the course “Database and Web Research” for the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2004 and has taught it online every year since then.