Executive Director
Jody chong,
Executive Director
Jody serves as Executive Director, combining 15 years of Chicago nonprofit leadership and public policy experience with deep institutional knowledge of the organization's mission and programs. As an architect of City Bureau's national Documenters Network expansion, she has been instrumental in the organization's strategic growth. She brings deep experience across all areas of our mission, including collaborative program design and impact evaluation, along with expertise in organizational strategy, inclusive leadership, and coalition building.
Civic Information and Engagement
Harry Backlund,
Chief Strategy OFFICER
Harry is a City Bureau co-founder and currently serves as Chief Strategy Officer. He is also the founding publisher of the South Side Weekly, a volunteer-run community newspaper in Chicago.
Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger,
chicago Director, documenters
Rachel is City Bureau’s Chicago Director of Documenters. A proud Chicago native, Rachel blends their eclectic experiences in pastoral leadership, program management, policy advocacy, and community organizing to provide a fresh perspective on civic engagement. Rachel has led policy initiatives for advocacy groups in Chicago and D.C., winning meaningful policy changes while equipping individuals with the tools needed to become active participants in local government. Committed to justice, equity, and transparency, they aim to foster a more informed and active citizenry through City Bureau.
Marilyn Carteno,
Events and Engagement Manager
Marilyn is City Bureau’s Events and Engagement Manager. She is an educator and theater artist who is committed to creating spaces where folks feel heard and welcomed. In this role, she will plan and facilitate City Bureau’s public events as well as develop relationships with civic and community organizations in Chicago’s BIPOC neighborhoods.
ARIel cheung, editorial director
Ariel is City Bureau's Editorial Director. She is based in Chicago and previously worked at the Chicago Tribune, Modern Luxury and DNAinfo. Her passion for proactive community-focused journalism brought her to City Bureau, where she oversees Chicago coverage produced by the fellowship program, local Documenters and the Newswire newsletter.
madeleine davison, assignment coordinator, documenters
Madeleine is City Bureau's Assignment Coordinator for Chicago Documenters. She lives in Chicago and has a background in journalism and public health. A former Documenter herself, Madeleine aims to create a supportive learning environment for all Chicagoans who want to develop their news-gathering skills and hold their local governments accountable.
Grace Del Vecchio,
Chicago Editorial Manager, documenters
Grace is City Bureau’s Chicago Editorial Manager of Documenters. She is a proud Philadelphian with a background in organizing, reporting and producing. Grace is passionate about developing newsroom practices that prioritize opportunities for Chicagoans to grow as storytellers and stakeholders while developing their own relationships with civic engagement and participation.
sophia kalakailo,
Community Accountability Reporter
Sophia is City Bureau’s Community Accountability Reporter and a Report For America corps member. Originally from Metro Detroit, they have reported for newsrooms across their home state including Bridge Michigan, Michigan Public and most recently MLive. Sophia has covered a range of issues from housing insecurity and environmental injustice to civil rights abuse in higher education. In this role, they will develop a beat dedicated to civic happenings, solutions and holding public officials accountable to their communities with a focus on the South and West Sides.
Tristion Mcdowell, Chicago Program Manager, Documenters
Tristion is City Bureau’s Chicago Program Manager Documenters. Born in Oak park, Tristion was raised on Chicagoland’s South Side. His work as a trauma-informed facilitator and lead at Readi Chicago helped to make their Englewood location a leader in innovation and retention. He recently worked as the Director of Community Engagement at Collective Chicago. He credits his upbringing in a community oriented family for his passion for people and seeks to bring that same passion to every aspect of his work as a community builder.
Dawn Rhodes,
Civic Editor
Dawn is City Bureau's Civic Editor, leading our civic journalism programs. She has spent 15 years in local journalism, previously with the Chicago Tribune and Block Club Chicago. Dawn comes to City Bureau with a fierce passion for mentoring new generations of journalists and a commitment to reimagining how we practice journalism.
Jerrel floyd,
engagement reporter
Jerrel is City Bureau’s Engagement Reporter. Previously, he was a ProPublica Illinois fellow and a local government reporter with the Post and Courier in Charleston, SC. He has covered a wide range of topics from growth and development to education and health. In this role, he will develop a beat centered on public and affordable housing and food accessibility as well as mentor early-career reporters in our Civic Reporting Fellowship program.
