Acting Retreat Directors
Cinny Kennard, Senior Adviser to the President of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands
Robin Kramer, Senior Adviser to the President of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands
Program Director
Research Team
Mark Latonero, Ph.D.
Lisa Prince, Project Manager
Kristie Thompson, Project Manager
Administrative
Julice Hartounian
Program Committee
Geoffrey Cowan, President, The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands
Joanne de Asis
Maria Hummer-Tuttle
Elizabeth Kabler
Wendy Luers
Ron Olson
STAFF BIOS
Cinny Kennard
Senior Adviser to the President of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands
Cinny Kennard is an award-winning broadcast journalist and media executive. She was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission as special adviser on a recently-completed "Future of Media" study. From 2003 to 2009, she served as managing director/managing editor of NPR West. After a career as a broadcast journalist, including several years as a CBS News correspondent in Los Angeles, Moscow, and London, Kennard taught journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. She has launched nonprofits aimed at improving broadcast journalism, including Reliable Resources, the $1.5 million Pew Charitable Trust/USC Annenberg project to improve political coverage. She is a cofounder and executive board member of the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Television Journalism and served for nine years as a juror of the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism.
Robin Kramer
Senior Adviser to the President of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands
In addition to her role at Sunnylands, Robin Kramer is one of five commissioners of the Port of Los Angeles. Over the last three decades, Kramer served as chief of staff to Los Angeles mayors Antonio Villaraigosa and Richard Riordan – the first woman to serve in this post for one mayor, let alone two – and was an independent management consultant/reality therapist for a host of arts, civic, education, and private sector clients. She has held senior leadership posts at the California Community Foundation and the Broad Foundation, and was executive director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan, civic and diverse leadership institute Coro. Following her graduation from college, she was director of the Democratic Party in Southern California and a part-time teacher. Kramer is chair of the board of trustees of Pitzer College, her alma mater.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Ph.D.
Program Director
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Political Science, and the International Communication Association. She is the author or co-author of 16 books. She has won university-wide teaching awards at each of the three universities at which she has taught and political science or communication awards for five of her books.
Mark Latonero, Ph.D.
Mark Latonero is the research director at the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy. His research interests include new media, communication technology, and social change, with particular attention on human rights, humanitarian action, and global affairs. Latonero received his Ph.D. from USC Annenberg and was a postdoctoral scholar at the London School of Economics.
Lisa Prince
Project Manager
Before joining the Sunnylands team, Lisa Prince attended the University of Chicago Law School and practiced law in both Los Angeles and Chicago. She is a graduate of Brown University with a degree in history.
Kristie Thompson
Project Manager
Kristie Thompson is a Yale graduate who began her career in publishing and operations at Time magazine. Thompson worked in New York as a producer in children's television before moving to Los Angeles.