People
Core Team
Serdar Tumgoren, Project Lead
Serdar Tumgoren is a data journalist at the Associated Press, where he works on newsroom tools and data projects. He previously worked at The Washington Post and Congressional Quarterly, where he focused on political and election-related data and Web applications. Prior to becoming a full-time data geek, he worked as a local government reporter in Connecticut, California and New Jersey. He lives with his wife and son in San Francisco.
@zstumgoren
Derek Willis, Project Lead
Derek Willis is an interactive developer with The New York Times, working mainly on political and election-related applications. He maintains The Times’ congressional and campaign finance data and contributes to other projects. Willis has worked at The Washington Post, The Center for Public Integrity, Congressional Quarterly and The Palm Beach Post. He lives in Silver Spring, Md., with his wife and daughter. More at blog.thescoop.org.
@derekwillis
Sara Schnadt, Project Manager
Sara Schnadt is a technology project developer, information architect, data visualization designer and new media artist. She has worked as Director of Communications and Outreach at 18th Street Arts Center in Los Angeles, and co-founder and Chief Technologist for the Chicago Artists Resource (CAR) website at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. At CAR she oversaw software design and development, content design and management and a large online community of contributors. More on her art at saraschnadt.com.
@SaraSchnadt
Geoff Hing, Developer
Geoff Hing is a technologist and cultural worker who lives in Chicago. He works developing technologies that intersect with community information needs, civic data and participatory governance. His work reflects connections with engineering, journalism and do-it-yourself culture. He joins OpenElections from recent work for Floodlight Project and The Work Department. In the past he has done data-driven technology projects with Food Genius and Metro Chicago Information Center.
@geoffhingVolunteers
Aaron Bycoffe Bycoffe is the data editor at The Huffington Post. He was previously a developer at the Sunlight Foundation, the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., and the Daily Press in Newport News, Va. @bycoffe
Christopher Chang is a developer at the Texas Tribune. Originally from Houston, he studied electrical engineering and solid state electronics at the University of Texas at Austin. Afterwards, he worked at Synthetic Pictures; specializing in post production, and wrote several web apps before joining the Texas Tribune.
Alex Duner is a freshman at Northwestern University studying journalism and computer science and is a student fellow at Northwestern's Knight Lab. He is a technophile, news junkie, design enthusiast, policy wonk, and an avid reader. He also creates digital artworks which can be seen at dunerart.com. @asduner
Jacob Fenton is the Editorial Engineer at The Sunlight Foundation. Previously he was Director of Computer-Assisted Reporting at American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop, and Database Editor at The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.). He’s also worked as a newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania and as a software developer in California.
Sandra Fish is an experienced independent journalist based in Boulder, Colorado, specializing in politics, government and data reporting. @fishnette
Nolan Hicks is a reporter on the San Antonio Express-News' business desk, covering CPS Energy (formerly known as City Public Service) and technology. He previously covered local government for the paper and started with Hearst as an intern in the Austin bureau. @ndhapple
Dan Hill builds data interactives and maintains the massive Texas Tribune government salaries database. He grew up in Sacramento, studied journalism and computer science at Northwestern University, and contributed to data projects as an intern at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. @DanHillReports
Coulter Jones is a Data Reporter at WNYC, focusing on investigative reporting and data analysis in news coverage. He works on the data backend and crafting stories for Schoolbook, on Data News investigations and features. Before joining WNYC, he was an investigative reporter specializing in data analysis at The Center for Investigative Reporting. @coulterjones
Joanna Kao is an interactive developer and reporter at Al Jazeera America and an MIT 2013 graduate in Electrical Engineering with Computer Science, with a minor in writing. She aims to tell compelling stories through creating innovative interactives and visualizations by combining strengths in computer science, design and journalism. @joannaskao
Tom Meagher is the data editor for Digital First Media, the nation’s second-largest newspaper company, with more than 75 daily papers. His team builds interactive news applications and supports data reporting projects in local newsrooms across the country. Tom is also the co-founder of Hack Jersey, dedicated to bringing journalists and developers to work together in the Garden State. @ultracasual
Eric Mill builds software, writes on tech policy, and helps manage the Sunlight Foundation’s international program. His projects at Sunlight include Congress API, its government search and alert system Scout, and a Congress app for Android phones. He also leads Sunlight’s involvement in many of the projects at github.com/unitedstates. @konklone
David Morton is a reporter, musician and programmer from Chattanooga, Tenn. He covers local government for Nooga.com, an online news site, and is heading research for Chattizen, a local citizens' guide backed by the Knight Foundation. In his spare time, he writes Ruby, JavaScript and Objective-C. @itypewords
Justin Myers is a developer on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s data and interactives team. Before working at the Chronicle, he built 2012 election results maps for the PBS NewsHour. When he isn’t making things out of code or wire, he’s probably making them out of flour instead. @myersjustinc
Alan Palazzolo is an interactive developer at MinnPost focused on open source software, data visualization, and mapping. Before joining MinnPost, he was an inaugural Code for America fellow in 2011. He has also worked in the nonprofit and NGO sectors, both at home and abroad for more than 7 years. He is an active contributor to the Drupal community and other open source projects. @zzolo
Pam Selle is a software developer in Philadelphia, PA with a passion for open data and open standards. Besides her day job, she also speaks and writes on technical topics, with a blog at thewebivore.com. @pamasaur
Suyeon Son is a journalist interested in exploring new technologies and media tools to tell data-based stories of social and criminal justice. She is currently an undergraduate fellow at Northwestern University's Knight Lab. @suyeon_son
Aaron Strauss is a freelance political data consultant in Washington, DC. He currently consults for Google on civic information, and recently his Election Day resource calculator was highlighted in the Presidential Commission on Election Administration’s report. He has a PhD in political science from Princeton. @aaron_strauss
David Tonyan is a fertilizer markets reporter at ICIS, based in Houston, TX. He previously interned with Crain's Chicago Business and graduated from the Medill School of Jounalism MSJ program in 2012. He previously worked in analytics at Epic Systems. @dton87
Curt Woodward is Senior Editor at Xconomy, where he covers technology and innovation in the Boston area. He has also worked in their Seattle bureau and continues to cove some Seattle tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft. Previously, he worked on three states for The Associated Press, covering business, law, politics, government, and general mayhem. @curtwoodward