Prometheus Alumni

Danielle Chynoweth
Danielle Chynoweth was a City Councilor and the Mayor Pro-Tem of Urbana Illinois before coming to Prometheus. She was also a founder of the multi-media firm Pixo, a key staff of the Gesundheit Institute, and the Urbana Champaign independent Media Center. Danielle was the operations manager of the final year of the campaign to win the Local Community Radio Act, and responsible for strategic planning and resource development for the 2013 application window. During her time responsible for fundraising, Prometheus had the most resources and largest staff in it's history. She also led in the hosting of the Prometheus radio barnraising for WRFU, when the Independent Media Center purchased their arts and activism building in the historic downtown post office. Danielle is now the Organizing Director for the Center For Media Justice. If you do an internet search for Danielle, you will think there are several people with that name...a poet, an educator, a politician, an educator, a businesswoman, an artist, a radio producer... but no, there is only one Danielle Chynoweth and they are all her!

Nan Rubin
Nan Rubin has been creating and supporting community-based media projects for more than thirty years. She built two community radio stations – WAIF in Cincinnati, and KUVO in Denver – and she is a founder of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and AMARC (Association Mondiale des Radio Diffuseurs Communautaires/World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters). Her business Community Media Services has been advising public television and radio stations, independent producers, media service organizations, social justice groups and foundations since 1985. Her specialties include feasibility studies, policy analysis, organizational assessments, and facilities and technology planning, and she has worked extensively with minority and ethnic media, especially Native media.

Nan has been central in helping shape the modern media reform movement through her efforts focused on expanding access to spectrum and communications infrastructure. She organized the influential Highlander Media Justice Gathering; assisted the Ford Foundation on building grass roots activism for media policy; coordinated an important national project on public television preservation for the Library of Congress; and helped create the Media Justice movement. Nan served on the Board of the Prometheus Radio Project and serves informally as technology and strategic adviser to a wide range of media and telecommunications groups, youth media projects, and independent production organizations. Read more . . .

Pete Tridish
Pete Trisdish was a member of the founding collective of Radio Mutiny, 91.3 FM in Philadelphia. He is also a founder of the Prometheus Radio Project. In 1997, he was an organizer for Radio Mutiny's demonstrations at Benjamin Franklin's Printing Press and the Liberty Bell; on both occasions the station broadcast in open defiance of the FCCs' unfair rules that prohibit low power community broadcasting. He also worked on the first two microradio conferences on the East Coast --and organized "radio barnraising" station building gatherings in 11 communities around the United States. He actively participated in the rulemaking that led up to the adoption of LPFM. He sat on the committee that sponsored the crucial Broadcast Signal Labs study, which proved to the FCC that LPFM would not cause interference. He has written formal  comments before the FCC since 1998 on issues ranging from Media Ownership,  Localism, Low Power Radio, Digital Radio, and other issues.  

Tridish has helped to build a number of low power radio stations, and provided advice to hundreds. He has done radio trainings in Guatemala, Venezuela, Nepal,  Tanzania and other countries. He has spoken at colleges, coffee shops, living rooms, and even the CATO Institute. He has taught workshops on radio transmitters, communications law, and freedom of Expression activism at Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Berkeley, and others.   He has been interviewed on NPR, a number of college, public and pirate radio stations, CNN, for The New York Times, Maximum Rock and Roll, USA Today, Rolling Stone, Columbia Journalism Review, Radio Ink, Radio and Records, Associated Press, Democracy Now, Free Speech Radio New, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia City Paper, Baltimore City Paper, Albany Times Union,Miami Herald,  Philadelphia Weekly, Philadelphia Inquirer, Freedom Forum, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Mother Jones, The Nation, Current Biography, Washington Post, Broadcasting and Cable, Radio World, Hollywood Reporter, Z Magazine, Paper Tiger TV and other news outlets. He and Kate Coyer contributed an article to the recent book, News Incorporated, and with Sakura Saunders and Zach Schiller contributed a chapter to " Be the Media."   He holds a BA in Appropriate Technology from Antioch College. He holds a BA in Appropriate Technology from Antioch College, and he is an SBE certified  Broadcast Radio Engineer. Over the years he has been a carpenter, an environmental educator, a solar energy system installer, a squatter, a homeless shelter volunteer and an activist in many social movements since the age of 16.  Read his letter of farewell to Prometheus Radio Project here. 

