Meet Our Leadership Team

Frank Ochberg, M.D., originated the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, served as its first chairman, and now helps journalists understand traumatic stress and traumatic stress experts understand journalists. He is a founding board member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and a recipient of their highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award. He edited the first text on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder after serving on the committee that defined PTSD.

Ochberg was associate director of the National Institute of Mental Health and director of the MichiganDepartment of Mental Health. At Michigan State University, he is a clinical professor of psychiatry and was formerly an adjunct professor of criminal justice and journalism. He developed, with colleagues, the Academy for Critical Incident Analysis at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Gift from Within (a nonprofit for persons with PTSD), and the Committee for Community Awareness and Protection (responding to serial-killer threats). For this latter activity, Ochberg was the first physician to receive the Law Enforcement Medal of the Sons of the American Revolution.

Ochberg served in uniform during the Vietnam era and advises several nonprofit veteran’s organizations. As a Red Cross volunteer, Ochberg assisted families at sites of earthquakes, floods, fires, and aircraft disasters.

Richard D. McLellan is a retired Lansing-based lawyer who served as chairman of the Michigan Law Revision Commission from 1986 to 2021. McLellan has a 50-year career focusing on public policy and politics. He is recognized as one of Michigan’s most prominent and influential citizens. The Detroit Free Press reported, “He’s seldom seen in the state Capitol and less likely to be noticed. . . . Take a look at someone who may well be the most influential person in Michigan you have never heard of.”

McLellan has served as founder of two organizations: The Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Trust for Trauma Journalism. He has long been a supporter of the First Amendment and helped establish the McLellan Online Free Speech Library at Michigan State University and the Richard D. McLellan Prizes for Freedom of Speech and Expression at the Russell Kirk Center.

McLellan has served in a wide range of public service positions in Michigan, including chairman of the Corrections Commission, chairman of the Michigan Film Advisory Commission, member of the International Trade Authority, and member of the Michigan Jobs Commission.

McLellan served as transition director in 1990 for then-Governor-elect John Engler. Before entering private practice, McLellan served as administrative assistant to Michigan Governor William G. Milliken. He is a graduate of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan Law School.

Javier Garza is a journalist based in Torreón, México, specializing in security and protection protocols and training for newsrooms and individual journalists. He runs the local news platform Horizonte Lagunero and co-hosts El Noti, one of the most popular news podcasts in México. He has extensive experience covering violence and organized crime. From 2006 to 2013, he was the editorial director of El Siglo de Torreón, one of the most critical newspapers in northern México. In response to violence by organized crime, he developed safety protocols for reporters and editors, which later became a model for other newsrooms in México and Latin America.

He was a 2014 Ochberg Fellow at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma and a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists, focusing on digital security. Garza is a Safety Advisor for the World Association of Newspapers. He serves on the boards of international organizations dedicated to press freedom, such as Article 19 and the World Editors Forum. Garza has a bachelor’s degree from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2022, Columbia University awarded him the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for Journalism in the Americas.

Martin Evans is a military and veteran reporter for Newsday, where he writes about the deaths of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war’s impact on local communities at home. Since joining Newsday in 1996, Evans has investigated many traumatic events, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the 1996 crash of T.W.A. Flight 800, for which Newsday won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News coverage. Before coming to Newsday, Evans was the Pacific Rim Reporter for the Orange County Register, where he covered cultural, economic, and social links between the Pacific Rim nations and southern California, including the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, and a Vietnamese refugee camp in the Philippines that was swept by a deadly fire. Evans began his career at the Baltimore Afro-American, covering violent crime in Black families and communities.

Robyn Hullihan is a Senior Philanthropic Director at Foundation Source, the nation’s largest provider of comprehensive support services for private foundations. An expert in the field of philanthropy and private foundations, she works with clients in the Central and Eastern Regions of the U.S.

With more than 30 years of experience in the charitable giving sector, Robyn helps clients accomplish their philanthropic goals in areas that include strategic planning, grantmaking and evaluation, governance, and family engagement and at all stages in a private foundation’s life cycle.

Prior to joining Foundation Source, Robyn spent 12 years running her own philanthropic consultancy advising foundations and ultra-high-net-worth individuals on board development, administration, program research and design, and organizational and project analysis.

Previously, she served as the Executive Director of the Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation, Associate Director of The Tow Foundation, Program Officer at The William Randolph Hearst Foundations, and Program Director and Acting President of the Toshiba America Foundation.
Robyn earned a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College; a post-graduate diploma from London University, London School of Economics and Political Science; and an M.B.A. from New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

Holly co-founded H.J.K. Strategies, a full-service Washington, D.C.-based government affairs firm. She is a well-recognized policy, legislative, and political strategist, having been involved in some of the most high-profile legislation and Democratic campaigns of the past 17 years.

At H.J.K. Holly oversees the firm’s corporate clients, providing strategic advice to senior executives from the nation’s leading corporations and nonprofits in the financial services, insurance, and defense industries. Many organizations, from Fortune 50 companies to nonprofit startups, turn to Holly for her skills in developing effective strategies to address emerging issues and crises. She specializes in building coalitions and brand awareness strategies for corporations while effectively managing their state and local public policy issues.

Holly effectively manages high-profile legislative, regulatory, political, and crisis communication issues. She has gained substantial experience working for significant officials, including U.S. Sen. John Glenn, U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, and President Clinton, as a senior advance team member and Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Holly’s proven track record of working across the aisle, from resolving crises to assembling significant events, has been built by harnessing her creative imagination with strategic solutions for successful outcomes.

Amy Putman is a mixed media and hand cut collage artist based in Montclair, New Jersey. Raised outside of Boston, Amy received her BFA from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. Her passion for issues of social justice was fueled by her 17-year career as a Creative Director at CBS News. While at CBS, she became an activist, helping to create, brand and launch the Million Mom March for Common Sense Gun Laws on the National Mall in Washington DC, Mother’s Day 2000, considered the largest march of its time. In 2014 Amy co-founded Pinkwater & Putman, an award- winning marketing consultancy dedicated to “Harnessing the Power of Good” by putting purpose at the core of business and communications strategy. After the 2016 election, Amy’s focus turned to creating art full- time. Her work has drawn the attention of local and national press including NBC and Newsweek magazine. Amy exhibits her work in galleries, museums, and exhibitions both in the USA and internationally and has works in numerous private collections. She is a Trustee of the Trust for Trauma Journalism, the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey, SKIP of New York, a founding member of the New York Collage Ensemble, and Co-Chair of the Artists and Talent Peer Group for the Impact Guild. Her studio is in Manufacturer’s Village Artists, East Orange, New Jersey.

Scott Blanchard is editor of StateImpact Pennsylvania, a public radio reporting project covering the state’s energy economy. The collaboration brings together three stations – WITF (Harrisburg), WHYY (Philadelphia) and WESA (Pittsburgh) -as well as the environmental issues radio program The Allegheny Front. He was named a 2013 Ochberg Fellow, receiving training in PTSD science, self-help and peer support, and he received honorable mention for the Ochberg Society’s Mimi Award for editors that year. He led a team that created a trauma awareness/peer-support program in Digital First Media in 2014, the first time a U.S.-based local news organization undertook such an effort.

Kari Pricher is an editorial producer for CNN Anderson Cooper 360. For 20 years, she has traveled to communities coping with enormous loss to report the stories of victims and survivors. Kari was a 2013 Ochberg Fellow with The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University, an experience that deepened her resolve to report on the emotional impact of traumatic events as well as to work with other journalists on best practices for crisis reporting.