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AAJA Chapter Presidents
For chapter programs and events in your area, contact the chapter president or visit their chapter web site (if available). Otherwise, contact AAJA National at National(at)aaja.org for further assistance.

AAJA/ARIZONA
Teresa Jun (Co-President)is an Emmy award winning Anchor/Reporter for KOLD-TV News in Tucson, Arizona. She was born in South Korea, but grew up in Los Angeles. After graduating from UCLA, she received a master's degree from USC. Teresa is the former Vice-President of the Arizona AAJA chapter.


Abe Kwok (Co-President) oversees all things news at azcentral/The Arizona Republic. He reported GA, police, courts and politics before joining the editing ranks in 1997, and gets inspiration -- chuckles, too -- teaching reporting at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

AAJA/ASIA
Ken Moritsugu is the enterprise editor for The Associated Press in Asia. Based in Bangkok, he oversees features and projects in the region. Previously, he has been a freelancer in India, a Washington correspondent for Knight Ridder and a reporter at Newsday, the St. Petersburg Times and The Japan Times. He is a past president of the New York chapter of AAJA.

AAJA/ATLANTA
Jacqueline S. Howard (Co-President) is a media coordinator at CNN where she works with CNN, CNN International, and HLN to gather the latest video and images for use across all platforms. She also fills in as an associate producer. Prior to CNN, she was a web producer at FOX 5 in Atlanta. Jacqueline has been a member of AAJA since 2007 and chapter president since 2011. Outside of work, Jacqueline also volunteers with the local non-profit organization La Amistad. She also finds time to enjoy gardening, cooking, and traveling as much as possible with her husband before they have kids!


Vino Wong (Co-President) is a veteran award winning photojournalist who joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in October of 2005, and in June of 2011 he joined the WSBTV and WSB Radio as a multi-media journalist to provide breaking news coverage as part of the Cox Media Group. Before joining AJC, he worked for various publications, including: The Insider Magazine, Democrat & Chronicle, Greater Niagara Newspapers, Emporia Gazette, and The Salina Journal. For his pursuit of photojournalism, he has received awards and honors from the Associated Press, Kansas Press, Association, Georgia Press Association, New York State Associated Press, National Press Photographers Association and the Asian American Journalists Association. He holds a bachelor's degree in business communications from Kansas Wesleyan University and a proud 2009 ELP alumni. (PHOTO CREDIT: VINO WONG)

AAJA/CHICAGO
Ameet Sachdev (Co-President) is a business reporter with the Chicago Tribune who covers legal affairs. He has spent 18 years as a business reporter with a variety of newspapers, including the St. Petersburg Times. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He is a native Chicagoan.

Susanna Song (Co-President) is an Emmy Award winning journalist who serves as a general assignment reporter for CBS 2 Chicago. A native of the Chicago area, she is proud to return home after six years working in Peoria and Minneapolis/St. Paul. She is the first generation in her family to be born in the United States. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and the former Vice President of the Minnesota AAJA chapter.

AAJA/DENVER
Joe Nguyen (President) is a journalist with The Denver Post, where he has been working since 2011. He has previously covered Colorado's Asian-American communities as editor for Asian Avenue magazine and AsiaXpress.com. Joe is a Denver native.

AAJA/FLORIDA

Valerie Boey (President) is an award winning television journalist at FOX in Orlando (WOFL). She also provides coverage to other FOX owned and operated stations around the country, including FOX News Channel. Prior to FOX, Valerie worked as a reporter at WTSP-TV (CBS) in Tampa and WINK (CBS) in Fort Myers. As a multi-media journalist, she has also written stories for Gannett owned newspapers/websites such as Florida Today and the Ft. Myers News Press. Valerie is a graduate of New York University. She enjoys mentoring journalism students.(PHOTO CREDIT: WOFL)

AAJA/HAWAI'I
Lauren Kawana (President) is the managing editor for Element Media and its major publications: Pacific Edge and Las Vegas Bound magazines. She was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, and is a graduate of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

LOS ANGELES
Jocelyn "Joz" Wang (Interim contact) is an avid writer who embraced blogging at its onset. Known online– and offline“ for her personal blog jozjozjoz.com, she is a Co-Editor of the popular Asian American collaborative blog 8Asians.com. She is also a long-time contributor blogging.la, flagship site of the Metblogs network, a massive local journalism and media project that began in 2003. She also contributes her web expertise in Information Architecture, User Experience (UX), and Social Media to UsabilityCounts.com.