Hannah Sassaman
For over six years, Hannah Sassaman led campaigns against Clear Channel, the National Association of Broadcasters, and for responsible limits on media consolidation in the United States. A key organizer of major FCC localism hearings in San Antonio and Rapid City in 2004, as well as in Nashville in 2006, Hannah travelle to Kenya, building 3 radio stations across Kenya with independent African journalists, community organizations and educational groups. In 2005, she helped coordinate the successful building of an FCC-licensed emergency radio station used by families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. She has been featured in segments on NPR's On the Media, Democracy Now, CNN, C-Span, and a variety of other TV, radio, and print sources. Fresh to Prometheus from the Philadelphia IMC and the University of Pennsylvania, Hannah is banned from all official National Association of Broadcasters events. Hannah is now working as a communications strategist with the SEIU Healthcare Union, and living in West Philadelphia with her partner and dear friends.

Brandy Doyle Former Policy Director
As policy director from 2009 to 2013, Brandy advocated for rules that support low power radio and democratic media at the Federal Communications Commission and in Congress. She has been involved in community radio since 2003, when she got her start as a local news reporter for WMNF Community Radio in Tampa, Florida. While in Florida, she also worked as the communications director at a medical research organization for four years, freelanced for the local paper, managed communications for small nonprofits, fought for bicycle transportation infrastructure, and worked on an organic farm.
Brandy is a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at Cornell University, where her research is focused on the struggle to license community radio in Guatemala. She received her B.A. in anthropology and literature from New College of Florida in 2001.

Ana Martina
Former Technical Director

Ana joined the Prometheus staff in January 2012 as the Technical and Training Coordinator. She was born in Mexico City and her passion is the promotion of independent media for social justice. She participated in technical and training support in community radio stations in Mexico, Central America and the US. In 2003, in conjunction with the Beehive Collective, launched a media caravan all over across Central America documenting the affectations of NAFTA and Plan Puebla Panama.  

Member of the Flujos Collective, since 2008, a media group dedicated to developing educational materials and sharing technical skills with grassroots movements interested in creating independent media. While there, Ana collaborated in the development of the technical manual of Flujos Vivos-CD in collaboration with other collectives, autonomous spaces and individuals from free media collectives in Mexico.

Julia Wierski 
Former Communications & Development Director

Julia joined Prometheus in October 2012 after several years of working with the organization. Julia grew up in the Philadelphia area, and has been a radio enthusiast since childhood. Whether it was making her own crystal radio set or creating audio tape archives of the airwaves, she has an extensive knowledge and interest in the medium. Julia's work within the field includes ten years as a DJ and consultant at WPRB-FM in Princeton, NJ. She also worked as an associate producer for WHYY in Philadelphia and volunteered for WFMU in Jersey City, NJ. She is also a member of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia. She has an Associate Degree in Communications from Camden County College.

Anthony Mazza
Former Administrative Director

A native of Philadelphia, Anthony worked a variety of administrative jobs, going to school part time until finally receiving his BAS in Sociology from Temple University in 2000. Shortly after that, while volunteering and DJing with (alas, now defunct local community radio project) Radio Volta, he was sucked into the Prometheus vortex- first joining as as a volunteer in the Fall of 2002, then coming on full time as Administrative Director in Fall of 2003. In his spare time, Anthony practices photography and audio production documenting graffiti in Philadelphia- the birthplace of the art- and maintains the website- www.tax-report.org on the subject.

Jeff Rousset
National Organizer Jeff's passion is harnessing the power of media to build social movements in Philly and across the country. As a grassroots organizer, he has supported and trained students, workers, veterans, and environmentalists to elevate their voices and strengthen their struggles. Jeff first came to Prometheus during our successful campaign to pass the Local Community Radio Act, when he helped garner national media attention and organized calls to Senators blocking the bill.

Recently, he has worked with Iraq Veterans Against the War and the Civilian-Soldier Alliance to support the leadership of active-duty servicemembers and veterans organizing to build a GI resistance movement. He embarked on a three-month long caravan to the U.S. Social Forum 2010 as Poverty Working Group Field Organizer. Jeff received his B.S. in Communications from Drexel University, where he focused on the democratization of media in the United States.