Documenters Network and National Impact
Susmita Chakraborty, Product & Operations Support Manager
Susmita is City Bureau’s Product and Operations Support Manager, based in the Bronx, New York. She supports the Documenters Program by leading the tech request process, product support triage, and documentation, while helping shape product roadmaps and strategy. She also manages operational workflows for contracting and invoicing across the Documenters Network. With over five years of experience in product support, QA, and operations, Susmita brings a people-first, impact-driven mindset to her work. Her fascination with social innovation and deep commitment to community building in under-resourced communities continue to guide her pursuit of meaningful change.
Kristina Campa-Gruca,
Site Success Director, Documenters
Kristina is City Bureau’s Site Success Director of Documenters. In this role, she draws on her background in coaching, partner strategy, collective impact, and organizational development to support local sites in building strong, sustainable programs. Based in Southern California, Kristina grounds her work in relationship-building, equity, and care—aiming to create the conditions for people and communities to thrive.
NavJOT HEER, Network engagement manager, documenters
Navi is City Bureau’s Network Engagement Manager of Documenters. She comes from the Central Valley of California with a background in architecture, urban planning, and community organizing. Currently based in Chicago, Navi aims to foster connections between people and ideas, dismantle expertise, and co-create dignified spaces for systems-impacted people to thrive.
EVE LACIVITA, DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT
Eve is City Bureau’s Director of Product, leading product development and strategy. A Chicago native now based in Boise, Idaho, she brings a deep background in both digital product innovation and nonprofit strategy. Her passion is helping nonprofits scale impact in human-centered ways with the support of technology and design thinking.
Max Resnik,
director of growth, documenters
Max is City Bureau’s Director of Growth for the Documenters. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Max works with civic and media organizations across the country to equip community members to document and amplify important local information from public meetings.
maja stina sunleaf, site success manager, documenters
Maja is City Bureau’s Site Success Manager for Documenters. Her previous experience in academia centers her approach to resource and program creation with stakeholders at the forefront. Based in Chicago, Maja employs her background in anthropology to understand and develop connections and community.
David woehr site success manager, documenters
David is City Bureau’s Site Success Manager for Documenters. Based in Tuckahoe, NY, he brings a background in arts education, program implementation coaching, and initiative management to support the Documenters Network. David is passionate about creating responsive, sustainable, programming that fosters community building and civic engagement.
Sonam vashi, Director, documenters
Sonam is City Bureau’s Director of Documenters. Based in her hometown of Atlanta, she leads the development of strategies to support a thriving network of community journalists. She has a background in local reporting, archival research, and nonprofit leadership as a cofounder of Canopy Atlanta.
anastazia Vanisko, site success manager, documenters
Anastazia is a Site Success Manager for City Bureau’s Documenters. Based in Cleveland, OH, she first got involved with her local Documenters program in 2021 as a Documenter herself. She has a background in journalism, as well as facilitating and organizing community gatherings with nonprofits and newsrooms. In her work, Anastazia focuses on eliminating barriers to participation and creating resources to support our growing network.
Communications & Development
TYRA BOSNIC, Senior manager of Grants and Public Partnerships
Tyra is City Bureau’s Senior Manager of Grants and Public Partnerships. Born and raised in Chicago, Tyra comes to the work with a background in journalism and state government that has centered on tapping into the power of words to redefine narratives and foster collective healing.
Maria Dikcis, PhD Communications Manager
Maria is City Bureau’s Communications Manager and American Council of Learned Societies Leading Edge Fellow. With a multidisciplinary background in humanities research, editing, digital production, and prison education, Maria is dedicated to crafting narratives that drive social justice initiatives forward and highlight the power of collective action. She earned her PhD in English from Northwestern University and was born and raised in Chicago.
Kristen Fallica, Director of Communications
Kristen is City Bureau's Director of Communications. Drawing on her diverse background in digital strategy, education, nonprofit leadership, and public programming, Kristen is energized by developing marketing and communications strategies to help City Bureau expand its reach and impact.
