Masthead

  • Moira Shourie

    Executive Director

    Moira became the executive director of Zócalo in January 2020. Previously, she was an executive at MTV Networks International, beginning as the first music programmer at MTV India. She was part of the startup team that launched Outlook, among India’s most widely read news magazines, and she worked at India Today‘s classical record label Music Today. She is a graduate of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, Emerson College, Boston, and a Sulzberger Fellow at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Moira is a board member at New America.

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  • Eryn Brown

    Editorial Director

    Eryn is a Los Angeles-based editor and writer who joined Zócalo Public Square as an editor-at-large in 2017. A former staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and at Fortune Magazine, she has covered science, health, business, and a variety of other subjects, and has written stories for the New York Times, Wired, Nature, and other outlets. She graduated from Harvard College in 1993.

  • Bianca Collins

    Director of Public Programs

    Bianca is a queer woman of color, a producer, a curator, an art consultant, a writer, and a connector. Previously, she served as editor at KCRW’s “Art Talk” during “All Things Considered” and writes a column, as the Art Minion, for Artillery magazine. Bianca has curated programs for the Fowler Museum at UCLA, NeueHouse, and FORM Arcosanti (the “Festival for the Future,” from Pitchfork). Through her work, Bianca has nurtured deep relationships in the Los Angeles art world. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California.

  • Joe Mathews

    California & Democracy Editor

    Joe was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Baltimore Sun. He is co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It and author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy. He is co-president of the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy.

  • Sara Suárez

    Senior Manager, Programming & Operations

    Sara graduated from the College of William & Mary and received her MFA at the California Institute of the Arts, where she held a postgraduate fellowship. Her work as a filmmaker has screened at festivals in the U.S. and abroad.

  • Sarah Rothbard

    Senior Editor

    Sarah has served as editor-in-chief, editor, associate publisher, and book prize editor at Zócalo. She has also worked at Center Theatre Group, Alfred A. Knopf, and W. W. Norton.

  • Jackie Mansky

    Senior Editor

    Jackie is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles. Previously a staffer at Smithsonian magazine, she holds an MA in the arts and culture concentration at Columbia Journalism School.

  • Talib Jabbar

    Associate Editor

    Talib has worked as a research associate at the Public Policy Institute of California and research assistant at the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute based in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is a doctoral candidate in literature and critical race and ethnic studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

  • Arianna Lee

    Senior Programs Coordinator

    Arianna graduated from UCLA with a BA in Art History. She received an Arts for LA ACTIVATE Fellowship in Cultural Policy in 2018 as well as a Gilman International Scholarship to study abroad in London.

  • Jer Xiong

    Editorial Assistant

    Jer was raised in Northern California, where she received her BA in English from California State University, Chico before heading to the Central Valley and getting an MFA in creative writing from California State University, Fresno. She’s a member of the Hmong American Writers’ Circle.

  • Nick Yang

    Digital Communications Coordinator

    Nick works at the intersection of design, marketing, and technology. He was raised in Stockton, California and received his BA in Global Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, he worked in digital marketing at the Coleman Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership.

  • Anna Gasparyan

    Marketing and Programming Coordinator

    Anna holds a BS in business administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, she worked in media and communications at the Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region.

  • Caroline Tracey

    Editor-at-Large

    Caroline holds a PhD in geography from the University of California, Berkeley. In fall 2021, she was writer-in-residence at Deep Springs College in eastern California. Her work as a writer focusing on the U.S. Southwest and Mexico has appeared in n+1, the Nation, SFMOMA’s Open Space, Rest of World, and elsewhere.

  • Daniela Gerson

    Editor-at-Large

    Daniela is a journalist specializing in immigration coverage and an associate professor at California State University, Northridge, with a focus on community, ethnic and participatory media. Previously she was an engagement editor at the Los Angeles Times, editor of the Alhambra Source, and she co-founded and published Migratory Notes, a pop-up immigration newsletter, with Elizabeth Aguilera.

  • Elizabeth Aguilera

    Editor-at-Large

    Elizabeth is an independent multimedia journalist focused on the intersection of policy and people around health, environmental health and social services. She has previously worked for CalMatters, Southern California Public Radio/KPCC 89.3, the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Denver Post. A graduate of the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism and Pepperdine University, she co-founded and published Migratory Notes, a pop-up immigration newsletter, with Daniela Gerson.