AAJA/MICHIGAN (Co-Presidents)
Howard Chen (Co-President-elect) is the Sports Director at WUPW-TV FOX Toledo. He made the jump to Toledo in 2005 from WHIZ-TV NBC in Zanesville, Ohio. Canadian-born, Texas-bred, and Syracuse-schooled, Howard was previously the Michigan chapter's VP and also has much love for AASMBJ/AASBJ! (PHOTO CREDIT: ANDREW WEBER)

Carolyn Chin (Co-President-elect) is a news and features designer at The Detroit News. She earned her bachelors degree in print and broadcast journalism at Wayne State University. She's also a graduate of the university's Journalism Institute for Media Diversity and a Chips Quinn Scholar. She's an active member of AAJA and the Society for News Design. She's interested in all aspects of visual story-telling. Giving back to the organizations, such as AAJA, that have helped her is an important part of both her life and career. (PHOTO CREDIT: ANKUR DHOLAKIA)

AAJA/MINNESOTA (Co-Presidents)
Emma Carew Grovum is a digital editor at The Cooking Cub. She has been involved with AAJA since college and is an active alumni of ThreeSixty Journalism, formerly the Urban Journalism Workshop.




Tom Horgen is an arts & entertainment reporter at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. Since 2005, he has covered nightlife, movies, music, art and comic books. In addition to his Friday column, he also appears (i.e. makes a fool of himself) in frequent entertainment videos, which document the best of eating and drinking in the Twin Cities.

AAJA/NEW ENGLAND
Shirley Goh (Co-President) is a copy editor for news and business at The Boston Globe. She previously worked at Newsday in New York and The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa. She is a graduate of Stony Brook University, and a Brooklyn native.



Swati Sharma(Co-President) is Online Content Producer at The Boston Globe/ Boston.com.

AAJA/NEW YORK
Maria Cat Sandoval (President) is a freelance video journalist, a one woman band who shoots, edits, produces and reports. You can catch her on the air and online at Brooklyn Independent TV, NYPOST.com, and her blog www.frustratedjournalist.com. Her videos have also appeared on The Wall Street Journal website, HuffingtonPost, and ESPN.com. For 8 years, Maria has worked both behind the scenes and on camera, working with large companies to boutique productions. From pre to post production, news to food, on air to behind the scenes, Maria intends to change the world one story at a time. Her recent work as a post FX producer for film "Wasteland" was nominated for the 2011 Oscars. (PHOTO CREDIT: GMD Three)

AAJA/NORTH CAROLINA
Vicky Eckenrode (President) is a local news editor for the StarNews in Wilmington, where she has worked since 2007. She has represented the NC chapter on AAJA's national advisory board and previously served as treasurer for the AAJA-Atlanta chapter. She covered politics and state government for Morris News Service in Atlanta and also worked as a reporter and bureau chief for The Augusta Chronicle.

AAJA/PHILADELPHIA
Julie Shaw (President) is a reporter at the Philadelphia Daily News, where she has written about court cases, crime and immigrants. Before joining the Daily News in January 2007, she worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer for a year and a half.

AAJA/PORTLAND
Peter Wong (President) is president of the Portland Chapter. He was secretary two years, national board rep one year and co-president one year (2010). He is the Capitol bureau chief for the Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore., and has been a political reporter in Oregon and California for 35 years.

AAJA/SACRAMENTO
Sandy Louey (President) is an information officer with the California Energy Commission. She was a newspaper reporter for 17 years. Active in AAJA since 1988, she is a former national and Bay Area scholarship winner. Louey served as president, co-president and secretary for the Sacramento chapter, vice-president of the Texas chapter, and national board member for the New England and Texas chapters.

AAJA/SAN DIEGO
Robert Santos (President) is currently a weathercaster for San Diego's ABC affiliate KGTV. Prior to San Diego, he forecasted and reported general news in such cities as Seattle, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. His career began in Guam, where he was born and raised. He attended the University of Guam but graduated from Pepperdine University. Currently, he's pursuing his meteorology certification with Mississippi State University.

AAJA/SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
Tomio Geron (Co-President) is a reporter with Forbes.
Pia Sarkar (Co-President) has worked as a journalist for more than 15 years. She currently serves as an associate editor with the Daily Journal, California's largest legal news publication, where she oversees coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as environmental law, clean technology, and law firm business. She previously covered technology and retail for TheStreet.com, an online financial news site. Before that, she was a reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle for seven years. Pia graduated from Columbia University's journalism school in 1995 and has served on the AAJA-SF board since 2007.

AAJA/SEATTLE
Sona Patel (President) is a Producer for Social Media for The Seattle Times. She joined The Times in November 2009. Prior to that she was a beat reporter for The (San Luis Obispo) Tribune. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine, in 2006.

AAJA/TEXAS
Iris Kuo
Lead Green Writer, VentureBeat

AAJA/WASHINGTON, DC
Kathy Park (President) is a reporter and weekend morning anchor for ABC7 and NewsChannel 8. She joined the team in 2008. Prior to that, she worked as a reporter for WCYB/WEMT in Bristol, VA. Kathy grew up in the DC-metro region, and graduated from the University of Maryland.

REPRESENTING AT-LARGE MEMBERS (Interim)
Thomas Lee
Business Reporter, The Star Tribune