Alumni and friends share their experiences with students and serve as valuable mentors and role models. Our students tell us they value these interactions a great deal, and that they gain insights into career planning and into their education.

Please contact vsprang@uw.edu if you are interested in visiting the department and meeting students.

The Department of Communication 2012-13 Mentor Lunch Series

Katie King (BA, 1983)
October 2012

Katie King joined Communication students for a mentor lunch and visited a class in mid-October 2012 to talk about careers in communication. Katie was in town has a member of the 2012 Communication Alumni Hall of Fame celebration.

About Katie:

Katie King is a writer, editor, literary translator and digital media executive. Her 20 plus-year career includes working as a foreign correspondent, documentary producer, digital story-teller, business leader and journalism professor. Most recently Katie worked for four years as Senior Product Manager Portal & Partnerships for MSN UK in London where she moved in 2008. After graduating from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1985, Katie spent 16 years of her career at Reuters, working as Chief Correspondent in Mexico, Central America and Panama and Chief Correspondent Brazil After leaving Reuters at the end of 2001, Katie worked as a consultant for a number of Washington, D.C.-based companies and non-profit organizations. Katie has been a member of the Online News Association almost since it began in 1999 and was founding co-chair of the ONA International Committee. The year 2012 marks the fifth since Katie led the launch of the ONA’s non-English language awards honoring outstanding online journalism worldwide. Katie is passionate about Spanish culture and history and translates Spanish poetry and short stories into English for the literary non-profit Words Without Borders. Read more about Katie King>>>

 Alex Quade (BA, 1992)

Alex Quade joined Communication students for a mentor lunch and visited two classes in mid-October 2012 to talk about careers in journalism. She also screened her documentary to a group of students and the general public.

About Alex:

Freelance War Reporter Alex Quade covers U.S. Special Operations Forces on combat missions.  She is the recipient of a national RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Award, as well as the Congressional Medal Of Honor Society’s “Tex McCrary Award For Excellence In Journalism” for her war reportage.

Alex has worked in television for Fox News and CNN.  Extreme storytelling and silent risk-taking lie at the heart of what she does.  As a “one-man-band”, she embeds with elite combat units several months at a time, producing exclusive, long-form, special series and documentaries.  She recently produced and directed a short documentary about Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan, “Horse Soldiers of 9/11,” that is currently showing in film festivals nationwide.  Narrated by actor Gary Sinise, Quade’s film expands her original investigative reports for The Washington Times, CNN.com, and The Daily Caller.  Vice President Joe Biden quoted Ms. Quade’s stories during the dedication of a monument paying tribute to the secretive warriors, near ground zero in New York.  (FOX affiliates, Armed Forces Network, and the Pentagon Channel re-broadcast the event and Quade’s stories worldwide.) Read more about Alex Quade.