Informed NJ

Program Facilitator

Cole Goins is a community-focused journalist and facilitator with more than a decade of experience helping newsrooms collaborate and connect with the people they serve in new ways. He is the former director of community engagement at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, where he organized media collaborations and led public engagement initiatives. He was a senior fellow in the 2015 USC Annenberg Health Journalism Fellowships and previously served as engagement editor for the Center for Public Integrity. He holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina.

Program Facilitator

NJCH’s Valerie Popp is an expert program-builder and scholar with a passion for working at the intersection of journalism and the humanities. At NJCH, she is the creator and program lead of Informed NJ, a collection of projects that promote civic engagement through journalism and media trainings, networking opportunities, and collaborations with partners such as media outlets, local journalism projects, and higher education institutions. She previously co-directed the Luce/ACLS Program in Religion, Journalism and International Affairs at the American Council of Learned Societies; this program deepened ties between scholars and journalists working in the field of global religions through fellowships and institutional grants.

She especially enjoys fostering community college partnerships and has helped steward initiatives such as NJCH's Museum on Main Street Smithsonian exhibit tour of six NJ community colleges; an upcoming convening of humanities community college faculty with the New Jersey Council of County Colleges; and the Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowships, which supported the research ambitions of faculty at two-year colleges across the US.

Advisory Board Member

Mika Fields was born in Philadelphia, PA, and raised in Willingboro NJ. She completed her academic years in Willingboro and graduated from Willingboro High School Class of 1994. She furthered her education by obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Kean University and has been working for over 15 years in the Social Services field. She returned to Willingboro after graduation got married and is currently raising two children in Buckingham Park.

In 2020 she started a therapeutic "paint and create" company called Muse Fusion LLC. Her main focus has been helping people cope with the stresses of the pandemic by encouraging them to be inspired, and utilize the therapeutic benefits of painting. In early 2021 Mika joined the Willingboro Community Development Corporation (WCDC) as the Project Coordinator and has been a pivotal force in bringing the WCDC's vision to fruition. Mika thrives to serve her town and became a Community Scribe with New Jersey Council for Humanities to enhance her craft.

Advisory Board Member

Dr. Matthew Reed is an experienced community college leader and a national voice on higher education issues.  He is the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Brookdale Community College, and is currently on a sabbatical assignment as the chief policy and academic officer at the New Jersey Council of County Colleges.  He has also worked at Holyoke Community College and the County College of Morris. 

He is the author of "Confessions of a Community College Dean" at Inside Higher Ed, providing a community college voice to the national higher ed conversation.  He has a B.A. in political science from Williams College and a Ph.D. in political science from Rutgers University.

Advisory Board Member

John Soltes, assistant professor at County College of Morris, is an award-winning journalist who teaches all of CCM's journalism courses, including Introduction to Journalism, Advanced Journalism, Editing & Publication Design, and Sports Communication & Culture. At the college, he is also a co-director of two interdisciplinary institutes: The Legacy Project, which is a celebrated speaker series that has been going strong for 10 years, and Parks Program, which teaches students and community members about the value of protected lands.

Throughout his professional career, his work has appeared in a number of publications, including The New York Times, Earth Island Journal, New Jersey Monthly and Time.com, among others. He is also the publisher of Hollywood Soapbox, an online entertainment magazine.

Advisory Board Member

Sara Hosbach is currently attending Ramapo College of New Jersey. She is pursuing her degree in Communication with a concentration in Global Media and a minor in International Studies. In 2022, she graduated from Brookdale Community College with her degree in Liberal Arts. She is a prior intern for Energizing Young Voters, an initiative of the League of Women Voters which provides civic education resources and opportunities for young people to become involved in their democracy. She is currently working on a media literacy presentation to make available to educators through this program.

Advisory Board Member

Melissa Helmbrecht grew up in southern New Jersey. In her youth, she was not engaged in school and failed both 9th and 10th grade — but her life was transformed when she met a homeless child who could not enroll in school because she lacked a permanent address. Melissa vowed to never fail another class, and has spent her life working tirelessly to advocate for children. Today, she continues that work as the Executive Director of Court Appointed Special Advocates of Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem Counties and Give Something Back.

In 2016, Melissa created Hopeloft as an informal collaborative of nonprofits located in the heart of Bridgeton, New Jersey. Since then, Hopeloft has served as a springboard for community-led change, and under Melissa's leadership, the partnership has catalyzed more than $40 million in resources to incubate, launch, and support innovative solutions to social problems facing our communities. Follow South Jersey is one such initiative, which began in 2020 to serve the local information needs of southern New Jersey and is expanding to serve other communities as well.

Advisory Board Member

Kim Pearson is a professor of journalism and professional writing at The College of New Jersey, a  journalist who has been published in the Online Journalism Review, Black Enterprise, and Newsday, among other outlets, and a civic media researcher whose research on improving science literacy and civic engagement has garnered support from the National Science Foundation, Microsoft Research, and the New Jersey Council of the Humanities.

She represents TCNJ on the board of the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium. Pearson's professional affiliations include  the Online News Association, the Society of Environmental Journalists,  the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Phi Kappa Phi and the National Association of Black Journalists. Prof. Pearson holds an AB in Politics from Princeton University with a Certificate in African American Studies and an MA in Journalism from New York University.

Advisory Board Member

Erin O’Hanlon is a full-time faculty member focusing on community engaged journalism at Stockton University. There she coordinates social justice community organizing and works on capacity-building projects around gender equity, youth activism, and economic justice. Erin was the inaugural Activist in Residence at Stockton and helped to found the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Center. Prior to her work in the Stockton Center for Community Engagement and Service-Learning she was part of a local community partner for 16 years.

An alum of Stockton, she holds a Master's Degree in Instructional Technology and Design and is currently working on her Ed.D in Organizational Leadership.  Erin lives in New Jersey with her partner, Charlie Keys, and their four sons.  Her areas of research include assessing civic and community engagement, experiential learning methodologies and liberatory education.  Her personal research includes studying race in the media.