dominic k. mckenzie is a tenure-track assistant professor of digital storytelling in the Cathy Hughes School of Communications at Howard University. He is also the director of the Howard University Multicultural Media Academy, a high school journalism workshop training future reporters in the art of storytelling on health disparities in minority communities.

Before joining Howard, he was director of the Journalism degree program at Oakwood University, an HBCU in Huntsville, Ala., on faculty at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York and Northern Caribbean University.

From the island of Jamaica, he is the chief architect of two undergraduate degree programs in Journalism at Oakwood -- the only Journalism degrees offered in North Alabama. Prior to that, he worked at Spectrum News as a reporter, covering stories on health, politics and the Caribbean diaspora. While there, his stories often aired across Spectrum News stations and CNN affiliates across the United States. McKenzie received a citation from the New York State Senate in 2021 for excellence in journalism and youth development. In Jamaica, he was a radio news anchor, TV reporter and producer.

He holds a Master of Arts degree in Journalism and a post-graduate certificate in Entrepreneurial Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. There, he specialized in city government, broadcast and data journalism.

He takes special research interest in journalism curriculum development and assessment, international student populations at historically Black universities, cannabis regulation & research and politics.

The professor coaches national pageant winners as an extension to his commitment to empowering women and challenging harmful stereotypes associated with beauty standards. He provided intense interview and presentation coaching to Dr. Jordanne Lauren Levy, Miss Universe Jamaica. After an intense interview round, she finished as a Top 20 Finalist at Miss Universe 2023. He also coached Miss Universe Bahamas 2024, Selvinique Wright.

Ericka Blount is an award-winning journalist, author, screenwriter, producer, and professor. She’s currently a full-time lecturer at the Cathy Hughes School of Communications at Howard University. She teaches Fundamentals of Journalism, Truth Be Told, 101 Magazine and Interactive Editing courses. She taught previously at the University of Maryland, Loyola University and Morgan State University.

She’s written for a variety of outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vibe, Spin, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, The Magazine, People magazine, Essence magazine, The Washington Post, Wax Poetics, Quartz and The Root. She is the author of Love, Peace, and Soul, a book about the history of the show, Soul Train. She’s worked as the Director of Research for the Showtime documentary “Time is Illmatic,” about rapper Nas’ life and seminal debut album and on the documentary about Tupac (Untitled,”) originally directed by Steve McQueen. She’s currently a fellow in the 2020 Sundance Institute Episodic Maker’s lab and has been recognized with the Sundance Institute Comedy Central Comedy Fellowship. Her music journalism archives are housed at Indiana University . She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Ericka’s interview portfolio includes conversations with Cathy Hughes, Andy Rooney, Fidel Castro, RZA, Earth Wind & Fire, Jay-Z, Common, Maxwell, Kenny Gamble, Lenny Kravitz, Quincy Jones, Nas and Damien Marley, among many others. She is the recipient of the Saul Zaentz fellowship with Johns Hopkins University, the Ruby Award, Deadline Club Journalism Award for Columbia University, New Jersey Newspapers award, and an award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

She’s dabbled in “acting” as an extra on The Wire after covering the show for five seasons. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].

Yanick Rice Lamb’s mission is to give voice to the voiceless and share the gift of knowledge through the written word. An award-winning journalist, author and speaker, Dr. Rice Lamb shares her expertise at Howard University, where she is a professor and former chair of the Department of Media, Journalism and Film. She teaches reporting, editing, fact-checking, health and science writing, and media entrepreneurship. She is also adviser to 101 Magazine, TruthBeTold.news, Cover 2 Cover and the Howard University News Service.

Her research focuses on environmental health and climate change as well as journalistic issues, including education, social media and technology, media management and diversity. It has been featured in publications such as Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, the Howard Journal of Communications, Journal of Magazine and New Media Research and Asia-Pacific Media Educator. Her dissertation is titled Toxic Tires: The Sociological Impact of Exposure to Rubber Chemicals on the Autoimmune Health of African Americans in Akron, Ohio.

Dr. Rice Lamb is also co-founder of the health website FierceforBlackWomen.com. Previously, she was editor-in-chief of Heart & Soul and BET Weekend, where her editorial vision led to the magazine becoming the second-largest publication for African Americans. Under her leadership, the magazine’s circulation increased nearly 40 percent, from 800,000 to 1.3 million in three years.

She spent a decade at the New York Times Company in various editing roles at the newspaper and at Child magazine. She has also worked at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Toledo Blade, Essence and Emerge.

The Center for Public Integrity and Belt Magazine co-published her award-winning series, “Unintended Consequences: The Rubber Industry’s Toxic Legacy in Akron,” with support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. The series won a Vernon Jarrett Medal for Journalistic Excellence from Morgan State University. It was praised by judges as “an exemplary piece of research about deindustrialization and its impact on a marginalized community.”

“The storytelling is compelling and comprehensive, engaging the reader all along the investigative road."

Describing the series as “powerful and effective,” the National Press Foundation named Dr. Rice Lamb as co-winner of the Thomas L. Stokes Award for Best Energy and Environment Reporting. The series also won an investigative journalism award from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) selected her to present the Upton Sinclair Memorial Lecture in May 2023 for the Outstanding Occupational Safety and Health News Story of the Year.

An avid reader, Dr. Rice Lamb is co-author of Born to Win: The Authorized Biography of Althea Gibson, Rise & Fly: Tall Tales and Mostly True Rules of Bid Whist and The Spirit of African Design. She is a contributor to The Routledge Handbook of Magazine Research: The Future of the Magazine Form: Research Perspectives and Prospects, BET on Black: African-American Women Celebrate Fatherhood in the Age of Barack Obama, Fight the Power! The Spike Lee Reader, Haternation, Social Media: Pedagogy and Practice, Aunties: 35 Writers Celebrate Their Other Mother and Health & Healing for African-Americans. She is completing an environmental health book and her debut novel, Nursing Wounds about family secrets and the mysterious death of a hospital patient.

The daughter and sister of nurses, Dr. Rice Lamb has had a lifelong interest in health, which she has covered extensively over the years as a writer and editor. She earned a doctorate in medical sociology from Howard University, specializing in health, environmental issues and social inequality. A native of Akron, Ohio, she holds a bachelor’s in journalism from The Ohio State University and an MBA from Howard University.

Dr. Rice Lamb, who has a son and grandson, loves working with young people and recently celebrated her 20th anniversary at the Mecca.