Lauren serves as associate regional editor for several Patch.com sites in the near-west Chicago suburbs. She came to Patch from InsideCounsel, a legal magazine where she worked as managing editor. She was awarded Folio Magazine's 2011 Bronze Eddie Award for business reporting for her story "Mind the Gap: Generation Y Enters the Workplace." She has a master's in Journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Post-graduation, she completed a three-month investigative reporting fellowship through the Carnegie-Knight News21 Initiative. She spent the summer reporting on the environmental, political and economic implications of a controversial industrial dairy farm under construction in northwest Illinois. Prior to graduate school, she worked as assistant director of undergraduate admission at Northwestern. She has a bachelor's degree in performance studies from Northwestern's School of Communication.

Angela Sykora is a staff editor for the following Patch sites: Grayslake, Libertyville, Vernon Hills, Lake Forest-Lake Bluff, Highland Park and Deerfield.

She was a staff writer for Pioneer Press/Sun-Times Media for 10 years. Angela was also a reporter at the former Lakeland Newspapers in Grayslake and she has freelanced for Patch and Shaw Suburban Media.

She may be reached at angela.sykora@patch.com and (847) 643-6001.

I spent seven years covering state and local politics for daily newspapers in eastern North Carolina. I cut my teeth reporting on municipal and county government at The Daily Southerner before quickly moving on to start a new political beat at The Wilson Daily Times.

In addition to politics, I wrote feature articles about numerous subjects, but many pertained to local history. I wrote about eastern North Carolina during the pre-colonial period -- exploring the countryside with a local archaeologist for signs of Native American settlements -- during the revolutionary period as well as the Civil War period. I also interviewed several World War II veterans for a living history project.

I left journalism and North Carolina in the summer of 2007 to move to DuPage County, Illinois to try my hand at corporate writing. Caught up in a round of layofffs I decided to return to the profession I love. I now work as a freelance journalist writing for multiple Chicagoland publications and Web sites.

Suzy Chudzik has lived in Woodridge for 15 years. When she is not writing for Patch she is hockey mom, softball mom, theater mom and volleyball mom. While most of her free time is spent chauffering her 4 kids (13 and 10 year old triplets) all over creation, her real-life driving skills have yet to help her reach the ultimate - beating her kids on Wii Mario Kart!

Email: Jessica.Rosenberg@Patch.com
Phone: 630-776-4234
Hometown: Hinsdale
Birthday: May 8

Bio: Jessica Rosenberg is a Hinsdale native who, after graduating from Hinsdale Central High School, spent several years living and studying in upstate New York, Mexico, Canada and Ecuador. She earned a Masters Degree in journalism from Columbia College Chicago and went on to publish articles in the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, Chicago Innerview, La Raza and ChicagoTalks.org. Jessica's broadcast experience includes producing TV and radio programs aired on CAN TV and WNUA 95.5 for the Community Media Workshop. Most recently, Jessica came from CAN TV where she produced live programs and wrote content for Chicago's diverse nonprofit community.

Phil Meyer is Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame in Journalism in the spring of 2008.  He joined the Journalism School in 1981 and served as Knight Chair in Journalism Professor from 1993-2008.  Prior to joining the school, he held a number of reporter and research positions at various media outlets. 

He has won numerous awards including the 2005 Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for Research About Journalism (with Scott Maier). He was named a Fellow of Society of Professional Journalists in 2005. In 2004, the Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication gave him its Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award. And in 2000 he received the American Association for Public Opinion Research Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement.

Meyer is the author of several books including The Vanishing Newspaper:  Saving Journalism in the Information Age and Precision Journalism:  A Reporter’s Introduction to Social Science Methods.  Journalism Quarterly in 2000 listed this book as one of the 35 significant books of the 20th century in journalism and mass communication; and the American Association for Public Opinion Research, observing its 50th anniversary in 1996, listed it as one of 50 significant books on public opinion research.

He received his B.S. in technical journalism from Kansas State University and his M.A. in political science from the University of North Carolina.

Steven Berlin Johnson is a pioneer in the web world, as a co-founder of FEED, Plastic.com, and Outside.in, which was acquired by Patch in March of 2011. He also co-created Findings.com, which launched in late 2011. Steven was the 2009 Hearst New Media Professional-in-Residence at The Journalism School at Columbia University, and served for several years as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU’s Journalism School. He is a bestselling author of seven books, and won acclaim and a Newhouse School Mirror Award for his 2010 Time Magazine cover story, "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live." 

Speaking of Steven's editorial prowess, check out this video based on Steven's book, Where Good Ideas Come From, which was named one of the best books of 2010 by The Economist.

Brian was Editor-in-Chief of Time Out New York magazine before coming to Patch. Before that he worked for a variety of publications both online and off, including Details magazine, New York Magazine, and the old, dearly departed Sidewalk.com. He has written for numerous publications, from the New York Times magazine to Harper's Bazaar. He graduated from Bowdoin College and got an MFA in creative writing at Columbia University so he could put his novel in a drawer with distinction. He lives in Manhattan with his beautiful wife, adorable son, angelic daughter and the world's most dog-like cat. He’s proud as hell of what the Patch team has built.

Ken Paulson is president and chief executive officer of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University and in Washington, D.C.

Previously, Paulson served as the editor and senior vice president/news of USA Today.  He is now a columnist on USA Today’s board of contributors, writing about First Amendment issues and the news media.

Throughout his career, Paulson has drawn on his background as both a journalist and lawyer, serving as the editor or managing editor of newspapers in five different states.

He also is past-president of the American Society of News Editors, the nation’s largest organization of news media leaders.

Paulson also was the host of the Emmy-honored television program “Speaking Freely,” seen in more than 60 PBS markets nationwide over five seasons, and the author of "Freedom Sings," a multimedia stage show celebrating the First Amendment that continues to tour the nation's campuses.  

He was an early advocate of making newspaper content available online, launching online newspapers in both Florida and New York in 1993.

For 12 years, Paulson was a regular guest lecturer at the American Press Institute, speaking to more than 5,000 journalists about First Amendment issues. He was honored with the API Lifetime Service Award. In 2010 and 2011, he served as chair of the PBS Editorial Standards Review Committee.

In 2007, Paulson was named fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, “the highest honor SPJ bestows upon a journalist for extraordinary contributions to the profession.” In 2008, he  received the Robert S. Abbott Memorial Award for Meritorious Service in Mass Communications from the Southern Regional Press Institute. He has also been elected to the Illini Publishing Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois.

He is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law and the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He also has served as an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University Law School. In 2008, he received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from American University.