Staff



CIR Staff

See the California Watch staff list.


Robert Rosenthal, Executive Director
An award-winning journalist with nearly 40 years of experience, Rosenthal has worked for some of the most respected newspapers in the country, including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer and, most recently, the San Francisco Chronicle. As a reporter, his awards include the Overseas Press Club Award for magazine writing, the Sigma Delta Chi Award for distinguished foreign correspondence, and the National Association of Black Journalists Award for Third World Reporting. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in international reporting. Rosenthal worked for 22 years at the Inquirer, becoming its executive editor in 1998. He became managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle in late 2002, and joined the Center for Investigative Reporting as executive director in 2008.
Contact Robert Rosenthal | Full Profile | Reporter's Blog
Christa Scharfenberg, Associate Director
Christa Scharfenberg manages the day-to-day operations at the Center for Investigative Reporting. She oversees marketing and branding, community engagement and story distribution. As part of the leadership team, she assists with strategic planning, business development and fundraising. She joined CIR in 2003 as communications director and served as acting executive director in 2007 before becoming associate director. Christa was the senior producer of CIR's documentary "Banished" and executive producer of "Dirty Business: 'Clean Coal' and the Battle for our Energy Future" and the "Frontline" co-productions "Hot Politics" and "A Dangerous Business Update."
Contact Christa Scharfenberg | Full Profile | Reporter's Blog
Mark Katches, Editorial Director
Mark is the editorial director for the Center for Investigative Reporting and California Watch. Previously, he built and ran investigative teams at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Orange County Register. Mark was the primary editor of Pulitzer Prize-winning projects in both 2008 and 2010 and has edited or managed three other stories that have been Pulitzer finalists since 2004. Projects he has edited or directed have also won the George Polk Award, and the Scripps-Howard National Journalism Award as well the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the Worth Bingham Prize, the Sigma Delta Chi Award and the National Headliner Award.
Contact Mark Katches | Full Profile | Reporter's Blog
Allegra Bandy, Operations Manager
Allegra works closely with the Executive and Associate directors, to help maintain the smooth operation of the CIR office and its regular functions, as well as provide support for its development and fundraising efforts. Allegra Bandy is a native of San Francisco with an extensive background as an educator as well as a musical performer, recording artist, producer, and director for the past 16 years. For more information go to www.allegrabandy.com.
Contact Allegra Bandy | Full Profile
Sharon Tiller, Director of Digital Media
Sharon Tiller is the director of digital media at the Center for Investigative Reporting. Before that, she helped develop numerous programs for FRONTLINE. In 2001, she helped develop and launch the international news magazine FRONTLINE/World. The series featured the work of a new generation of video journalists and recently completed nine seasons on PBS. Before her work with FRONTLINE, Tiller was the executive director for CIR, where she developed several award-winning investigative documentaries.
Contact Sharon Tiller | Full Profile
Chase Davis, Director of Technology
Chase Davis is the director of technology for California Watch and its parent organization, the Center for Investigative Reporting. He also writes about money and politics issues for California Watch. Chase previously worked as an investigative reporter at The Des Moines Register and the Houston Chronicle and is a founding partner of the media-technology firm Hot Type Consulting. He is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism.
Contact Chase Davis | Full Profile
Carrie Ching, Senior Multimedia Producer
Carrie manages and produces multimedia reports for CIR projects—including California Watch, The Chauncey Bailey Project, The Civil Rights Cold Case Project, and The Price of Sex. Her multimedia reports have been featured by NPR.org, The Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, Time.com, Fast Company, Grist, the Los Angeles Times, KQED, PBS NewsHour, Salon.com, Mother Jones, Public Radio International, and Columbia Journalism Review, among others. Her focus is narrative multimedia storytelling and exploring ways to use new media tools—including video, audio, photography, animation, and interactive graphics—to push the boundaries of storytelling on the Web. Prior to joining CIR she was a magazine editor, newspaper reporter, and video journalist. She completed a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley in 2005.
Contact Carrie Ching | Full Profile | Reporter's Blog
Cherilyn Parsons, Director of Development and Strategic Initiatives
Cherilyn directs all fundraising for CIR, including California Watch. She also helps develop CIR’s overall strategy and new projects. She has over twenty years of experience in fund development, with an emphasis on large foundations and individual major donors.
Full Profile
Kate Jessup, Development Assistant
Kate assists CIR in securing foundation and individual donor support. Her previous development work was at Child Care Law Center in San Francisco. In addition to being a grant writer, Kate is also a food writer and chef. Kate holds a master’s degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where she studied with Michael Pollan. She has cooked in France, New York, and at Berkeley’s own Chez Panisse. For three years, Kate worked as the food editor of Diablo, a lifestyle magazine for the San Francisco East Bay. Her food writing appears in Sunset, Coastal Living, and VIA magazines.
Contact Kate Jessup | Full Profile
Meghann Farnsworth, Distribution and Online Community Manager
Meghann manages distribution and online community building for both the Center for Investigative Reporting and California Watch. She works with editors, reporters and multimedia producers to create comprehensive distribution strategies in print, radio, television and online media outlets, as well as blogs, online communities and social media. In addition, she works to develop and maintain media partnerships and collaboration. Previously, she was the associate editor of Forums at PBS' NewsHour where she covered the 2008 presidential election and inauguration, and she created interactive online forums that helped grow and engage the NewsHour's online audience. Most recently, Meghann was the senior digital media manager at Home Front Communications in Washington, D.C., where she worked in digital media management, interactive development and outreach for nonprofit and government clients. She earned her master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley in 2007.
