Program Coordinators

Zachary R. Dowdy

Zachary Dowdy has been an instructor in Stony Brook’s journalism program since January 2003. A Stony Brook graduate, he has worked for The Boston Herald, where he covered breaking news and compiled a column focusing on teen issues, and The Boston Globe, where he covered urban affairs, international issues and criminal justice with an emphasis on corrections.

More recently, Dowdy was a rewrite and criminal justice reporter and United Nations correspondent for Newsday, where he penned a news column about criminal justice and legal issues.

Dowdy has taught journalism and writing courses at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and Roxbury Community College in Boston, and at Hofstra University on Long Island. He also participated as a writing coach in Partners in Print, a journalism program for elementary, middle and high school students in Boston.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Stony Brook, and master’s degrees in English and journalism from Harvard and Columbia universities, respectively.

Cathrine Duffy

Cathrine Duffy is Director of Stony Brook’s employee wellness program, Healthier U. Previously, she served as Director of Student Support at Stony Brook’s Office of the Dean of Students. Cathrine is a founding faculty member of Stony Brook’s School of Journalism and lectured there for six years.

Cathrine worked at Newsday for 10 years in various capacities including news editor, copy editor and deputy Long Island editor. She is a two-time alumnus of Stony Brook University with a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in journalism and a Master of Arts in Public Policy, and is working on her MSW at Stony Brook’s School of Social Welfare.

Faculty

Rick Ricioppo 

Rick Ricioppo was named associate professor of electronic and video journalism in September 2007. Rick also serves as the manager of TV production for the communication and journalism school.

Ricioppo was the production director of TV 10 at Illinois State University from 2002 to 2007. At Illinois State, he taught introductory and advanced television production classes and oversaw all technical aspects of the daily live student newscast. An experienced professional video photographer and editor, Ricioppo taught news and sports shooting and editing as well as studio and control room production. Additionally, he oversaw video production of sporting events both at the university and at the U.S. Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington, Ill.

Before joining Illinois State, Ricioppo held a variety of positions in electronic journalism. Most recently, he was a sports photographer and editor for the Empire Sports Network from 2000 to 2002. Previously, he was news photographer and editor, WGRZ-TV, Buffalo, NY(1994-2000); videographer, director and technician, C-Span (1988-94); promotions producer, Cablevision, Woodbury, N.Y (1987-88); and photographer, editor and director, Telicare, Rockville Centre, N.Y. (1986-87).

Ricioppo holds a master of science degree in communication from Illinois State University.

J. Conrad Williams Jr.

J. Conrad Williams Jr. is an assistant photo editor at Newsday, where he has been on staff since 1985.

His work has won critical acclaim and accompanied award-winning articles and series, including Newsday‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 10th anniversary of the 1994 massacres in Rwanda.

He has taught photojournalism at Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism and Nassau Community College.

Marcy McGinnis

Marcy McGinnis was associate dean of Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism from 2007 until 2014. McGinnis joined Stony Brook as director of the broadcast journalism program in 2006 and, with the founding dean, helped start the first undergraduate school of journalism in the SUNY system.

McGinnis was Senior Vice President, News Coverage, at CBS News from 2001-2005 and Vice President, News Coverage from 1997-2001. She managed CBS News’ worldwide newsgathering operation, hard news broadcasts, special events coverage and breaking news as well as the operation and staffing of all domestic and overseas bureaus

Connie Conway

Connie Conway is a television/radio reporter with more than 30 years of experience. She worked most recently for Long Island Public Radio as News Director, Reporter and host of the “Evening Report.” Before that she was a Reporter at News 12 Long Island for 13 years.

Connie covered stories from 9-11 to the East End wildfires. And throughout her career she has won 20 awards, from the Associated Press, Long Island Press Club and the International Communicator awards club, to mention a few. She has taught broadcast journalism at Stony Brook University and is Chief of Staff for the Town of Southampton Supervisor’s Office.

Phil Altiere

Phil graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in Film and TV. He worked in the broadcast news division of Fuji TV (Fujisankei Communications) in New York, where he was the satellite coordinator for news reports from North and South America back to Japan. Phil was also the technical director for a weekly remote live show from New York City as part of Fuji TV’s morning news show in Japan called “On My NY.” 

At Stony Brook, Phil designed and built the School’s HD Broadcast Studio,  oversees and maintains the School’s Apple Computer Newsroom, and manages the equipment available for students to check out for their audiovisual reporting assignments. He oversees technical production for the School of  Communication and Journalism’s student-produced remote live news programs. 

