Meet the Team

Charlotte Boutboul
Project Manager, Editor, Video Producer "Becoming a Dish"
Dream Job: Editor, writer

Charlotte is half French half Swedish and has lived in Paris, Stockholm, London and Karachi. She is a contributor to the French online magazine Luxsure, and has worked for the contemporary art department of the auction house Artcurial. Her love for art, literature, and cinema brought her to New York and NYU's cultural reporting and criticism program.  Her most French feature is her facility to detect controversy in everything, while the most Swedish is being able to assemble an Ikea bed on her own.

"The Incredible journey of Nachos" is a light project whose design is to reveal through the apparent triviality of Nachos the subtle intricacies and cultural diversity inherent to cuisine at large.

Joanna Bouras
Web Producer, Borderlands                                                                                          Dream Job: On-Air Reporter, Producer
Joanna is from Boston, MA. She is 100 percent Greek but most people assume she is Irish because of her vibrant red hair. Standing at a petite 5-foot-2 she is very ambitious and when pursuing a story will not leave any stone unturned. She is a multimedia journalist, but her passion is with broadcast. She thrives on hard-hitting stories that cause the audience to think and react. She has interned for six semesters for a variety of companies and mediums. She has a BA in English with a minor in journalism from Wheaton College and a MS in Journalism from New York University. She has spent the last year interning at CBS News in New York conducting interviews on red carpets, for consumer stories, feature, and more.

As a member of the "Borderlands" project she wanted to bring to light the difficulties for transgender people to leave their countries and come into the United States to achieve asylum. Joanna currently lives in New York City.

Christina Dun
Video Producer "From Russia with Hate" and "Becoming A Dish"
Dream Job: On-camera entertainment host

Christina is originally from Vancouver, British Columbia.  She thrives off of positive vibes, laughs a lot and is a huge fan of bacon. She is currently interning with the video department at Refinery29. Like most Canadians, she is friendly and sometimes says eh. As a curious journalist and passionate storyteller, she helped produce two very different projects.

"From Russia with Hate" is a glimpse into the lives of two men who fled their home country to find a better life in New York, away from the harsh discrimination against the LGBT community. "Becoming A Dish" focuses on the evolution of nachos and takes a look at how the culture of food changes.

Megan Jamerson
Video Producer, Editor "Foreign Patriots", Web Producer
Dream Job: National Geographic Photojournalist

Megan Jamerson is an eleventh generation Californian who decided to take a break from the sunshine and traffic and move to New York City. Prior to the big move, Megan was a professional pole vaulter and had the good fortune to compete at an elite level internationally and even try out for the U.S. Olympic team. Her interest in journalism began during her time working as a sound engineer and reporter for a community supported radio station in Laguna Beach, California. Nowadays she is happiest with camera in hand.

Megan joined the "Foreign Patriots" team because of her interest in exploring cultural identities.

Jon Leckie
Video Producer, Reporter, Writer "Foreign Patriots"
Dream Job: Sailboat captain

Jon's maternal grandmother, Eleanor Strandburg, was one of the half million
immigrants shuffled through Ellis Island in 1921. She eventually settled in
Brooklyn's Bay Ridge neighborhood, where she would raise a family of seven
children. Of her four sons, three would serve in the United States military, fighting in both Korea and Vietnam. Her eldest son, Tommy Brooks, served two tours in Vietnam as a member of the 101st Screaming Eagles' Long Range Patrol Airborne Division, described by Kenn Miller in his book "Six Silent Men" as "a scruffy crew of cocky scofflaws. Perhaps the finest maneuver element of its size in the history of the United States Army." His service earned him numerous decorations for valor, including the Purple Heart.

"Foreign Patriots" is dedicated to the selfless service of Tommy, Dennis and George.

Travis Mannon
Web developer
Dream Job: Running my own digital media company

Travis's family came over from England just a few short years after the Mayflower, making him an eleventh generation American on his dad's side. Travis's great grandmother on her mother's side fled to the United States from Romania to escape the rise of Third Reich. The rest of her family was not so lucky and never made it out of the concentration camps. Travis was born and raised in Los Angeles and moved to New York in 2012 to pursue a career in journalism. He now takes great pride when people tell him, "You don't seem like you're from LA," because it's usually meant as a compliment.

Ellie Miao
Project Manager; Video Producer "Foreign Patriots"
Dream Job: Sleep-deprived breaking news reporter

Someone from China. "Ellie" is her Sasha Fierce, with an almost Americanized smile concealing her true identity–Rui, a dark hair, slim-eyed girl who travels to Flushing twice a week and may have chicken feet in her lunch box. Her Chinese roots also guided her to find a balance of Yin and Yang in almost everything, for example she thinks Giant Pandas are the most perfect creatures in the world; zebras also ease her OCD.

Ellie chose to work on the "Foreign Patriots" team because she is fascinated by and curious about the idea of fighting for a country of choice.

Neil Giardiono
Producer "Borderlands", Web Producer

Neil Giardino is a third generation Italian American from Rochester, New
York. Neil's family comes from Sicily, where his great grandfather was a
sponge diver in the ancient Sicilian port city of Gela before stowing away
on a New York City-bound freighter. Neil worked in public radio in Seattle before returning to New York to pursue a masters in journalism. His Italian celebrity lookalike is Robert DeNiro circa 1976.

He chose to co-report on "Borderlands" because of his interest in Latino and immigration issues.

Raz Robinson
Creative Development, Video Producer on "Becoming a Dish"
Dream Job: Something that involves music, multimedia journalism, and lots of sleep.

Raz's family comes from Jamaica, making him a first generation American. The lineage of his family can be traced all the way to his great-great-great grandfather (on mom's side) who came to Jamaica from Ireland. Having spent ages 13 to 14 in LA and 15 to 23 in Philadelphia, he's some juxtaposition of completely unbothered and annoyed all the time; mostly unbothered, but life you know?

Raz chose to talk about how a dish changes cause tracking that kind of change is exciting and it was a good reason to eat nachos and stare at good food.

Jane Zolkina
Project Manager, Video Producer "From Russia with Hate"
Dream Job: The TV Queen
Jane (her real name is Evgeniya) is 100 percent Russian. She arrived from
Siberia six and half years ago to conquer the world of serious television. She is
interning on CNN now. But in her heart she is all about good news and yoga asanas. Being a Russian, she is honest, sometimes too straightforward and super sarcastic. It took her three years to start saying "Thank you" and "Please"
casually. Even though she loves New York, Russia is always in her heart.

"From Russia With Hate" project is meant to show the insider look at Russian anti-gay propaganda and reasons why so many young people leave their motherland and seek asylum in the U.S.

Copyright 2015 NYU Arthur L. Carter Institute

Creative Commons credits: Nathan Driskell (shield icon), Claire Jones (chips icon), Guilherme Furtado (transgender icon), Andrey Vasiliev (doll icon), D.A.V Productions (music)

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