Trainer Bios

Melissa Sayre is the Chief Impact Officer at mindSpark Learning. mindSpark Learning is a national non-profit that believes in the power educators hold to change the world through creative problem-solving and innovative practices. Melissa has worked with schools across the country to develop strategic plans to improve their educational practices and develop partnerships within their communities that provide students with authentic learning experiences. In the organizational development space, our clients include HUD, the National Council for Adoption, the City and County of Broomfield, and Front Range Community College. In addition, Melissa uses the process of Equity-Centered Design Thinking to leverage creative capital amongst her participants, thus creating a professional learning setting that inspires and fosters critical thinking skills.

Melissa holds two Masters Degrees: Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Denver and School Counseling from the University of South Florida. Melissa was an educator for five years before working with mindSpark Learning and has experience with professional learning, school administration, and school counseling in K-12 education.

Kimberly Glasgow is Senior Staff at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), where she has worked since 2009. Her work integrates computational social science, social media analytics and social network analysis. She is currently Principal Investigator for an effort analyzing adversarial influence in social media in the context of the 2016 U.S. elections, and previously led an effort exploring detection and characterization of actor, network and narrative changes in social media that may reveal growing social dissonance or unrest in communities. The approach for both of these initiatives used machine learning, Deep Learning, graph analytics, and visualization. She has authored or coauthored multiple articles along with a book chapter, and has given presentations at conferences on social media, social networks, and machine learning.

Sian Gard is a woman who is driven to understand what it means to be human through the stories, challenges, and experiences that shape us all. From managing ABC media bureaus in regional Victoria to capital city stations of Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as conceptualizing, pitching and delivering documentaries for radio and television, along with writing for online, photograpy and camera operation for national and international audiences, Sian’s fascination with the stories that create the fabric of who we are continues. Sian uses her love of writing and delivery of content, as well as working behind the microphone and in front of the camera to bring stories to life for domestic and international audiences. The passion for storytelling has not wavered for Sian, since she began her career in 2000 and Sian is sure there are many more stories to be told, because everyone has a story to tell.

Mimi van Dun works for the Dutch Expertise Center for Media Literacy. This network organization aims to increase media literacy among citizens and organizations. Mimi is responsible for managing the communication program of the Center consisting of several Media Literacy campaigns, research and projects.

Mimi has developed a successful co-campaigning format aligning the activities of over 200 partner organizations during the annual Week of Media Literacy and for 5 years she was project managing the price-winning interactive media literacy game called ‘Media Masters’, which reaches 40% of the students in the age group of 10-12 year olds.  The game introduces primary school pupils to the opportunities and threats of (digital) media in an entertaining manner. The children are triggered to develop a critical look and a conscious attitude. She is currently managing a new project which aims to bring education about disinformation into Intermediate vocational education.

Before joining Netwerk Mediawijsheid, Mimi worked in different media and PR companies and lived and worked in Malawi, Zambia and Surinam. Throughout her career the power of storytelling and Media has always fascinated her and she believes that , with the current global challenges we are facing, Media Literacy for all citizens is more important than ever before.

Douglas Arellanes is a technologist, broadcaster and software developer focusing on innovative technology solutions for journalism. A co-founder of the Czech nonprofit institute Sourcefabric, Arellanes has won several awards for his technology solutions with news organizations in developing countries, and has led several significant journalism innovation projects. He is a longtime moderator on Radio 1 in Prague, and has translated several books from Czech to English, including “Economics of Good and Evil,” by Tomáš Sedláček (Oxford Press, 2011).  Arellanes holds a bachelor’s degree in Book Arts from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Kiki Huckaby is a Director of Professional Learning at mindSpark Learning. mindSpark Learning is a national non-profit that believes in the power educators hold to change the world through creative problem-solving and innovative practices. Kiki has worked with schools across the country to develop strategic plans to improve their educational practices and develop partnerships within their communities that provide students with authentic learning experiences. In the organizational development space, our clients include HUD, the National Council for Adoption, the City and County of Broomfield, and Front Range Community College. In addition, Kiki uses the process of Equity-Centered Design Thinking to leverage creative capital amongst her participants, thus creating a professional learning setting that inspires and fosters critical thinking skills.

