Class Notes

As vice president of marketing at Match Media Group, Vicki Shapiro (Comm) works with leading brands to bring their messaging to a portfolio of dating apps, including Tinder, OK Cupid and Match. With more than 15 years of experience developing marketing programs, Vicki oversees the creative and research teams to support the sales staff worldwide. She previously worked as vice president of digital for the sports division at Madison Square Garden. Vicki lives in New York City.

Bill Shander (MJour) has been in information design and data visualization for 25 years. In addition to working with clients through his company, Beehive Media, he teaches data storytelling and visualization workshops
for organizations around the world, including the U.S. government, Starbucks, the International Monetary Fund and others. All of his journalism skills are put “to good use in my work on a regular basis,” he says.

Fields Moseley (Jour) is communications director for Maricopa County in Arizona, where his team manages media relations, marketing and internal communications. During the COVID-19 pandemic he led the county’s Joint Information Center. Before joining the county in 2015, Fields spent two decades as a broadcast reporter and anchor across the country, including in the Phoenix and Salt Lake City markets. Fields and his family live in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Angela Johnson (Jour) is the senior vice president of national publicity at Fox Searchlight Pictures, where she has overseen publicity and awards campaigns for Academy Award Best Picture winners Slumdog Millionaire, Birdman and The Shape of Water. Previously, she managed releases and campaigns for Lost in Translation, The Pianist and Traffic at Focus Features/USA Films, and for The Shawshank Redemption at Castle Rock Entertainment. She is a member of The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

Katherine Wegher Haney (Comm) is the public affairs director for North Carolina’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission. When she is not spending time with her husband, two daughters and miniature dachshund, she volunteers for a nonprofit working to prevent congenital diaphragmatic hernias.

Megan Garcia (Jour) has worked for Chevron in San Francisco for more than a decade. She is a communications advisor for the company’s digital transformation program. 

Doug Claussen (MJour) is the founder, publisher and editor of the I-70 Scout & Eastern Colorado News. The publication, established in 1994, covers news on the Eastern Plains of Colorado, including the towns of Watkins, Bennett, Strasburg, Byers, Deer Trail and Agate. In October 2019, Doug celebrated his 25th anniversary with the publication. 

Nancy Benfield Connery (Comm) splits her time between California and Colorado. Connery works with CU Athletics and, through her startup OpenComp, she and her team seek to break the cycle of workplace inequities relating to gender and pay. When not working, Connery can be found hiking, skiing or traveling with her husband, two young adult daughters and their golden retrievers.

Jennifer Alsever (Jour), a business journalist and author based in Eagle, Colorado, released her latest young adult novel, Burying Eva Flores, a paranormal mystery set in Paonia. This is the fifth novel published by Alsever since 2016. When the Coloradan magazine published news about her first trilogy, the Trinity Forest Series, several years ago, L.A.-based film producer Matthew Moore (Engl’93) reached out and they began collaborating on adapting her stories for the big screen. Alsever credits her son, Jacob Beauprez (ExMediaSt’24), with pushing her to write fiction.

Kris Hudson (Jour) is a director of communications in Dallas for the commercial real estate services company CBRE. She joined CBRE in 2015 after a 20-year journalism career that included 10 years at The Wall Street Journal and five years at The Denver Post.

Dan Pacheco (Jour) is beginning his 11th year as the Peter A. Horvitz Endowed Chair in Journalism Innovation at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He is working on his first book, Experimenting With Emerging Media Platforms: Field Testing the Future, for publication by Routledge in 2023.

Michael Davies (Jour’94) spoke with CMCI students before a Buffs game to share his experiences as a senior vice president with FOX Sports. His team was setting up for the Big Noon Kickoff broadcast. 

Jill Painter Lopez (Jour) was recognized as the 2019 Southern California Sports Broadcasters (SCSB) reporter of the year for her reporting on the Los Angeles Angels and Anaheim Ducks for Fox Sports West. She shared the award with Alanna Rizzo (IntBus’97; MJour’03), who covers the Dodgers for SportsNet LA.

Jennifer (Pollice) Darrow (Jour) works for Denver- based production company Citizen Pictures. She is an executive producer on Food Network’s hit series Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and has received four Emmy nominations since working on the show.

Jennifer Alsever (Jour) has spent two decades building a career in journalism. She's worked for The Denver Post and worked as a freelance writer for Fortune magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Inc. magazine, Wired and Fast Company. In 2017, she also plunged into fiction, releasing the first two novels in a young adult trilogy called The Trinity Forest Series. Jennifer lives in the mountains just outside of Vail and enjoys reading, writing mountain biking skiing and yoga. 

Benilda Samuels (MJour) has been promoted to chief operating officer of Nurse-Family Partnership, a national program that serves first-time mothers and their children. 

Award-winning producer and voice actor David Vincent (Jour) is known for voicing hundreds of characters in animation and video games such as Super Smash Bros. and Street Fighter. David is co-founder and CEO of iOS app Unlocked—the pop culture streaming network, putting fans and celebrities together. David lives in Los Angeles and travels the world greeting fans at comic and Japanese animation conventions. He returned to Denver for Colorado Anime Fest in spring 2018.

David Vincent (Jour) is an entrepreneur and 20-year veteran of the entertainment industry. Known for voicing hundreds of characters in popular animation and video games, he’s also an award-winning producer. After years of signing autographs, Vincent founded Streamily, a platform that allows fans to watch celebrities sign a personalized autograph on any livestream platform, and have it delivered to their door. 

Sam Flickinger (Jour) is approaching 14 years at ExpertVoice in Salt Lake City, a software as a service company focused on brand advocacy, retail training, generating helpful product reviews and more. After spending more than a decade in print media, today he is a digital storyteller and editor who chronicles the adventures of the organization’s members and connects them with their 500+ brand partners in a verified community of experts online.

Jeff Tahler (Comm) is the managing director at Madica Productions. Madica's hit Netflix series Ginny and Georgia is in production for its second season. The company’s YouTube series Brave Mission amassed more than 4.5 million views in the first month of its release.