Board of Directors

Brant Houston
PRESIDENT AND BOARD CHAIR
Brant Houston holds the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois. Houston teaches investigative and advanced reporting in the Department of Journalism in the College of Media at Illinois. He also oversees the online newsroom at Illinois, CU-CitizenAccess.org, which serves as a lab for digital innovation and data journalism. Houston became the chair in 2007 after serving for more than a decade as the executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), a 5,000-member organization, and as a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Before joining IRE, he was an award-winning investigative reporter at daily newspapers for 17 years. Houston is the author of four editions of the textbook, “Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide,” and co-author of the fourth edition and fifth edition of “The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook.” He co-founded the Global Investigative Journalism Network in 2003 and serves as chair of its board of directors. He has taught and spoken about investigative and computer-assisted reporting at newsrooms and universities in 25 countries. Currently he is working on projects involving nonprofit journalism newsrooms, digital tools for news-gathering, and new business models for journalism.

Paul Joseph Brown
VICE PRESIDENT
Paul Joseph Brown is a retired photojournalist. He worked on staff at newspapers in Maine, Oregon, Alaska, Texas, and retired after 20 years on staff at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2009. Subsequently, he founded Global Health Photo (globalhealthphoto.com) and Ecosystem Photo (ecosystemphoto.com), completing documentary photography projects for a variety of national and international clients in more than 30 countries. Since his retirement Paul has dedicated himself to progressive political and social change as a philanthropist.

Celia Wu
TREASURER
Celia is Director of Education & Learning with Legitimate, the Journalist’s Toolkit. She holds a Master of Arts from the Missouri School of Journalism, where her thesis project was on local news sustainability and innovation. Prior companies she worked for in consulting, revenue strategy, business development, audience engagement, and product development capacities include Global Press, Vice Media LLC, The 614 Group (a management consultancy for digital media), Operative Media, MSNBC.com, and Microsoft. Celia spent 14 years living and working in Asia, moving there to join the launch team of STAR TV, Asia’s first satellite TV broadcaster. While in Asia, she went on to work as Executive Vice President & General Manager for Turner Entertainment before joining Microsoft as General Manager for MSN Asia. Celia began her career in television news on the production crew of ABC News 20/20, before moving to the business side with Public Television International. Celia was a 2023-24 Fellow with the Reynolds Journalism Institute where she developed the first-ever Chrome extension of a newsroom’s styleguide. She serves as an Alumni Trustee for Hampshire College, as a Board Director for the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) Seattle, as National Co-Chair of the AAJA Style Guide Committee, and volunteers as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate). With roots across three continents, Celia is a licensed basketball and soccer referee and a choir singer.

Jeremy Gilbert
SECRETARY
Jeremy Gilbert is the Knight Chair of Digital Media Strategy at Northwestern University’s Medill School and he oversees the Knight Lab. Both his work and teaching focus on the content and revenue strategies of existing and emerging media companies. He explores the intersection of technology and media, examining how new tools and techniques will affect the creation, consumption and distribution of media. Prior to assuming the Knight Chair, Gilbert was The Washington Post’s Director of Strategic Initiatives where he created and led the Lede Lab, an award-winning team that helped in transforming The Post into an international, digital-first news organization. His other past roles include National Geographic, The Poynter Institute, The Tampa Bay Times and The News-Press.

Berit Anderson
DIRECTOR
Previously, she co-founded and served as the CEO of Scout.ai, a media company exploring the future of technology through analysis, science fiction, and scenario planning games. An international keynote speaker and advisor on innovation, technology, media, and global policy, Berit has appeared at the Brussels Forum, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the Conference on World Affairs, TEDxVilnius, DevoxxBelgium, and TEQNation, among others. In 2017, her work on information warfare was featured in the New Yorker, Gizmodo, and TechCrunch, and cited by internet creator Tim Berners-Lee as one of the top three challenges facing the internet. Berit is a member of Global Shapers, the World Economic Forum’s international network of young leaders; and serves on the boards of environmental media nonprofit Yes! Magazine.

Terri Hiroshima
DIRECTOR
Terri Hiroshima joined the University of Washington in 2015 and currently serves as Assistant Vice President, Marketing and Communications for the Alumni Association. She leads multiple teams and a body of work that supports meaningful engagement and stewardship of diverse audiences. Terri has held executive marketing and leadership positions throughout her career, most recently as Vice President of Communications at Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce; Executive Director at Crosscut Public Media; and Marketing Director at Seattle Theatre Group. Terri began her career in the performing arts field where she helped produce, promote, and introduce national and international artists and arts organizations to wide-ranging audiences throughout the Puget Sound and the Pacific Northwest. She has volunteered and served in leadership roles on several boards of non-profit organizations over the past twenty years, and in the last decade has chaired the Seattle Arts Commission and served as board president for Pratt Fine Arts Center.

Joshua Trujillo
DIRECTOR
Joshua Trujillo is senior visual storyteller for Starbucks Coffee Company. Working as a visual journalist for more than 20 years, Josh uses his craft of still and moving images to document the unique and the ordinary. His still photography has been published in almost every major U.S. newspaper, magazine, and website, including on the front page of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and full-page features in People Magazine following the 2010 Haiti earthquake and in Sports Illustrated during the Seahawks run to the Super Bowl. Josh is on the Board of Directors for Seattle’s Photographic Center Northwest, is a co-founder of Northwest Photojournalism, organizations that support and educate lens-based storytellers in the Pacific Northwest.

Beverly Wyse
DIRECTOR
Beverly Wyse has over 30 years of leadership experience primarily in the Aerospace industry. Now retired from Boeing, where she held a variety of roles including President of Shared Services, Vice President and General Manager of the 767, 737 and 787 programs. Wyse currently serves on various Boards and is a consultant to numerous international companies. In addition to her role on the Investigate West Board, she is also on the Olin Board of Trustees, a top ranked engineering school focused on innovative education. Wyse is also on the Board of Trustees at Heroux-Devtek Inc, a company specializing in the aerospace market in the design, manufacture and integration, of landing gear and actuation systems and components. Wyse is also a strategic advisor in the aerospace sector to Arcadis, a multi-billion dollar infrastructure company. Wyse has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in business administration, both from the University of Washington in Seattle. She is a born and raised Puget Sound native with a love of hiking, watersports, and winter sports such as skiing and snow shoeing.