Bill Bleyer

Bill Bleyer was a prize-winning staff writer for Newsday for 33 years before retiring in 2014 to write books and freelance. He is the author of Long Island and the Sea: A Maritime History; The Fire Island Lighthouse: Long Island’s Welcoming Beacon; Sagamore Hill: Theodore Roosevelt’s Summer White House and co-author of Long Island and the Civil War. He is past president of the Press Club of Long Island, the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and has served on the board of SPJ. He has taught college courses in journalism, economics and history. This is his fourth year as chief copy editor for the Greene Team profiles.

Wasim Ahmad

Wasim Ahmad is an assistant teaching professor at Quinnipiac University. Previously he has taught multimedia journalism at Syracuse University and Stony Brook University. He has worked for newspapers in Minnesota, Florida and upstate New York.

He is a Ph.D. candidate at Syracuse University and holds a master’s degree in photography from The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse. Ahmad’s work has been recognized by the Freedom Forum and the Center for Innovation in College Media, but by far the award he’s most proud of is the 2013 “Seniors’ Choice” award for best professor in the School of Journalism at Stony Brook University.

Frank Posillico

Frank Posillico is a New York based Emmy and Edward R. Murrow award winning journalist. He currently works as a Senior Producer at Cheddar News. Previously he worked on the national digital video team at Spectrum News and was a Senior Video Producer at the New York Daily News. Frank was a student at Stony Brook University in the journalism program and graduated in 2013.

At Stony Brook he got his start at the campus newspaper “The Statesman.” He was a photo editor, news editor and eventually the paper’s Editor-in-Chief for three years. After graduation, Frank has stayed in touch with the school and currently serves on the School of Journalism Alumni Board. Frank has worked with the Robert W. Greene Summer Institute for High School Journalists since 2011.

Arielle Martinez

Arielle Martinez is a senior digital production coordinator at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the former editor-in-chief of The Statesman, the campus newspaper of Stony Brook University. She has also written for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Long Island Press, and the four newspapers of L&M Publications (now owned by Richner Communications): Merrick Life, Bellmore Life, The Freeport-Baldwin Leader, and The Wantagh-Seaford Citizen. She was an editing intern at The Pioneer Press in St. Paul, Minnesota during the summer of 2015 as part of the Dow Jones News Fund. She was also a copy editor for the 2016 New York Times Student Journalism Institute. In 2017, she graduated from Stony Brook, where she majored in journalism with a concentration in global issues and perspectives.

Chrissy Sampson

Chrissy Sampson was a student of Bob Greene at Hofstra University, graduating in 2002. Her favorite day in “Investigative Reporting” class involved Professor Greene bringing bags of garbage collected from people’s curbs and assigning students to dig through the trash to look for stories about those people. Formerly with Newsday, Patch.com, and the Virginia Gazette, Chrissy is now deputy managing editor of the East Hampton Star. She has won awards from the New York Press Association and Press Club of Long Island for her coverage of education, environmental issues, and food, and for the Star’s digital marketing campaigns. She has been volunteering with the Greene Team since 2010.

Ryan Magill

Ryan Magill is a rising senior in the Stony Brook School of Communication and Journalism with a dual major in Political Science. He has a focus in sports journalism, and he writes for the Stony Brook weekly newspaper, The Statesman, covering men’s and women’s lacrosse teams as well as the women’s soccer team.

Ryan is a 2017 Greene Team alumni, and he credits his experiences with the program as having both confirmed his passion for the world of journalism and his love of Stony Brook.

David North

David North of David North Media is a journalist and broadcaster who produces audio and video presentations for clients in New York and on Long island. His career highlights include coverage of the TWA Flight 800 catastrophe, 9/11, the Great Northeast Blackout, and SuperStorm Sandy for Long Island’s WALK 97.5.

David began his career working in TV and radio in New England; on Long Island, he was a regular panelist on News12 LI’s “Reporter RoundTable,” and a producer for their nightly program, “Long Island Talks.” He wrote and delivered the Newsday.com NewsMinute; and was High School Journalism Program Coordinator and Suffolk correspondent for the Long Island Press. He is a producer/host of “Health Story,” for Northwell Health, and a recipient of numerous awards for journalism. David is a member of the Board of Directors for the SPJ/Press Club of Long Island.

Special Thanks

Josh Apter and Padcaster
ClipChamp
Stephanie Brumsey
Kate Nalepinski
Brianne Ledda 
Yaw Bonsu
Sarah Kazadi
Liisa May
Paul Schreiber
Lily McInerny
Danielle Ranucci
Andrea Ordonez
Carl Corry
Scott Brinton
Caryn Eve Murray
Brendan O’Reilly

The School of Communication and Journalism

Dr. Laura Lindenfeld
Howard Schneider
Irene Virag
Christina Anselmo 
Maureen Robinson
Erika Karp
Paul Christensen