News veteran and technology expert Joe Germuska will take on an expanded role at the Knight Lab as interim director. Germuska has served as director of software engineering for the Lab. He previously co-founded OpenGovChicago and was on the Chicago Tribune News Apps team.
Knight Lab executive director Miranda Mulligan will take a job in late January as creative director of National Geographic Digital. Mulligan has led the Lab for two years.
“Our faculty, students, and staff have benefitted from Miranda’s leadership since she arrived in 2012,” said Owen R. Youngman, professor and Knight Chair in Digital Media Strategy, one of the founding faculty members of the Lab.
Over the past few years the Lab has created important new software such as TimelineJS, StoryMapJS and JuxtaposeJS.
Northwestern University Knight Lab is a joint initiative of the Medill School of Journalism, Media Integrated Marketing Communications and the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. It was launched and is sustained by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with additional support from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
Recent statistics show that more than 300,000 storytellers have used Lab projects to reach more than 160 million unique news readers.
“The Knight Lab’s agenda will expand beyond the Chicago area in the months and years ahead,” said Bradley J. Hamm, dean of Medill. “The Knight Lab’s work and our partnership with the McCormick School and Dean Julio Ottino has been such a success that we are expanding our partnership as part of a new San Francisco location. We believe Medill and McCormick can be academic leaders at the intersection of journalism, media, technology and innovation.”
Medill will establish a San Francisco program within the year and expects to announce an office location in the near future.
