Kirsten Swann is a freelance journalist who loves finding new ways to tell old stories; especially the ones here in Alaska. An Anchorage resident since grade school, she studied journalism at Michigan’s Hillsdale College and contributed to various local newspapers before returning home and covering municipal matters for the Anchorage Daily Planet, an online news startup, in 2009. She subsequently worked as a broadcast reporter then web editor for KTVA 11 News, and her writing is currently published in both Alaska Business Monthly and the Anchorage Press.

Her passion lies in MtViewPost.com, the hyperlocal news website she began publishing in spring 2014. It features writing about the people and places that make up Mountain View, where she’s lived with her husband and two dogs for more than a year now. She enjoys hearing the neighborhood’s stories and sharing them with the rest of the world, and she’s especially excited about the fusion of traditional journalism and digital innovation.

Kirsten Swann

Mark Trahant is an independent journalist. He serves as the 20th Atwood Chair of Journalism at the University of Alaska Anchorage. The position brings nationally known journalists to teach courses and speak to students, journalists and the public in Alaska.

He is also writing a book on austerity, a project he started after winning a Rockefeller Foundation residency to the Bellagio Center on Lake Como, Italy. He blogs about austerity on a regular basis on his web page, trahantreports.com, and on Facebook.

Trahant reports and comments on events and trends via Twitter and other social media. Every day for nearly six years, Trahant has written a 140-character rhyme based on a daily news story (@newsrimes4lines). He’s been a reporter for PBS’ Frontline series. The Frontline piece, “The Silence,” was about sexual abuse by priests in a Alaska native village. He also has been editor-in-residence at the University of Idaho in the spring of 2011 and again in 2012. He taught courses on social media, the American West and editorial writing.

In 2009 and 2010 Trahant was a Kaiser Media Fellow writing about health care reform focused on programs the government already operates, such as the Indian Health Service.

Trahant also recently completed The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars, the story about the legacy of Sen. Henry M. Jackson. “Scoop” Jackson and Forrest J. Gerard. Trahant is the former editor of the editorial page for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer where he chaired the daily editorial board, directed a staff of writers, editors and a cartoonist.

Trahant is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribe and former president of the Native American Journalists Association.

Mark Trahant, Atwood Journalism Chair

RSVP for the luncheon

Kate Landis has been the Program Director for Southcentral Foundation’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program through the CDC (NBCCEDP) for the past 14 years. Prior to that, she worked as Data Manager for Arctic Slope Native Association’s NBCCEDP program for 7 years. She has been the Chair of the NBCCEDP Council representing this program with the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD) and is currently the Chair for the NACDD Cancer Council. In addition, she serves as program director for the CDC Wisewoman and Colorectal grants. Kate also oversees an Avon Foundation grant and an IHS Diabetes grant. Although she manages several grants, her passion is with the Breast and Cervical Early Detection program. She is a five-year breast cancer survivor. She has a bachelor of arts degree in biology from Northwestern University.

Cheley Grigsby is the grant manager and Program Director for the State of Alaska’s Breast and Cervical Health Check program (BCHC), which screens more than 8,000 women annually. BCHC is one of the five federally funded grant awardees in Alaska. Cheley has more than 12 years’ experience working in the field of population-based cancer screening. The mission of these programs is to reach under-screened women in order to diagnose cancers in the early stages.

Kate Landis

Cheley Griigsby

RSVP for the luncheon

Gretchen taught at University of Alaska Anchorage and Anchorage Community College for 35 years. She coordinated the creation of the Masters degree in Adult Education at UAA in 1990 and taught a wide variety of graduate courses in the program as well as chairing 100 thesis committees. She has built a retreat center at her family homestead on Yukon Island and hosts noted scholars, courses, and retreats there every summer including those focused on adult education/adult learning, archaeology, ecology, geology, botany and marine biology, wellness, and writing & poetry. She earned her Ph.D. in Adult Education from Florida State University. Continue reading →

John Tracy became a partner at Bradley Reid + Associates in the summer of 2008 after 23 years as an anchor and News Director at KTUU-TV. John won numerous Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Awards as a reporter and producer at KTUU. A member of the Alaska Broadcasters Hall of Fame, John has covered stories for NBC Nightly News and CNN. At Bradley Reid, he’s produced campaigns for clients such as ConocoPhillips, Alaska Tourism and Providence. In 2012 he was commissioned to spearhead a team to re-build KTVA 11 for GCI, as Alaska’s first high-definition television station. John’s domestic focus group includes his wife Donna, their three children and two grandkids. Continue reading →

Jill Shepherd will highlight events from her family’s early history in Alaska.  She also will tell how it came to be that, at age 47, she realized a 30-year-old dream when she landed a job at Alaska magazine.  Shepherd worked at the magazine for the next 23 years, retiring in 2004.

Jill Shepherd

Fran Ulmer is currently the chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, where she has served since being appointed by President Obama in March 2011. In June 2010, President Obama appointed her to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. From 2007 to 2011, Ms. Ulmer was chancellor of Alaska’s largest public university, the University of Alaska Anchorage. Before that, she was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at UAA. She is a member of the Global Board of the Nature Conservancy and on the Board of the National Parks Conservation Association.

Ms. Ulmer served as an elected official for 18 years as the mayor of Juneau, a state representative, and as Lieutenant Governor of Alaska. She previously worked as legal counsel to the Alaska Legislature, legislative assistant to Governor Jay Hammond, and Director of Policy Development for the state. In addition, she was the first Chair of the Alaska Coastal Policy Council and served more than 10 years on the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission. She earned a J.D. cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School, and has been a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government.

Fran Ulmer