Lorraine A. Ustaris

MULTIMEDIA PRODUCER

Lorraine A. Ustaris is an educator and multimedia storyteller, who believes the objectives of teaching and journalism are one and the same. She joins the Pulitzer Center with over a decade of experience in education and curriculum innovation, including six years as a high school English teacher in the School District of Philadelphia. In 2012, she won the Lindback Award for distinguished teaching. She has been a teacher consultant for the National Writing Project since 2010 and has presented her work and the work of her students at local and national conferences. As a classroom teacher, she also directed a PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Lab and regularly collaborated with the Pulitzer Center, creating school programming connected to the work of journalists.

Inspired by her students and Pulitzer grantees, she joined the documentary film program at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in 2015. Her multimedia work has been featured on The Atlantic Selects, National Geographic's Out of Eden Walk, Elle.com, New York's Amsterdam News, PRI's America Abroad and on the Pulitzer Center. Between projects, she dedicates her time to supporting youth media education programs and teaches young journalists and mediamakers, most recently at WHYY in Philadelphia, BRIC in Brooklyn and at a PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Lab in Manila, Philippines.

In addition to her master's degree in journalism from Columbia Journalism School, Lorraine has a master's degree in Secondary Education from Villanova University and a bachelor of arts in English from Saint Joseph's University, where she also successfully completed concentrations in gender studies and pre-medicine. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. 

Lorraine uses her cross-disciplinary background and experiences in production and public education to create multimedia content that will further Pulitzer Center journalism and education outreach.

Email: [email protected]