Star-Tribune biz reporter Kumar is now community engagement director

Kavita Kumar

Minneapolis Star-Tribune economics reporter Kavita Kumar has been named the paper’s community engagement director.

In her new role, Kumar will lead the effort to solicit and feature commentary pieces and content from Minnesotans across the geographic, demographic and political spectrum. Kumar also will serve as a voice for the community in the Star Tribune’s opinion journalism.

She has been covering the economy, financial services and manufacturing reports. She previously covered retail but then spent a year as a Knight-Bagehot fellow at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

She has been at the paper since May 2013, and previously worked as a retail and consumer affairs reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.