Kiki holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Elementary Education from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She also has her Master’s degree in Curriculum Studies through the University of Northern Colorado. Over the years, she has worked in curriculum development and professional learning, as well as having been a behavioral therapist and Science and Math educator.

Tony Cohn is an award-winning communication, partnership, and growth strategist. Currently, Tony is the Director of Strategy for the Morgridge Family Foundation. He oversees the organization’s $10 million annual philanthropic giving approach to more than 150 non-profit partners. Previously, Tony spent seven years with the Smithsonian Institution where he conceptualized and managed creative projects. He created and hosted Sidedoor, the Smithsonian’s podcast which reached more than 4 million people in 120 countries. The Atlantic hailed, “Cohn’s charm and realness, fueled by the resources of the vast Smithsonian… created some of the best narratives [in the podcast space].” In 2018, he successfully led the Smithsonian’s Pepper Project, bringing 25 humanoid robots to the Institution for the first time in history while managing its multi-million-dollar budget. Tony has traveled four continents collaborating with cultural and non-profit organizations to build strategic plans, innovative communication campaigns, and brand strategies. Tony received dual degrees in Public Communication and Theatre Arts from American University in Washington, D.C.

Kuek Ser Kuang Keng is an award-winning digital journalist and media consultant based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is the founder of Data-N, a training program that helps newsrooms and journalists with limited resources to integrate data journalism into daily reporting. Data-N has helped publications like Foreign Policy, BBC World Service, Mediacorp, Malaysiakini and Sin Chew Daily to strengthen their storytelling with data, visual and interactive components. With the support of Google Malaysia, he conducts regular journalism workshops in various cities in Malaysia since 2018. Keng is also the competition officer of Data Journalism Awards 2019, the first international awards organised by the Global Editors Network. Keng helped to increase the participation of Asian newsrooms in 2019. For the first time, Asia became the continent that submitted the highest number of entries, followed by Europe and North America. Besides conducting workshops and bootcamp for journalists, Keng consults and produces data and interactive stories for media organizations including Minneapolis-based Public Radio International (PRI.org) and Kuala-Lumpur based Malaysiakini. “What if the Syrian civil war happened in your country?”, a data-driven interactive news application that he created for PRI.org has won the Public Choice award in the 2016 Data Journalism Awards. The news game “Undi Power” that he co-produced with Malaysiakini was shortlisted for the News Data App of the Year award in the 2018 Data Journalism Awards. Keng has more than 10 years of experience in digital journalism. He was a journalist with Malaysiakini for 8 years specializing in investigative and political reporting. In 2013, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to further his study at New York University’s Studio 20, a journalism M.A. program that focuses on new media and digital innovation. In 2015, Keng was selected as a Google Journalism Fellow and subsequently a Tow-Knight Fellow. He has worked in several US newsrooms including NBC, Foreign Policy, PRI.org and the International Business Times.

Esra Arslan, a Board Member of Needs Map, studied Economics at Marmara University. She has 16 years of experience in the hospitality sector; she worked as a coordinator in international organizations for 2 years, was a Sales & Marketing Manager in the tourism sector for 12 years, and a Tourism manager in the Assistance sector for two years. She has participated in many tourism fairs and sectoral seminars. She has also volunteered with several NGOs. During her two years in the United States, she volunteered at a church where she conducted personal development trainings for the 12-18 and 35-55 age groups. She participated in charity events organized for homeless people in Turkey and abroad. After serving as the General Coordinator of Needs Map, she is currently an active Board Member. Esra has also participated in numerous folk dance festivals as a performer since her childhood and had the opportunity to see many different countries and cultural exchanges. She speaks English and Spanish. She likes playing volleyball, learning new languages, reading books, walking, traveling, cinema, music and dancing.