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CMJ Staff


Malkia Amala Cyril
Director
Malkia Amala Cyril is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice in Oakland, CA.- a national media strategy and action center building a powerful grassroots movement for racial and economic justice through media change.  Key projects include the ... > > read more

Chris Lymbertos
Associate Director
Born and raised in Iran by Syrian and Armenian parents, Chris came to the Bay in 1976 to attend college with plans to return to the Middle East to teach. As a result of the changes in social and political conditions due to the revolution in Iran and the subsequent war, ... > > read more

Karlos Gauna Schmieder
Communications Strategist
Karlos Gauna Schmieder is a community organizer and communications strategist from Albuquerque, NM. For nearly a decade, Karlos worked as a community and communications organizer with SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP). He is the former editor of Voces Unidas. He now ... > > read more

Mervyn Marcano
An accomplished communicator and organizer, Mervyn Marcano has worked on a variety of local and national campaigns. Most recently, Mervyn was Communications Director at ColorOfChange.org, the 400,000 member Black online advocacy group founded in the wake of Hurrica... > > read more

Samhita Mukhopadhyay
Si Se Puede Training and Technology Coordinator
A 29-year-old resident of San Francisco, Samhita grew up in New York and did her undergraduate at SUNY Albany in Sociology and Women's Studies. For six years she worked as a San Francisco public school teacher, teaching in Hunter's Point, the Fillmore and Potrero Hill.... > > read more

Lisa Jervis
Finance and Operations Director
Lisa Jervis became an activist for independent political media by accident when she cofounded Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture because she was angry about some things and knew that no one else would publish her essays about it. While growing Bitch from a tiny 300... > > read more

Brandon Lacy Campos
National Media Justice Organizer
Brandon Lacy Campos, 30, was described by the Minneapolis Star and Tribune in 2006 as a "Young Wonk to Watch." He recently joined the staff of the Center for Media Justice as the Grassroots Media Policy Advocate after a year and a half as a fellow and Associate Director... > > read more

Patricia Hemphill
Development Strategist
Patricia (or P) Hemphill was born and raised just outside Dallas, Texas, to a Black working-class family led by a single mother. P credits her early politicizing to a wisely critical, intensely loving and vocal mother who always taught P to question. After studying Afri... > > read more

Rashida Jivraj
Operations Manager
As the Operations Manager, Rashida Jivraj joins the Center for Media Justice with a host of diverse living and working experiences.  Born in Tanzania, raised in Kenya, educated in Canada and most recently moved from London, UK where she has lived for the past thirteen ... > > read more

Oshen Turman
Executive Assistant
Oshen Turman is a 27 year old East Oakland native. She is a writer, artist, activist and student of healthy living. She has been involved in social justice work for the past 9 years, beginning during her senior year of high school through speaking on panels on issues su... > > read more