Lena Jakobsson is a producer for Court TV news. Among many other stories, she has covered the trials of Andrea Yates, Zacarias Moussaoui and Edgar Ray Killen, and the massacre at Columbine High School.

Kim Komenich is a staff photographer at the San Francisco Chronicle. He has covered stories in the Philippines, Vietnam, El Salvador, the Soviet Union and Guyana. Most recently he made three trips to Iraq as an embed. He won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, the 1983 World Press Photo award for news picture stories, the National Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Professional Journalists and three National Headliner Awards .

Jenny Johanna Manrique Cortés is a freelance journalist formerly based in Bucaramanga, Colombia. After reporting for the publication Vanguardia Liberal on the activities of paramilitary groups, Manrique received a number of death threats and was forced to leave Colombia. Since leaving Colombia in March 2006, she has written for El Espectator, Latin America Press, and Interprensa.

Kevin McKiernan, a freelance journalist, filmmaker, photographer and television producer, has reported from Central America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. His articles and photographs have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, Time and other publications. He recently covered the Iraq war, for ABC News, for extended periods in both Kurdish and Arab areas. His book, The Kurds: A People in Search of Their Homeland was released by St. Martin’s Press in 2006.

Sharon Schmickle is a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. She has covered conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the aftermath of the tsunami in South Asia, and school shootings in Red Lake and Rocori high schools in Minnesota. In 2000 Schmickle won a McClatchy President’s Award for a special report from Japan on the global controversy over genetically modified foods. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1996 for an investigative series about the U.S. Supreme Court; also in 1996, she was named Washington Correspondent of the year by the National Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists, for her reporting on the impact of the federal budget on one Minnesota community.

Melissa Sweet is a freelance health journalist based in Australia. Her work has appeared in a wide range of professional and general publications and she has worked at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin magazine and Australian Associated Press. Her book, Inside Madness, which tells the story of murdered psychiatrist Margaret Tobin and the history of Australia’s mental health system, was published this year by Pan Macmillan. Earlier this year, the University of Sydney awarded her an honorary position as Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Health.

Petra Tabeling is a freelance print and radio journalist based in Germany. Her work has appeared on WDR, Deutschlandfunk, Deutsche Welle, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Neue Züricher Zeitung, and qantara.de, among others. She is also a German correspondent for Reporters Sans Frontiers. Previously, she was an editor and correspondent for Deutsche Welle.

Michele Trudeau is a contributing science correspondent for National Public Radio. Trudeau’s news reports and feature stories, which cover the areas of human behavior, child development, the brain sciences, and mental health, air on NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. She has received awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Casey Journalism Center, the American Psychiatric Association, World Hunger, the Los Angeles Press Club, the American Psychological Association, and the National Mental Health Association.