Kerri Abrams is a senior designer at The Dallas Morning News where she is designer/art director of the monthly magazine F!D Luxe. She has been part of new product development for projects over the years. In her 10 years of designing, she has been features editor at Sun Publications in Chicago and The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, Ariz. She is the winner of several awards from SND and Print magazine.

Staci Andrews is a features designer at The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio. Before she was a features designer she was assistant sports editor for design. She has worked at The Times Picayune (New Orleans) and The Cincinnati Enquirer where she designed for the features, news and sports departments.

Ramachandra Babu is senior illustrator and feature page designer at the Gulf News, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. After a career in advertising, he moved to Dubai in 1996 to work as an illustrator and designer at the Daily Al Bayan, an Arabic daily in the UAE, then art director of Your Health magazine in Dubai. He has won several awards, including a Silver Medal from SND.

Reagan Branham has worked at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for seven years as a sports and features designer. In that time she has won several state contests and SND awards, including a Silver Award. Reagan has also worked at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel as a news designer.

Vince Chiaramonte, assistant design editor at The Buffalo (N.Y.) News since 1998, oversees sports, special projects and designs features pages. Previously, he was senior art director for Gelia Wells & Mohr, where he created ad campaigns for print and television. He has awards from SND and was selected as “Sports Designer of the Year” by SportsDesigner.com in 2006.

Brian Scott Ching is a features art director and designer at The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee. He previously worked as a graphic artist at the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star. He has managed and collaborated on many redesign projects in print and online, winning awards from SND for his body of work.

Amanda Cox is a graphics editor at The New York Times. She received a master’s degree in statistics from the University of Washington in 2005.

Linda Grist Cunningham is executive editor of the Rockford (Ill) Register Star. She is a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and former member of its national board. Cunningham is a discussion leader for the American Press Institute and has judged many national writing competitions and has been a juror for the Pulitzer Prize.

Richard Epps is the presentation editor of The Detroit News, where he supervises a staff of 20 designers and graphic artists. His work has been honored by SND, the Michigan Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. He has spoken at SND Quick Courses and Michigan Press Association events.

Susan Gilbert is an assistant managing editor for operations at the San Francisco Chronicle. She previously was photography director at the Chronicle, which won the Pulitzer Prize in feature photography. She also was a photography director at the Charlotte Observer and Rocky Mountain News (Denver) and a photojournalist at newspapers across the country.

Claudia Guillen, a journalism program coordinator and full-time professor of communications at Peruvian University UPC, supervises courses in design, television, radio and multimedia. She’s responsible for coordinating extension programs for pre- and post-graduates and organizing cultural and educational events.

Karla Garrett Harshaw is vice president of community development for Cox Ohio Publishing. She is responsible for community relations, philanthropy and special projects for the Dayton Daily News, Springfield News-Sun, The Middletown and weeklies in southwest Ohio. She previously was editor of the Springfield News-Sun and past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Neil C. Hopp is the director of Student Media at Central Michigan University. His 38-year journalism career includes editor in chief posts at The Daily Times-News, Mount Pleasant (Mich.); The Sentinel, Carlisle (Pa.) and The Times-News, Twin Falls (Idaho). He is the former publisher of The Leader, Corning (N.Y.), and former director of training and development at The Northwest Herald, Crystal Lake (Ill.)

Hans Peter Janisch has worked as a design consultant for the newspaper industry for the past 20 years. He redesigned newspapers in Germany, Luxembourg, Bosnia and Kazakhstan. He has taught newspaper design at various schools and organizations during that time. Today he serves as SND’s director for international relations.

Marek Knap, art director of the Edipresse Polska Publishing House, is an editorial designer and typographer living in Warsaw, Poland. He has art directed Rzeczpospolita, SND’s 2005 World’s Best-Designed Newspaper, and the Polish editions of Marie Claire, Maxim and Newsweek, to mention just a few. He has won many awards for his work.

Karl Kuntz is managing editor for graphics at the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, where he has been for 19 years. He is responsible for the photography, art and design departments as well as implementing newsroom technology. He has worked as a photographer, picture editor, graphics director, photography director, assistant managing editor for graphics and electronic technology coordinator.

Kenney Marlatt is the news design editor at The Indianapolis (Ind.) Star. Previously, he was part of the design team when the San Jose Mercury News was named a World’s Best-Designed Newspaper™ by SND. He serves on the SND Board and was an assistant site chair for the Society’s 2004 Workshop.

Steve McKinstry, graphics director of The Oregonian, has done redesign and consulting work for several newspapers and magazines. He’s written publishing articles for MacUser and MacWorld magazines. He’s worked for The Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune and Vancouver Sun, where he won Gold Medals and Judges’ Special Recognition awards for information graphics.

Chris Morris is the art director of the Las Vegas Sun, where he has has been the paper’s only illustrator and graphic artist since 2006. Prior to that, he was presentation director at The Dallas Morning News, directing the graphics, illustration and design departments. He was also a graphic artist, illustrator, graphics director, Web team leader and art director.

Leslie Plesser is the art director for vita.mn (sounds like “vitamin”), a weekly entertainment publication she helped launch at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, Minn. Before making the leap to features, she was an award-winning front page designer. Her work has been recognized by SND and other professional organizations.

Bill Pliske is news design manager for The Arizona Republic in Phoenix, where he oversees much of the design and graphic content of the news, business and sports sections, as well as many online projects. With more than 20 years in the newspaper business, he has also worked as design director for the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Post-Gazette, The Victoria (Texas) Advocate and the Pasadena (Texas) Citizen.

Julie Simon is the graphics and design editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. She joined the Post-Intelligencer in 1997 as a features page designer. For the past four years, she has been art directing all aspects of the paper including news, sports and features presentation as well as illustrations and graphics. She has received numerous SND awards along with regional recognition.

Chris Snider is the assistant managing editor for digital at the Des Moines (Iowa) Register and an adjunct professor of journalism at Drake University. Prior to that, he was editor of Juice magazine. He’s worked in design roles at the Baltimore Sun and St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Kelli Sullivan is the award-winning deputy design director for news projects at the Los Angeles Times and lead designer on the 2007 Pulitzer-Prize winning series “Altered Oceans.” Before moving to news, she was a deputy design director for features at The Times, where she was lead designer on the award-winning Oscar sections.

Pablo Corral Vega is an Ecuadorian photojournalist whose work has been published in National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, the Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times Sunday magazine, Audubon, the French, German, Spanish, and Russian editions of Geo and other international reviews. He lives in Quito, Ecuador.

Vladimir Flórez Vladdo directs and designs Un Pasquín, a monthly political newspaper, and publishes cartoons in Semana, a Colombia newsmagazine. He is an award-winning cartoonist, journalist and designer from Bogotá, Colombia. He has worked with publications in his native Colombia as well as Ecuador, Panama, Dominican Republic and the U.S.

Pai, graphics director for the San Jose (Calif) Mercury News since 2002, was deputy art director for the interactive and print graphics teams at Knight Ridder/Tribune. He has won many SND awards working at such publications as The Virginian-Pilot, Sacramento (Calif) Bee and San Francisco (Calif) Chronicle. The Mercury News’ work was also awarded a Gold medal at the Malofiej International Infographics competition last year.