Connecting Purposeful Storytellers
Media for Change Global Community
Media for Change is building a connected and supportive community of purposeful storytellers. As part of our Regional Resiliency Fellowship 2024, we are growing this community as a collaborative workspace on the Open Impact Coalition platform.
Both our One Water – OCEAN and WITH Festival communities are part of this effort.
Current Contributors
Sohini is a feminist researcher, multimedia storyteller, and independent journalist. Her work spans gender studies, feminist advocacy, and media culture, particularly focusing on underrepresented voices. From leading communication campaigns to curating narratives as a scriptwriter, her career has been defined by her dedication to social justice and gender equity. Sohini has contributed to platforms like Feminism In India, winning the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitive Reporting.
Abhi C.D. is an artist and filmmaker from Miami, Florida. His current practice showcases atypical cultural phenomena from his Miami upbringing and Indian heritage. He explores these cultures individually and where they strangely overlap in his personal experiences, aiming to illustrate a niche subculture within Miami’s already extremely diverse cultural landscape.
As a recent graduate of McGill University with a double degree in Economics and East Asian studies, I am proud to call myself a citizen of the world. I have already traveled to more than 35 countries, experiencing their unique cultures—with plans to visit, revisit and make documentaries in many more.
Uma Chatterjee is an assistant editor and editor based in Los Angeles, California. She began working in post production after graduating with a degree in Cinema & Media Studies and Documentary from the University of Southern California. She has worked in scripted television, reality television, commercial production, documentary, and music video spaces.
Madeleine Popkin is an interdisciplinary artist from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with a background in painting, sculpture, and performance. Her work focuses on our species' relationship to the natural environment, specifically addressing climate change through the lens of prehistory and interspecies sensory connections.
Board of Directors
Sanjeev Chatterjee is a professor, visual storyteller and mentor to numerous media makers. His award-winning documentary work has been seen internationally on National Geographic, Discovery, The History Channel, PBS, ARTE, CCTV (China) and Doordarshan (India) among others.
Chad Tingle is a Miami-based filmmaker and director with screening credits at SXSW, Aspen Shortsfest, The Miami International Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival, and the Cleveland Film Festival. He is the founder of Crown Street Films. .
Gonzalo Mejia, originally from Ecuador, is a filmmaker with an extensive list of credits which include Documentaries, Films, and Web Content. He is also an entrepreneur, having founded Bananas Films in 2004 in which they have produced media content for top brands around the world.
Sumita Chatterjee is a historian specialising in modern India and the English Caribbean, with focus on women’s work, and the role of gender, caste, race, and religious identities in the South Asian diaspora. She has a M. A. and M.Phil. in Modern Indian History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Nina Mukerjee Furstenau is a journalist, author and editor of the Food Story book series for the University of Iowa Press. She has penned award-winning books, articles and essays focused on food identity and history, and received a Fulbright-Nehru research grant in 2018-19.
is an independent filmmaker who explores avenues to use new age media to bridge the gap between alternative narratives and encourage dialogue to foster communities. Mohit has worked on various documentary projects, brand films, social impact studies, and fiction short films.
Jaswinder Bolina’s previous books include his debut essay collection Of Color (McSweeney’s 2020) and three full-length poetry collections, The 44th of July (Omnidawn 2019), Phantom Camera (New Issues Press 2013, winner of the 2012 Green Rose Prize in Poetry), and Carrier Wave (CLP 2007, winner of the 2006 Colorado Prize for Poetry).
Board of Advisors
Lucy Lehman graduated from the University of Wisconsin (BS ART, 1963) and later worked at the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Oriental Art.Â
Paul Mihailidis is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director of Media Design at Emerson College, Boston. His work straddles the fields of media literacy, civic and community engagement and activism.Â
Rick Ray graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and grew up in television . He as Chief Executive Officer and his wife, Dee as President started Raycom Inc. in 1979 and led a trend in televising college athletics on a broader basis. They have 4 children.
Rick and Dee have a history of service in their communities ,with several Universities and NGOs
Karin Wilkins is Dean of the School of Communication at the University of Miami. Before coming to UM in September, 2019 she was Associate Dean for Faculty Advancement and Strategic Initiatives with the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin.
International Advisors
Ana Laura Gamboggiâs work with institutions and organizations around the world on environmental research projects add perspective to mediaforchange.orgâs educational and research policies.Â
Chandra Shekhar Sinha joined the World Bank in 1997 and was part of the team which established carbon finance at the World Bank.Mr. Sinha has held various positions at the World Bank, including the Lead Financial Specialist for the Energy Group of the Latin America and the Caribbean, Team Leader for Operations for the Carbon Finance Business and the Fund Manager for the â¬970 million Umbrella Carbon Facility.
Gautam Bose has been making documentaries for 30 years. Also as a development communication professional, Gautam has used film to help people from diverse backgrounds communicate effectively with one another.
Girish Muzumdarâs research focuses on developing a model of care and support that favors social inclusion and allows persons with intellectual disabilities to lead the lives of their choice, expressed through the narrative function. He is an associate member of Projekt, a design lab at the University of Nimes, France.
Karen Fowler-Watt is a senior principal academic at Bournemouth University in the UK. A former senior BBC journalist, she is interested in storytelling, authorial voice, questions of ethics and reporting conflict and trauma.