Meet your 2024 instructors and staff.
Sherrod Blakely, Instructor
On Campus: Sherrod Blakely is a Lecturer at Boston University’s College of Communication with a concentration on sports journalism, multi-media reporting and podcasting. Blakely is also an NBA writer for Bleacher Report along with being an NBA columnist for Ebony.com and Bet.com. Blakely is also the creator and co-host of The A-List Podcast with Kwani Lunis and Gary Washburn, nominated for Best Basketball podcast in 2023.
A graduate of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Communications, Blakely spent 10 years as the first Boston Celtics Insider for NBC Sports Boston and was awarded Boston.com’s “A-List Celtics Reporter of the Year” in 2011. Blakely previously covered the Detroit Pistons for the award-winning Mlive.com website, and earlier covered ACC football and men’s basketball for the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer. Away from class, Blakely is the Chair of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Sports Task Force and Chair of the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) Diversity Committee.
Jan Brogan, Instructor
On Campus: Jan Brogan is the author of the book, Combat Zone: Murder, Race and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, an examination of a 1976 murder of a Harvard football player and its impact on the city and the criminal justice system. She’s worked as a reporter at The Boston Globe, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and The Providence Journal, where she won the Gerald Loeb award, the most prestigious national award for business journalism. Her freelance magazine work has been published in Boston Magazine, The Improper Bostonian, Technology Illustrated, Forbes Magazine, Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal.
She is also the author of four published murder mysteries and sold the rights to “A Confidential Source” to Steven Soderbergh for development into a television series. She is an alumna of Boston University’s College of Communication and the University of Massachusetts, where she earned a master’s degree in English. In 2020, she was named an outstanding educator by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program.
Stephen Haines, Instructor (Photojournalism)
On Campus (Photojournalism): Haines, a veteran photojournalist and a lecturer at Boston University, leads the photojournalism track at the Summer Journalism Institute. He spent most of his career at The Boston Globe where he worked as a staff photographer, assignment and photo editor. As a freelancer, his work now includes both still and video projects.
Haines is passionate about photography, seeing it as a universal language that helps people better understand and connect to one another. He has taught at Boston University for 14 years where he concentrates on the creative controls of photography, teaching students to take powerful, storytelling photos from which readers can learn.
Pacinthe Mattar, Instructor
Learn-from-Home: Pacinthe Mattar is an Egyptian-Canadian journalist, writer and producer. She was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and raised between Toronto, Saudi Arabia and Dubai. She spent ten years at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), where she was a long-time radio producer on The Current. Much of her coverage focused on race & racism, police brutality, the Arab Spring, migration and refugees, pop culture, and more. She has taught writing and journalism at Harvard, Boston University and Western University.
In 2020, her feature essay in The Walrus magazine “Objectivity is a Privilege Afforded to White Journalists” won a National Magazine Award in 2021 and a Canadian Online Publishing Award in 2022. She was a 2021/22 Nieman Foundation for Journalism Fellow at Harvard University and the 2023 Asper Fellow in Media at Western University in London, Ontario.
Lara Salahi, Instructor
On Campus / Learn-from-Home: Lara Salahi is an award-winning health journalist, author, and distinguished professor of journalism at Endicott College. She is a regular contributor to local, national, and international digital news outlets, as well as network and cable television. Her book, Outbreak Culture: The Ebola Crisis and the Next Epidemic, critically examines the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak to date and the fractured system of global outbreak response. Lara was awarded a Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship in 2021 to report on suicide and the science of resilience in the U.S. Army National Guard; her 3-part investigative series was published in 2023 in the award-winning publication, The War Horse.
Lara received a dual undergraduate degree in Broadcast Journalism and International Relations and a minor in French from Boston University, a master’s degree in Health Communication from Emerson College, and a doctorate in Education from Regis College.
Stephanie Schorow
On Campus: Stephanie Schorow is an award-winning reporter and editor, college writing instructor, and the author or co-author of nine nonfiction books on topics such as fires, crime, and sexual politics. She has worked as a journalist since graduating from Northwestern University in the dark days before the Internet; she has been an editor, reporter and/or freelance correspondent for the Boston Herald, the Associated Press, The Boston Globe, and newspapers in Missouri, Idaho, Utah, and Connecticut. She began teaching writing in BU’s College of Communication in fall 2023 and has taught at Lasell University, Regis College, and Emerson.