Contact Meghann Farnsworth | Full Profile | Reporter's Blog
Janice Sager, Director of Finance and Administration
Janice oversees financial planning, budgeting and financial management of the Center for Investigative Reporting, collaborating on strategic planning and the long term sustainability of CIR. She brings over 20 years of financial and business management experiece, focusing on nonprofit media, journalism and the arts. She has worked at some of the most respected media producers/outlets in the country, including KQED Public Radio, WGBH Public Radio and FRONTLINE. Prior to her career in media, she was a theatre and dance manager in New York City. She has a master's degree in arts administration from Columbia University and a master's degree in sociology from McGill University.
Contact Janice Sager | Full Profile
Mark Schapiro, Senior Correspondent
Schapiro has been an investigative journalist for more than two decades and has built an award-winning track record with a focus on environmental and international affairs. His work has appeared in Harper's, The Nation, Mother Jones, and The Atlantic Monthly. He's also been a correspondent on NOW with Bill Moyers, FRONTLINE/World, and Marketplace. His new book, Exposed, was published by Chelsea Green in September 2007.
Contact Mark Schapiro | Full Profile | Reporter's Blog
G.W. Schulz, Reporter
Schulz joined CIR in 2008 and covers homeland security. Prior to that time, he wrote extensively about politics, municipal corruption, workplace safety, criminal justice and the changing national landscape in news media for the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Urban Tulsa, a weekly newspaper in Oklahoma. He was an early contributor to the Chauncey Bailey Project, which won an IRE Tom Renner Award in 2008. In 2007, he won first place for investigative reporting from the California Newspaper Publishers Association and the Public Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California. Schulz graduated from the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas.
Contact G.W. Schulz | Full Profile | Reporter's Blog
Andrew Becker, Reporter
Andrew covers the federal judiciary for CIR and is currently reporting on the immigration court system. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, New York Times, Newsweek, The Nation Web site and Mother Jones. Before joining CIR in 2008, he was a fellow at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where he reported on human smuggling and corruption along the Southwest border for a joint New York Times and PBS FRONTLINE/World production. Previously he was a reporter for the Contra Costa Times. He has also written and reported for the Dallas Morning News, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, FRONTLINE, KQED California Report, and Los Angeles magazine. He received a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley.
Contact Andrew Becker | Full Profile | Reporter's Blog
Michael Corey, Digital Innovations Editor
Michael Corey is the digital innovations editor for the Center for Investigative Reporting and California Watch, and specializes in front-end Web development, interface design and online mapping. He previously worked for the Des Moines Register. His work on the Iowa Caucuses contributed to several national awards, including an Online News Association award for Outstanding Use of Digital Technology. He was also co-leader of a regional-Emmy winning project commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Buddy Holly crash. Michael graduated from Drake University.
Contact Michael Corey | Full Profile
Suzanne Yada, Web Producer
Suzanne Yada is the web producer for the Center for Investigative Reporting. She has worked as a social media strategist for the San Francisco Public Press, an independent nonprofit news organization in San Francisco. She's also been a web producer at the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. She was previously a copy editor for the Visalia Times-Delta, a daily newspaper in the heart of Central California. Over the course of her career, she has been involved in at least nine media-related start ups. Suzanne is a recent journalism graduate from San Jose State University.
Contact Suzanne Yada | Full Profile | Reporter's Blog
Monica Lam, Video producer
Monica Lam is a documentary film and television producer who has traveled on five continents producing, reporting, and shooting for the NewsHour, Frontline, Frontline/WORLD and other PBS programs as well as Swiss television and MSNBC. She has won an Emmy for her work and was cinematographer of an Oscar-nominated short documentary. Monica has written for the Daily Californian, San Francisco Chronicle, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Hyphen magazine and was the founding editor of Berkeley Patch, a daily hyperlocal news site. She studied urban planning at Stanford University and received her masters in journalism from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Full Profile
Marjorie McAfee
Marjorie McAfee is a producer and editor in CIR's video production unit. She was with PBS FRONTLINE/World for six years prior to joining CIR and has a masters degree in journalism from UC Berkeley.
Full Profile
David Ritsher
David Ritsher is the senior supervising editor for CIR's digital video production team. He has produced and edited award-winning investigative documentaries for over 15 years, on subjects ranging from loose nukes in Russia to Latino gangs in Northern California. His work has appeared on FRONTLINE, PBS NewsHour, ABCNews, National Geographic, Discovery, KQED and other national broadcast outlets. Before joining CIR, David was the coordinating producer for FRONTLINE/World for over six broadcast seasons and championed much of its experimentation with video on the web.
Full Profile
Serene Fang
Serene Fang is a producer, editor and videographer based in the San Francisco Bay area. For the PBS series FRONTLINE/World, she produced and edited stories about emerging zoonotic diseases in Uganda; methyl-mercury pollution in the Arctic; and former Guantanamo detainees from China's restive Muslim population. She also directs and shoots a monthly web music series for PBS Arts. Her work has appeared on programs such as Nightline, MSNBC, PBS Need to Know, The Sundance Channel, Dateline NBC, and the Today Show.
Full Profile




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