Zandy Dudiak is an associate regional editor for Western PA Patch. She was a long-time staff writer for Gateway Newspapers/Trib Total Media and most recently was editor of the Times Express. She is the author of "Remembering Monroeville: From Frontier to Boomtown," published by The History Press. She has received more than 80 national, state and regional journalism awards. You can reach her at zandy.dudiak@patch.com.

Larissa Dudkiewicz is a graduate of Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, where she studied Professional Writing and Editing and minored in American Studies. She worked as a general assignment reporter during a summer internship at the Buffalo News and after earning her bachelor's degree, began working three months later as a community news reporter for the Sharon Herald. In 2003, she took a job working at the Beaver/Allegheny County Times, which included covering news and events in the Sewickley Valley.

Larissa is married to Tomek Dudkiewicz. Tomek is from Warsaw, Poland, and the two enjoy traveling there to visit family. The couple has a 3-year-old.

Larissa collects vinyl records, likes books, and hunts wild mushrooms.

larissa.dudkiewicz@patch.com
724-407-8807
Hometown: Ambridge
Birthday: Nov. 19
Sign: Scorpio

Richard Cook is the editor of North Hills and North Allegheny Patch.

Cook began his journalism career in 1981 as an intern for KDKA Radio, where he eventually became news director. During his tenure, the station was recognized by the Associated Press as the top news operation in Pennsylvania three years in a row.

He joined KDKA-TV in 1994 as a news producer and then went to WTAE-TV as executive producer in 1999, earning his first Emmy Award for breaking news coverage of a mass shooting in Wilkinsburg.

His work also earned awards from the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters, the Associated Press and the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania. Richard earned his second Emmy in 2009 as producer of WTAE-TV's 50th Anniversary special.

Rich also produced WQED's "Pittsburgh 360" and "Horizons."

A lifelong reader with a passion for plot, it was only natural that Jessica continue her love-affair with words by becoming a journalist.

A graduate of Duquesne University with a degree in Communications/Journalism, Jessica landed her first reporting job with The Penn-Trafford Star, a weekly newspaper owned by Trib Total Media. Jessica helped launch the paper, which went on to have one of the highest circulations in the Trib family of weeklies. As the sole reporter for the paper (where she did everything from type up school lunch menus to cover breaking news), Jessica racked up six Keystone Press Awards in the statewide competition for feature beat reporting, news beat reporting, general news, and a personality profile.

From Penn-Trafford, Jessica became a reporter for The Sentinel, a daily newspaper in beautiful Carlisle, PA. She added three more Keystone Awards (for spot news, news feature and a feature story) to her resume before moving back to her hometown of Pittsburgh to rejoin her then fiancee and take a job as a general assignment reporter with The Beaver County Times. 

Jessica also spent time in marketing and copy-writing—and even started a fashion blog—before returning to her journalistic roots as the Local Editor for Cranberry Patch. She couldn't be more thrilled.

Along with her husband and two dogs—Jackson and Tucker—Jessica lives in Cranberry. When she's not busy covering the community, you can find her curled up with a glossy magazine (preferably People or InStyle), sipping on a sugar-free vanilla latte or gabbing over a glass of wine with the neighborhood gals. Much to the chagrin of her husband, she adores home improvement projects. It's good thing her dad is a contractor!

David is a former business copy editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  He lives with his wife in Mt. Lebanon, PA.

Sara Halleman is a Pittsburgh native and a Duquesne graduate. Before working for Patch, she was an editorial intern at SterlingHouse Publisher. 

Tim McAteer has been a journalist for over 25 years and has worked in newspapers, radio, television on the Internet. He has been managing newsrooms since 1996. His news teams have won several Edward R. Murrow Awards, Associated Press Awards and FOLIO Awards.  

Phil Meyer is Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame in Journalism in the spring of 2008.  He joined the Journalism School in 1981 and served as Knight Chair in Journalism Professor from 1993-2008.  Prior to joining the school, he held a number of reporter and research positions at various media outlets. 

He has won numerous awards including the 2005 Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for Research About Journalism (with Scott Maier). He was named a Fellow of Society of Professional Journalists in 2005. In 2004, the Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication gave him its Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award. And in 2000 he received the American Association for Public Opinion Research Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement.

Meyer is the author of several books including The Vanishing Newspaper:  Saving Journalism in the Information Age and Precision Journalism:  A Reporter’s Introduction to Social Science Methods.  Journalism Quarterly in 2000 listed this book as one of the 35 significant books of the 20th century in journalism and mass communication; and the American Association for Public Opinion Research, observing its 50th anniversary in 1996, listed it as one of 50 significant books on public opinion research.

He received his B.S. in technical journalism from Kansas State University and his M.A. in political science from the University of North Carolina.

Steven Berlin Johnson is a pioneer in the web world, as a co-founder of FEED, Plastic.com, and Outside.in, which was acquired by Patch in March of 2011. He also co-created Findings.com, which launched in late 2011. Steven was the 2009 Hearst New Media Professional-in-Residence at The Journalism School at Columbia University, and served for several years as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU’s Journalism School. He is a bestselling author of seven books, and won acclaim and a Newhouse School Mirror Award for his 2010 Time Magazine cover story, "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live." 

Speaking of Steven's editorial prowess, check out this video based on Steven's book, Where Good Ideas Come From, which was named one of the best books of 2010 by The Economist.

Brian was Editor-in-Chief of Time Out New York magazine before coming to Patch. Before that he worked for a variety of publications both online and off, including Details magazine, New York Magazine, and the old, dearly departed Sidewalk.com. He has written for numerous publications, from the New York Times magazine to Harper's Bazaar. He graduated from Bowdoin College and got an MFA in creative writing at Columbia University so he could put his novel in a drawer with distinction. He lives in Manhattan with his beautiful wife, adorable son, angelic daughter and the world's most dog-like cat. He’s proud as hell of what the Patch team has built.

Ken Paulson is president and chief executive officer of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University and in Washington, D.C.

Previously, Paulson served as the editor and senior vice president/news of USA Today.  He is now a columnist on USA Today’s board of contributors, writing about First Amendment issues and the news media.

Throughout his career, Paulson has drawn on his background as both a journalist and lawyer, serving as the editor or managing editor of newspapers in five different states.

He also is past-president of the American Society of News Editors, the nation’s largest organization of news media leaders.

Paulson also was the host of the Emmy-honored television program “Speaking Freely,” seen in more than 60 PBS markets nationwide over five seasons, and the author of "Freedom Sings," a multimedia stage show celebrating the First Amendment that continues to tour the nation's campuses.  

He was an early advocate of making newspaper content available online, launching online newspapers in both Florida and New York in 1993.

For 12 years, Paulson was a regular guest lecturer at the American Press Institute, speaking to more than 5,000 journalists about First Amendment issues. He was honored with the API Lifetime Service Award. In 2010 and 2011, he served as chair of the PBS Editorial Standards Review Committee.

In 2007, Paulson was named fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, “the highest honor SPJ bestows upon a journalist for extraordinary contributions to the profession.” In 2008, he  received the Robert S. Abbott Memorial Award for Meritorious Service in Mass Communications from the Southern Regional Press Institute. He has also been elected to the Illini Publishing Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois.

He is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law and the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He also has served as an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University Law School. In 2008, he received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from American University.