Meet our 2022-23 school-year volunteers
This school year, 11 audio professionals are helping train and mentor The Bell’s student journalists.
Volunteer Erica Huang (standing) leads a workshop on field recording with Miseducation’s advanced reporting cohort.
Staff Report
Making a podcast can be a lonely endeavor hunched over a laptop meticulously adjusting levels, cutting tape and editing out dreaded P-pops.
Fortunately, students in the Miseducation podcast internship have company at every stage of the process.
One of the program’s hallmarks is its collaborative learning model. Students, who come from different schools and different backgrounds, receive weekly hands-on training from The Bell’s staff and teaching fellows. This year, they also have the benefit of learning directly from professionals in the field.
If you are interested in volunteering with The Bell this summer or next school year, please email mira@bellvoices.org.
Each student in the introductory track has been receiving regular feedback and coaching from a one-on-one volunteer editor since November.
This month, volunteer Erica Huang has led workshops on field recording and audio editing.
“I really would love to see a new generation of editors and post (production) people and mix engineers come into the field,” Huang said. “I feel like everyone that I've met who sort of does my job is at least a decade older, and they're all like white men.”
The students have really enjoyed learning from the pros.
“My editor gave me great ideas on how to shape my podcast,” said Miseducation intern Shoaa Khan. “She specifically wrote notes after hearing my interview, which was a great way for us to follow along together!”
See the full list of 2022-23 school-year volunteers below.
Jade Abdul-Malik believes her purpose in life is to make stories and stay curious. Based in the Atlanta area, she's currently a producer at Gimlet Media + Spotify, hunting down archival, powering through assemblies, and happily talking to people for hours. During her time at Gimlet, she's had the pleasure of mentoring and editing for The Bell's Summer Youth Podcast Academy. Before that, she pursued social services, crime and society, and disability beats at Georgia Public Broadcasting. Off the clock, she writes, walks through beautiful neighborhoods with her dog, and throws dinner parties for her friends.
Joey Fischground is a producer at Pushkin Industries. He comes to audio from a documentary filmmaking background. He got his start in LA as an intern at Radiotopia’s Mortified and Neon Hum Media. Joey spent 6 months in DC associate producing the first season of Verified, an investigative show from Stitcher and Witness Docs. He then diversified his experience freelance producing on a variety of shows. Joey moved to NYC in 2021 while freelancing with Pushkin. After spending the day in Protools, you can find him rollerblading the streets of the city, watching obscure urbanism videos, and eating falafel.
Mona Hassan is an Egyptian American podcast producer based in Brooklyn, NY. She's worked with Vox, NowThis, and Kast Media among others.
Alexis Haut is a podcast producer and consultant, writer and education consultant based in Brooklyn. She spent seven years teaching, leading teachers and coaching basketball in middle schools in Brooklyn and Newark before independently producing her first podcast series New York, I Love You But You’ve Changed in 2018. She also produced the 2019 B Free Award Winning podcast, Appropriate: Stories from the Grey Area of Consuming Culture and the show Ball is Business for iHeart Radio. She is currently a full time Senior Producer at Fortune Media.
Erica Huang is a sound designer and mix engineer based in Brooklyn. She's worked on documentary shows for PRX, Prologue Projects, CNN, LWC Media, and Spoke Media. You can hear her work here: ericahua.ng
Harry Huggins has been a producer for a wide range of shows including Freakonomics Radio, Science Rules! with Bill Nye, The Sporkful, By the Book, LeVar Burton Reads, and Atlas Obscura and helped launch Tell Me Something I Don't Know, Love To See It, This Is Critical, and two forthcoming shows including a singing competition and a news quiz. He got his MSJ from Medill in audio and social justice reporting and a BA in communication and economics from Fordham. He loves old things and is an aspiring retiree.
Alina Kulman is an associate producer at Freakonomics Radio, producing episodes on technology and the future of work. Before that, she worked at RIPR and WNYC Studios. She learned how to make audio stories with her college podcasting group, Now Here This.
Nathalia Novaes de Alcantara is a recent grad of Columbia Journalism School. She is originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and has been based in NYC for 12 years. She has a B.A. in communications and Women, Gender and Sexuality studies. She has worked as a podcast producer at The Juggernaut, and is currently producing and hosting a podcast at PodHer, a platform that empowers immigrant women. She is passionate about preventative health and wellness - She tries to inspire those around her to find more balance and purpose in what they do. As an immigrant, she believes she has learned the skills to become an excellent mentor.
Dan Rosato is an audio producer based in Brooklyn. His work spans music, audio for video and podcasting. He’s provided production support on podcasts for Spotify, the History Channel, Film Nation and Blumhouse. After over a decade working in audio, he remains in awe of the power of sound to enhance storytelling.
Blythe Terrell has been an editor at Gimlet for more than five years, working mostly on their show Science Vs. Before that she worked in print as a reporter and editor. She loves audio & how powerful it is as a connector between people.
Lauren Vespoli is a freelance journalist and producer based in Brooklyn. She's worked on documentary series for Prologue Projects and Campside Media, and her writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, New York magazine, and Vox. She's a graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies and Dartmouth College. In her downtime, you can find her biking around NYC or catching live music/comedy/theater.