Ruth Meberg, Director of Development
Ruth is City Bureau’s Director of Development. Rooted in small town North Dakota, she has called Chicago home for 18 years. Ruth is passionate about building values-based community to improve daily life and co-constructing equitable solutions with internal and external stakeholders. At City Bureau, she is supporting a culture of philanthropy to ensure we move ever-closer to our vision of a more just and participatory democracy.
Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel,
digital producer
Yasmin is City Bureau's Digital Producer. With a background in theatre (dramaturgy and criticism), education, and oral history, their multidisciplinary work as a queer, fat, brown, femme amplifies and archives stories that go lost/stolen/forgotten. They have hands on City Bureau's socials, newsletters, and website and enjoy working collaboratively to promote civically-made journalism programs and projects.
Operations
Alaa Almezanin,
Senior Director of Operations and Impact
Alaa is City Bureau's Senior Director of Operations and Impact. She is a driven management consultant based in Chicago, with a dynamic background and a passion for both professional and personal growth. With a foundation in software engineering, she leverages her technical expertise to bring strategic insights and innovative solutions to the forefront of organizational challenges.
Eli Ramirez,
Director of finance
Eli is City Bureau’s Director of Finance. Once a music educator and hospitality professional, he deeply values creating long-lasting and meaningful relationships with folks that love Chicago.
Board of Directors
Joe Germuska, Executive Director, Northwestern University Knight Lab
Joe Germuska leads an interdisciplinary team at Northwestern University Knight Lab, a media technology design and innovation studio where designers, software developers, students, and educators collaborate to push journalism into new spaces using diverse technologies. Before Knight Lab, Joe was a member of the Chicago Tribune’s pioneering News Apps team, which worked closely with editors and reporters to help research stories, present them online, and build evergreen web resources for Chicagoans. Joe is the founder of Census Reporter, a widely used tool that makes Census data more accessible to journalists and the public. His research spans human-centered design, local news information needs, and the civic applications of open-source technology. He holds a BA in African History and an MS in Product Design and Development Management, both from Northwestern.
Wendy Lee Haines, Senior Partner, New Profit
Wendy Lee Haines is a Senior Partner at New Profit, a philanthropic organization that backs breakthrough social entrepreneurs expanding access and opportunity across the country. In this role, she provides strategic advising and capacity-building support to portfolio organizations navigating growth. Before joining New Profit, Wendy led philanthropic programming at UBS, a global financial services company. In that role, she oversaw the firm’s philanthropic programs in the Americas, which focused on creating a more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem for underrepresented founders and increasing college and career success for underrepresented students. She also spent more than a decade in leadership roles at New Classrooms and Citizen Schools NY. She holds an MPA from New York University and a BS from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Cassie Haynes, Executive Director, Independence Hall Association
Cassie Haynes is a strategist, institution builder, and national thought leader at the intersection of civic media, organizational equity, and systems change. She currently leads the Independence Hall Association, the Philadelphia-based nonprofit behind USHistory.org, one of the most visited civic education platforms in the country. She co-founded Resolve Philly in 2018, building one of the country’s most respected collaborative journalism organizations and raising over $10 million to support community-driven reporting. A Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow alumna and faculty member teaching Policy Communications at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice, Cassie draws on her broad-ranging background in public health, law, and the arts to advise philanthropic institutions, collaboratives, movements, and mission-driven organizations on strategy, governance, and engagement. She holds a JD from Northeastern University School of Law and an MPH from Tufts University School of Medicine.
Kali Plomin, Deputy Commissioner, City of Chicago
Kali Plomin serves as Deputy Commissioner for the City of Chicago’s Departments of Planning and Development and Housing, overseeing office operations, HR, IT/GIS, and legal functions. A seasoned attorney with deep roots in municipal governance and affordable housing policy, she previously served as Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel for both departments and has practiced real estate and transactional law in public and private settings. A longtime Chicagoan with a sustained commitment to civic life—including leadership on her neighborhood’s Local School Council and running an aldermanic campaign—she brings deep organizational governance, management, and legal expertise to her civic leadership roles. She holds a JD from Vanderbilt University and a BS in journalism from Northwestern University.