Columbia names new Knight-Bagehot fellows

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism announced Wednesday 10 Knight-Bagehot Fellows in economics and business journalism for the 2018-2019 academic year.

They include journalists from Bloomberg, CNBC, The Denver Post, The New York Times, NPR, The (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal.

The mid-career fellowships provide full tuition and a living stipend of $60,000 for experienced journalists to take graduate courses at Columbia’s schools of Business, Law and International and Public Affairs. Fellows also attend special seminars at the Journalism School, led by scholars and business experts during the nine-month program, which begins in August. The program is open to journalists with at least four years’ experience.

“These journalists represent the best in business journalism,” said Terri Thompson, director of the program. “We look forward to welcoming them for a rigorous program of study here at Columbia.”

This year’s fellows are:

Maneet Ahuja, 33, is Senior Editor at CNBC and Co-Founder of Delivering Alpha, CNBC’s first conference initiative. Previously, as CNBC’s hedge fund specialist and a producer at “Squawk Box,” she covered high-profile stories such as Lehman Brothers’ insolvency during the financial crisis and briefed the Securities and Exchange Commission on the inner workings of the alternative investment industry. In 2012, she authored “The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World’s Top Hedge Funds” which sold 30,000 copies and was published in five languages. She began her career working on Wall Street at the age of 17 and has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors including Forbes “30 Under 30.”  Her upcoming book is “The Techtonics.”

Thanos Dimadis, 34, is a financial correspondent covering the Eurozone and U.S.-EU economic, trade and business relations for Fair Observer. He also serves as executive director and elected general secretary of the Foreign Press Association of the U.S. Since 2010, he had been covering the Eurozone financial crisis as a foreign correspondent from Washington, DC and Brussels for the broadcast media organizations SKAI TV and ALPHA TV Channels of Greece. Previously, he had been the producer and presenter of several TV news programs and documentaries in Greece, and in 2014 published “In the Daedalus of the Eurozone Crisis,” documenting his coverage. Born in Greece and raised in Brussels, he has degrees from Panteion University of Athens, City University of London, and George Washington University. 

Dor Glick, 32, is Europe correspondent based in Berlin for Channel 10 News (Israel). Currently responsible for coverage of politics, economics and culture in the sphere between London to Moscow, he began his broadcast career in 2004 during mandatory military service for Israel’s national radio network, Galei Tzahal. Before joining Channel 10 in 2015, he worked as website editor and project manager for Goethe-Institut. He has degrees from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and London School of Economics and Political Science. Glick also served as parliamentary assistant in the German Bundestag.

Jenny Gross, 30, is the U.K. politics correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, where she covers Brexit and national security. After graduating magna cum laude from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she freelanced from Johannesburg for the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.  She has also covered energy markets for Dow Jones Newswires in London. She is a recipient of an Overseas Press Club Foundation scholarship and was part of a team of reporters chosen as finalists for a Gerald Loeb Award in 2017 for coverage of Britain’s referendum on the European Union.

Kavita Kumar, 40, is national retail reporter for Star Tribune of Minneapolis, where she covers Target Corp. and Best Buy Co., two of Minnesota’s largest companies and among the biggest retailers in the U.S. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism and Brown University, she interned at NPR, Dayton Daily News and Cox Newspapers. Before moving to Minneapolis in 2014, she spent 10 years reporting for St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where she covered higher education and the retail industry.

Mark Maurer, 30, is associate web editor for The Real Deal, where he reports on New York City real estate, generating scoops on large property deals, development and financing. His reporting, which has won a total of four awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors, includes an in-depth look at the Hasidic community’s New York City real estate investments. Before joining the media company in 2013, he was a copy editor/features reporter for The Newark Star-Ledger. Previously, he was a news reporter for The Jersey Journal. As a student at Pennsylvania State University, where he earned a B.A. in Journalism, he was senior film and music critic for The Daily Collegian in State College.

Alicia Parlapiano, 32, is a graphics editor in the Washington, D.C. bureau of The New York Times. She reports, designs, writes, produces and edits print and online graphics, focusing on politics and policy coverage. Before joining the Times in 2011, she worked at The Washington Post, where she produced and coordinated graphics for the business and foreign desks. A contributor to three team portfolios winning Gerald Loeb Awards in the Images/Visuals category, she studied visual communication at UNC-Chapel Hill where she earned a B.A. from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Robert Smith, 50, is a host and correspondent for NPR’s global economics podcast, “Planet Money.” He joined NPR in 2000 as an education reporter in Seattle and moved to New York in 2003 as a national correspondent. At “Planet Money,” he served as lead editor for the program 2013-2015 and in 2017 was part of the team that won a Peabody Award for an investigation of how Wells Fargo bank was punishing whistleblowers. A graduate of Reed College, he is a regular guest lecturer at journalism schools and radio training programs.

Casey Sullivan, 30, is senior editorial director at Bloomberg Law, where he launched Big Law Business, a publishing platform that features news, commentary, video, podcasts and events covering the business of law. Before joining Bloomberg in 2015, he was a correspondent for Reuters covering U.S. law firms and the legal market. Previously, he reported for Los Angeles Daily Journal and Seacoast Media Group. The recipient of numerous awards, including 1^st place for Website of the Year in 2017 from the American Society of Business Publication Editors, he has a B.A. in English from Colby College.

Alicia Wallace, 37, is the national marijuana policy and business reporter for The Denver Post’s web vertical, The Cannabist, where she chronicles a multibillion-dollar industry enveloped in federal-state conflict, the implementation of novel state regimes, and the emergence of a federally illicit substance into mainstream marketplaces and business.  Previously, she served as the business reporter for the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colo., covering a variety of sectors, including tech, biopharma, natural products and craft beer. She received a B.S. in journalism: news-editorial with honors from the University of Colorado-Boulder.