PART-TIME INSTRUCTORS AND AFFILIATED PROFESSIONALS

Our part-time instructors are journalism professionals who bring a wealth of skills, knowledge and experience to the classroom.

Mike Beaudet teaches Interpreting the Day's News.  He is the award-winning investigative reporter at WFXT-TV in Boston and has worked at the television station since 1996. His reporting focuses on everything from exposing government waste and corruption to investigating organized crime in New England. Mr. Beaudet has won numerous awards, including nine Boston/New England Emmys, three Edward R. Murrow awards, along with multiple awards from the Associated Press. He graduated from Emerson College and earned his master’s degree at Northeastern University. He can be reached at m.beaudet@neu.edu.

Lisa Chedekel, an award-winning investigative journalist, teaches Journalism 2 and Writing for the Globe's "Your Town" online community news site. Ms. Chedekel was a reporter for The Hartford Courant newspaper for 15 years, covering a wide range of beats, from politics to education to column-writing to investigative reporting. In 1999, she was among a team of reporters awarded the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting. In 2002, she was among a handful of U.S. journalists who visited Saudi Arabia in the year after 9/11 to report on the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. More recently, she co-authored a series on mental health in the military that won a George Polk Award, the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, and was a 2007 finalist for the Pulitzer in Investigative Reporting. Before writing for The Courant, she was a staff writer and columnist for the New Haven Register. She now writes for Boston area and New England publications. Ms. Chedekel is a graduate of Phillips Andover and Wesleyan University. Contact her at: L.Chedekel@neu.edu.

Amelia Kunhardt teaches photojournalism. Ms. Kunhardt has worked as a newspaper photographer since 1990, and before that was a reporter. She has been on the photo staffs of the Topeka Capital-Journal (1990-1995) and the Quincy Patriot Ledger (2001-present), and has freelanced for other newspapers and the Associated Press in the U.S. and Moscow, Russia. Her work has earned awards in the Pictures of the Year International competition and regional contests. She earned a bachelor's degree in English at Bowdoin College and a master's degree in journalism at the University of Missouri. A portfolio of her work is posted at: www.ameliakunhardt.com  She can be reached by email at amelia@ameliakunhardt.com. 

Stephen Kurkjian, senior investigative fellow, retired from The Boston Globe in 2007 after nearly 40 years as a reporter and editor at paper. During his career, he was shared in the awarding of three Pulitzer Prizes to The Globe, in 1972, 1980 and 2003. He also won more than 25 regional and national awards and in 2003 was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the New England Society of Professional Journalists. A founding member of The Globe's investigative Spotlight Team as well as its editor between 1979-1986, Mr. Kurkjian was chief of The Globe's Washington Bureau between 1986 and 1991, and then senior assistant metropolitan editor until his retirement. Since retiring, Kurkjian has taught a course titled Investigative Journalism/Critical Thinking at Boston College's College of Advancing Studies, and this summer was named Senior Investigative Fellow by Northeastern University as part of an initiative, begun by Prof. Walter V. Robinson, to encourage investigative/enterprise reporting at local newspapers and websites.  A graduate of Boston public schools and Boston Latin School, Mr. Kurkjian received his Bachelor of Arts from Boston University and his law degree from Suffolk University Law School. He is a non-practicing member of the Massachusetts Bar. He can be contacted at stephenkurkjian@gmail.com.

Michele McDonald has been a photojournalist for more than 25 years. She began working as a staff photographer for the Boston Globe in 1989. She was a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 1988,  and a fellow at the  MacDowell Colony, in Peterborough, NH in 1995. In 1997, McDonald was a Pulitzer finalist for her photo essay on a young woman preparing for her death, in hospice care at home, from breast cancer.She has covered stories ranging from the high black infant mortality rate in Boston, to the effects of the war in Yugoslavia on the ordinary people of Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo.   Michele has been a judge of the Pictures of the Year photography contest at the University of Missouri three times,  and has been a faculty member, and participant at the Missouri Photo Workshop several times. 

Jean McMillan Lang teaches undergraduate journalism courses. From 1996 to  2000, she was a reporter for The Associated Press in Boston. For two years, she covered Massachusetts politics for the AP's Statehouse bureau; before that, she was a general assignment reporter, desk editor and broadcast writer. Before joining the AP, she was a reporter for The Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, MA., and Foster's Daily Democrat in Dover, N.H. She is a graduate of Boston College.  Ms. McMillan Lang can be reached at jmlclass@comcast.net. 

Tinker Ready, a long-time health reporter and freelancer, teaches Journalism 2. Her work has appeared in Nature Medicine , Fast Company magazine , The Boston Globe , The Washington Post , Parents magazine, the Los Angeles Times , The Boston Phoenix , Esquire and Utne. Ms. Ready also worked as a staff writer at newspapers in New England, Washington D.C. , Cambodia and, most recently, at The News & Observer in Raleigh , North Carolina . She is currently senior writer for the Boston Health News blog and writes a weekly blog for Mass Device.com. In addition to teaching at NU, she teaches a core writing class at the Boston University College of Communication. Ms. Ready earned her BA in women’s studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MA in journalism from Northeastern. Contact her at a .ready@neu.edu.

Robert L. Turner, co-director of the UMass Boston’s, Commonwealth Compact, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, teaches the graduate course, Public Policy and the Press.  He is also a Boston Globe Fellow at the McCormack School.  Before joining UMass, Mr. Turner was the deputy editor of the editorial page at the Boston Globe.  He has worked at the Globe since 1965 and has held various positions including, Chief Editorial Writer, Columnist, State House Bureau chief and assistant city editor. Mr. Turner was a visiting professor at Stonehill College and a study group leader at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.  He co-authored, with Charles Kenney, Dukakis: An American Odyssey, and wrote I’ll Never Lie to You: Jimmy Carter in His Own Words.  He is on the “WriteBoston” advisory board and the “We Are Boston” advisory board.  He has served on the Bench-Bar Committee, Massachusetts Bar Association, the Boston Globe Foundation Advisory Board and the Milton (MA) Library Foundation Board. He can be reached at his office, 617.287.5579.