Desi Burnette
Desi came to the Prometheus Radio Project in January 2008 as the Intern and Volunteer Coordinator. She is a media-maker and organizer with the Media Mobilizing Project and helps create the radio show 'World Class City' produced by the Anti-Displacement Support Committee. The show explores the impact of the the City's development plans on poor and working class neighborhoods in Philadelphia and is aired the first and fourth Thursday of each month at 6pm on West Philadelphia's Community Radio Station, WPEB 88.1 FM. Desi learned the values of hard work and hope from her parents. She draws inspiration from their commitment to wake up every morning in spite of challenges we face, and dedicate themselves to working for something better.

Sara Zia Ibrahimi
Artist, activist, and media diva--has been involved in community organizing, independent media production and distribution for nearly a decade. She was a speaker on the 1998 (?) Prometheus Tour and helped develop materials on how to file comments with the FCC. She also co-founded Free Radio Gainesville, a low-power community radio station in North Central Florida, and was centrally involved in building the Civic Media Center, a resource center housing thousands of independent and self-produced books and videos. She has worked on production projects with Paper Tiger TV, Philadelphia Independent Media Center, the Self-Education Foundation and Scribe Video Center. Currently she works as the Development Associate at Bread and Roses Community Fund. In her spare time she pursues her degree in Film and Media Arts and American Culture at Temple University and writes long essays on the absorbtion of challenges to hegemony into mass pop culture and other fancy college phrases.

Joan D'ark
Joan D'ark is a founding member of the Constructive Interference Collective in Memphis, Tennessee, the owner/operators of Free Radio Memphis and Black Cat Radio. She was a speaker on the 1999 Prometheus Tour and was the main organizer of the Constructive Interference Microbroadcasting Conference in April 1999. She is the veteran of two FCC raids, including a stint of jailtime for broadcasting. Joan is entering Temple law school this fall. She intends to study media law and will re-enter the fray for media and democracy in a few years with her degree in hand. She will continue to help Prometheus when she can in her spare time

Amanda Huron
Amanda Huron co-founded the Mt. Pleasant Broadcasting Club, a neighborhood group in Washington, D.C. that is organizing to apply for a low power license under the FCCs new low power licensing system. She taught radio production in English and Spanish to teenagers at the Cesar Chavez School for Public Policy, the Next Step public charter school, the Asian-American LEAD youth power project, and the Marthas Table community center teen program, all located in Washington, D.C. She was a principal organizer of the Showdown at the FCC! Microradio Conference and demonstration at the FCC and National Association of Broadcasters in October 1998. In addition, Huron served as the national coordinator of the Microradio Empowerment Coalition, which worked with the Prometheus Radio Project to ensure that the FCC created the new low power service in the interest of grassroots communities. She recently sought sanctuary in the graduate program at the University of North Carolina and still periodically consults for Prometheus.

Bruce Hall
Bruce Hall serves as the webmaster and is otherwise learning the ropes. Bruce is a Mt Pleasant Broadcasting Club gadfly as well. He spent his twenties in an unsuccessful but extremely satisfying attempt to rid the world of nuclear weapons for various DC-based non-profits. Now, Bruce is spending his thirties as budding film maker and student of life in the Big Apple.

Marissa Johnson
In 1997-98 Marissa Johnson worked with the defunct pirate station KAW in Lawrence, Kansas during her first year of college at the University of Kansas. She first became acquainted with Prometheus Radio Project a year later, when she attended a workshop that Pete Tridish and Amanda Huron presented at the conference on Civil Disobedience in DC. After spending time in Detroit, MI, DC, Chiapas, Mexico and some more time where she grew up in Wichita, Marissa moved to Philadelphia to settle down. At Prometheus, Marissa started with applicant outreach and then added funding/grant work to her plate. Now she manages the Prometheus books and assists with a little bit of everything else. She currently attends Temple University, where she is an English major with a Latin American studies minor.

Libby Reinish
Libby directed Prometheus' outreach and support campaign surrounding the Non-Commercial Educational Full Power licensing window which the FCC opened in 2008. More info to come!

Milena Velis
Milena, our former interim Volunteer and Events Director for the 2nd half of 2007, holds a BA from Swarthmore and recently joined Prometheus Radio Project as the new Volunteer and Intern Coordinator in August of 2007. A former Prometheus volunteer herself, Milena is excited about continuing her Prometheus habit as a staff member, and helping new people transition into the crazy awesomeness that is Prometheus Radio Project. Milena has a history of working as a facilitator of communication in many different capacities, including Spanish-English interpreting, linguistic research, and theatrical design. She believes strongly that creating local, accountable, community-based media organizations is crucial groundwork for bringing about lasting social change.