Email address:
maite.fern@gmail.com

Twitter handle:
@maits

Website:
http://maits.github.io/

I am currently a Professional journalist or technologist working in media

Company:
ICFJ

Job Title:
Communications Director

Bio:

Maite is a bilingual reporter, blogger and coder that loves technology and the web.

She is the communications director at the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), a nonprofit based in DC committed to advancing quality journalism around the world. She’s responsible for redefining the digital strategy of the organization – overseeing a website redesign, providing training to staffers and creating a digital outreach campaign celebrating ICFJ’s 30-year anniversary.

Previous to that she was the managing editor at IJNet.org, a website produced by ICFJ that publishes training opportunities for journalists and stories on media trends in seven languages. As part of her job, she oversaw a team of 12 people, among them six foreign editors and translators, and tackled major long-term projects such as IJNet’s redesign and the server migration of ICFJ’s three websites. She also edited and translated content from Spanish to English and vice versa on a regular basis and blogged about open data, data journalism and tech tools for journalists.

As a reporter, Maite has covered her fair share of fires, festivals and farmers markets. Her job at Observa.com.uy and El Observador, a national daily newspaper in her native Uruguay, allowed her to report on all sorts of topics over the years. Although her initial beat was to cover the capital’s mayor, she reported on a quadruple homicide in a small rural area in Uruguay and got the chance to cover the visit of Uruguay’s president to the U.S.

She has a master’s degree in multimedia journalism from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism – University of Maryland and was a recipient of the Merrill Fellowship (2010-2011).

In her free time, Maite enjoys learning to code and practicing sports, especially boxing and yoga. Two of her goals in life are to master the fine art of making paella and to finally learn how to not kill plants.

Current Leadership Positions:

I’m a co-organizer of Hacks/Hackers DC.

Areas of expertise:
Front-end coding, Basic HTML/CSS, Python, Django, Experience building interactive charts and graphics, Web production experience, Social media branding – Newsroom / organization level, Social media branding – Individual, Mobile Video (shooting), Still photography, Git / version control, Beat reporter

Speaking Experience
Yes, have spoken on panels, Yes, have taught skills-based or hands-on training sessions (in newsroom)

Past Speaking Experience:

-Data journalism in Latin America. Universidad ORT, Uruguay. June 2013 (Session led in Spanish)
-Intro to data journalism. Professional Fellows Congress. Oct. 2013
-Intro to social media. Led a session remotely via Skype for a group of Arab journalists as part of an ICFJ program. Feb. 2014