Willkommen. I am a German-American journalist, innovative storyteller and strategic leader with 25+ years of experience in international media and higher education. My work is positioned at the intersections of science, technology, health, migration, education, culture and trauma. I engage diverse communities on these subjects through storytelling, talks, events, consulting and leadership. Current or recent projects include:
- Pandemic Response & Crisis Communications at the Brown University School of Public Health
- Information needs of marginalized communities and misinformation-informed health communications, in collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation, Pink Cornrows, Public Good Projects, First Draft News and other partners
- Global Health Programming, Storytelling and Leadership @harvardGH
- Trauma workshops for journalists (e.g. Reynolds Journalism Institute, Report for America, JAWS, NABJ/NAHJ)
- Journalism start-up support (e.g. @RiffReporter)
- Innovation in STEM-education (e.g. @aceraschool, @OneBraveIdea)
- Critical incident analysis (e.g. with the Academy for Critical Incident Analysis @JohnJayCollege)
- Media literacy for survivors, their advocates, and law enforcement (e.g. @NAMI, @Boston Resiliency Center)
- Stewardship (e.g. @TrustForTraumaJournalism)
Since I wrote my first article in 1986 as a high school student for my local newspaper in Germany (Ruhr Nachrichten), I have worked as a reporter, photographer, feature writer, editor and newsroom leader on three continents. My work has been featured in The Boston Globe, Time magazine, Nieman Reports, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Folio/Neue Zuercher Zeitung, GEO and many other publications in Europe and the U.S.
Currently, I am a professor of the practice and senior director of content. strategy and public affairs at the Brown University School of Public Health, where I research the relationships between information needs, misinformation and health, serve as a key strategic advisor on thought leadership and innovation to Dean Ashish K. Jha, and oversee the Dean’s ongoing special projects and pandemics portfolio, including research collaborations, modeling and data projects, congressional efforts, and crisis communications. I also support the Schools’ communication and engagement efforts.
I had previously worked with Dean Jha at the Harvard Global Health Institute, where I was director of content and strategy and got to work with an outstanding team of faculty, postdocs, program managers and young researchers on programs, symposia, strategies, and initiatives to advance research, policy and storytelling in Global Health. Projects included dashinafrica.org, driversofhealth.org, and choicesinhealth.org.
From 2006 to 2014, I ran a variety of programs at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, including
- Nieman’s Trauma Journalism Program
- a specialized fellowship in Global Health Reporting
- topical conferences on subjects such as immigration or Secrecy and Journalism in the New Media Age or Press Freedom in Latin America or Aftermath: Journalism, Storyelling and the impact of violence and tragedy
- contributing editor at Nieman Reports, including editing this issue on Truth in the Age of Social Media
- producing an online guide for journalists covering pandemic flu, coveringflu.org
I have spent a transformative year at Harvard as a 2001 Nieman fellow, studying among other things molecular biology, philosophy of science and how the Internet is changing our species, from social behaviour on- and offline to children’s ideas about the world (the latter with the great Sherry Turkle.)
I live in Medford, Mass. with my husband and two children (13 and 16).
You can contact me at scf@stefaniefriedhoff.com or via twitter @stefanie2000
Stefanie Friedhoff 