Her nonfiction books include: The Cocoanut Grove Nightclub Fire; A Boston Harbor Adventure: The Great Brewster Journal of 1891; The Great Boston Fire: The Inferno that Nearly Incinerated the City; Inside the Combat Zone: The Stripped Down Story of Boston’s Most Notorious Neighborhood; The Crime of the Century; and East of Boston: Notes from the Harbor Islands. Her first novel, Cat Dreaming, set in the newspaper world of the 1980s, was published in November 2023 by Small Town Girl Publishing. She has a master’s degree from NYU.
Rochelle Sharpe, Instructor
On Campus / Learn-from-Home: Rochelle Sharpe is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with more than 30 years of experience. Now a freelance writer in Brookline, MA, Rochelle focuses on public health and education issues. Her freelance work has appeared in such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, and Prevention. Earlier in her career, she worked as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and USA Today. A pioneer in computer-assisted reporting, Rochelle has written many investigative articles, some of which have been discussed at Congressional hearings as well as on Oprah and the David Letterman show. She also has worked as a journalism professor, editor, and writing coach.
Born and raised in Gary, Indiana, Rochelle graduated with honors from Yale University.. In 2012-2013, she was a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT, where she studied the intersection of health and technology. She lives in Brookline with her husband and two daughters.
Kenny Daniels, Program Coordinator
Hi! My name is Kenny Daniels (he/him), I am a rising junior majoring in political science and philosophy and minoring in sociology. I am excited to be a member of the program staff this summer because I love introducing people to Boston and showing them around! I especially enjoy showing people around the many art museums in the city. A fun fact about me is that I love collecting postcards from places I’ve visited.
Murielle Codjia, Program Assistant
Hi, my name is Murielle Codjia! I’m a rising Sophomore in Sargent, and I’m beyond excited to be a program staff this summer. In particular, I look forward to fostering a creative environment where young individuals interested in journalism can hone their skills and share their stories. My passion for storytelling through photography drives me to motivate and mentor aspiring journalists. I can’t wait for an exciting and productive summer, and I look forward to meeting everyone!
Corinne Davidson, Program Assistant
Corinne Davidson is a rising junior at BU. She is a journalism major with a minor in sociology and is the incoming Lifestyle Editor for the Daily Free Press. Corinne is from the San Francisco Bay Area and even though Boston is far different from California, she still loves it just the same. In her free time, Corinne likes going on adventures with her friends, photography, crocheting, journaling, making hyper-specific Spotify playlists, and wandering around the city.
Esmeralda Moran, Program Assistant
Esmeralda Moran is a senior studying Journalism at Boston University. She is a first-generation Dominican-American and the first in her family to attend a university. She aspires to spread her love for writing through pursuing magazine writing. She is excited to join the program to provide a positive experience in what it means to be a journalist as well as sharing the experiences and opportunities Boston has given her.
Maria Pemberton, Program Assistant
My name is Maria Pemberton and I am a program assistant for Boston University’s 2024 Summer Journalism Academy! I am currently a sophomore at BU majoring in journalism. On campus, I am a political correspondent for BUTV’s live morning show Good Morning BU, a political reporter for BU News Service, and a crew member for BUTV’s news show The Wire. For fun, I love grabbing food with friends, shopping on Newbury, and reviewing movies on Letterboxd. I look forward to meeting this year’s attendees and making lots of memories! I am beyond excited to help students navigate their paths in journalism, whether they want to write the Boston Globe’s biggest headline, report CNN’s top-of-the-hour story, or take TIME’s photo of the year. I can’t wait to advise and support the students of BUSJ as they develop their reporting skills!
Samuel “Sam” Seminatore, Program Assistant
Hi everyone, my name is Sam Seminatore and I’ll be one of your Program Assistants this summer! I am a rising senior in the Questrom School of Business concentrating in Business Law, and plan on applying to law schools this upcoming fall. I am from Lunenburg, MA which is just about an hour away from the city and loved coming into Boston growing up to catch Red Sox games, walk around, and learn more about Boston’s history and culture. I have a lot of experience working with high school students as a basketball coach and trainer and I’m looking forward to meeting and getting to know you all!