  • Mi-Ai Parrish

    Managing Director, ASU Media Enterprise

    Mi-Ai is managing director of ASU Media Enterprise and Sue Clark-Johnson Professor of Media Innovation and Leadership at the Cronkite School. She’s a longtime journalist and media executive, including president and publisher of USA TODAY Arizona, azcentral.com and the Arizona Republic.

  • Erin Yunt

    Associate Vice President, ASU Executive Administration

    Erin is the assistant vice president of executive administration at Arizona State University where she leads the team that manages Zócalo’s finances. She is a double Sun Devil with a BS in Business Management and a Master’s in Public Administration.

  • Suzanne Wilson

    Media Relations

    Suzanne is a communications and media strategist for ASU Media Enterprise. A two-time Sun Devil with graduate degrees from the Cronkite School and the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Suzanne joined ASU’s Media Relations and Strategic Communications team in 2017. She was also an executive producer for iHeartMedia, where she planned and managed team coverage of major news and entertainment events.

  • Connie Voisine

    Poetry Editor

    Connie is the author of five books of poems, most recently The Bower. A finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award, her poems have been published in the New Yorker, Poetry magazine, and elsewhere. A native of northern Maine, she lives and works in southern New Mexico and Chicago.

  • Joel Garcia

    Guest Contributor

    Joel (Huichol) is an Indigenous artist and cultural organizer who uses Indigenous-based frameworks to center those most impacted, and arts-based strategies such as printmaking, installations, creative action, and altar-making to raise awareness of issues facing underserved communities, youth, and other targeted populations. In various roles, he has worked with Indigenous communities across borders in support of issues of land, access, and self-determination. His work explores healing and reconciliation, as well as memory and place. He’s a former fellow of Monument Lab, and the Intercultural Leadership Institute as well as artist-in-residence at Oxy Arts and AIR (Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator).

  • Stefan G. Bucher

    Illustration Editor

    Stefan is a Los Angeles-based brand designer, illustrator, and writer. He is the author of seven books, including the best-selling 344 Questions—The Creative Person’s Do-It-Yourself Guide to Insight, Survival & Artistic Fulfillment. He was named a Young Gun by the Art Directors Club of New York and is a recipient of D&AD’s Yellow Pencil for book design.

  • Be Boggs

    Contributing Illustrator

    Be is a Los Angeles-based artist who works in animation, digital illustration, painting, woodcarving, and photography. She has had solo exhibitions at Sheila Olsen Gallery in Laguna Beach and ArtShareLA.

  • Lisa Margonelli

    Contributing Editor

    Lisa has written for publications including the Atlantic, Scientific American, and Wired and has written two books—Oil On the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank (2007) and Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology (2018). An editor at Zócalo from 2016–2020, she is now at Issues in Science and Technology.

  • Asha Rangappa

    Contributing Editor

    Asha is a senior lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and a legal and national security analyst for CNN. She is a former associate dean at Yale Law School and previously served as a special agent in the New York Division of the FBI, specializing in counterintelligence investigations.

  • Jennifer Mercieca

    Contributing Editor

    Jennifer is a historian of American political rhetoric. A professor in the department of communication at Texas A&M University, she is the author of Founding Fictions, The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations: Establishing the Obama Presidency, and Demagogue For President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump.

  • James C. Cobb

    Contributing Editor

    Jim is a Distinguished Professor in History of the American South at the University of Georgia. He has published 13 books focusing on the interaction of economy, politics, and culture in the American South. A former president of the Southern Historical Association, he was recently inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.

  • José González Vargas

    Contributing Editor

    José is a Venezuelan journalist and writer. Formerly a professor at Universidad Bicentenaria de Aragua, he has contributed to Americas QuarterlyIntoCaracas Chronicles, and ViceVersa Magazine. His literary work, written in Spanish and English, has been published by Strange HorizonsLetralia, and Fireside Quarterly. In 2017, he won the Solsticios Prize, Venezuela’s top science fiction and fantasy award, for his short story “E Pluribus Unum.”

  • Derek Mong

    Contributing Editor

    Derek Mong is the author of three books of poetry—The Identity ThiefOther Romes, and The Ego and the Empiricist—and a collaborative translation, The Joyous Science: Selected Poems of Maxim Amelin (with Anne O. Fisher). His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Kenyon Review. He is an associate professor of English at Wabash College.

Contributors

  • JOE MCGARRY
    WEBMASTER
  • KELLY DELAY
    AUDIO & VIDEO
  • AARON SALCIDO
    PHOTOGRAPHER
  • SUBTRACTIVE INC.
    AUDIO & VIDEO