Ethics Center Staff

Kathleen Bartzen Culver

Director

Kathleen Culver joined the School of Journalism & Mass Communication in 1999 to help launch an innovative converged curriculum to prepare students for a changing media landscape. When Culver was advised early on that she was “preparing students for jobs that may not even exist yet,” she scarcely had a clue how quickly and massively the ground would shift. Read more.

Lindsay Palmer

Affiliate Faculty

Lindsay Palmer is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UW-Madison. She studies global media ethics from a qualitative perspective, especially focusing on the cultural labor of conflict correspondents in the digital age. Read more.

Krista Eastman

Administrator & Communications Specialist

Krista Eastman is a writer and editor with expertise in university communications and external relations. As the administrator of the Center for Journalism Ethics, she assists with strategy, communication, event planning, and special projects.

Our student fellowship program welcomes exceptional UW–Madison students with a strong interest in creating a more ethical future for media. Over the course of one or two semesters, fellows work under the mentorship of our director, advisory board and administrator, to produce original reporting on the critical ethical issues of our time and to contribute to the life of the Center.

Jane Houseal

Jane Houseal is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pursuing a degree in journalism with certificates in Gender and Women’s Studies and Digital Studies. Jane has covered a variety of topics on and off campus including local politics, campus culture and arts. She is currently the Outreach Coordinator for Sex Out Loud, UW-Madison’s peer-to-peer sexual health resource. Previously, she was a reporting intern at Isthmus and an Editorial Intern at Spotify. She also served as an editor for Moda Magazine. She is passionate about reporting on the LGBTQIA+ community, politics and health.

Audrey Thibert

Audrey Thibert is a senior at UW–Madison pursuing degrees in journalism and anthropology with a certificate in Middle East Studies. She is the 2023 University of Wisconsin – Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium Reporting Fellow, through which she reported on migration in Tunisia. She is the recipient of the inaugural Anthony Shadid Memorial Scholarship for International Reporting. Audrey previously worked at the Isthmus as a reporting intern and served as the 2022-23 managing editor at The Badger Herald. She is now a voting member on the Board of Directors at the Herald. She wants to pursue a career in foreign correspondence, with a focus on the stories of everyday people who are impacted by conflict, but often forgotten in mainstream media coverage.

Sophia Vento

Sophia Vento is a senior at UW–Madison studying reporting, strategic communications, Spanish, political economy, philosophy and politics. Sophia previously served as the Editor-In-Chief of The Daily Cardinal and the Sharon Stark Investigative Intern for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Her reporting interests include K-12 and higher education, development, media, and politics.