Amy Schmitz Weiss, Ph.D., College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts, School of Journalism and Media Studies
Amy Schmitz Weiss is a professor in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University. She has a PhD in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. She teaches journalism courses in basic writing and editing, multimedia, web design, data journalism, mobile journalism, sensor journalism, media entrepreneurship and spatial journalism. She was the 2014-2015 recipient of the Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education by the Online News Association. Her project entailed investigating air quality using open-source air quality sensors in San Diego, called “Investigating Air Quality in San Diego: A Live News Experiment in the Power of Sensor Journalism in Covering the Environment.” Students produced several stories on air quality in the region that was published on inewsource.org in Spring 2015. She created a sensor journalism website for educators that includes the class syllabus, tools and sensor resources for those seeking to implement a sensor project on their campus. Her research interests include spatial journalism, online journalism, media sociology, news production, multimedia journalism, and international communication. She has published her research in several peer-reviewed articles, chapters and a co-edited book on a variety of topics related to journalism.
Kevin Robinson, M.S. College of Sciences, Department of Geological Sciences
Kevin has been teaching Earth, Ocean and Environmental Science at SDSU since 1995. Along the way he has taught many subjects from an interdisciplinary perspective. Natural disasters is a topic that has brought together aspects of science and society to integrate understanding with preparation and recovery. Kevin was science advisor for the X24 disaster simulation that brought together stakeholders from business, government and academia for hands-on collaborative brainstorming aimed at creating more resilient response and communication systems. Kevin has worked with Amy for over ten years to better bridge science and journalism with a series of interdisciplinary workshops and a co-taught upper division course in which journalism students studied atmospheric science and built air sensors then used geospatial tools to analyze and present their data. Global change topics like climate, biodiversity, and pollution are a big part of what Kevin teaches nowadays where students not only learn science but also about the solutions to many pressing societal problems.