News of Former WPI Fellows

Luis Alonso Lugo, a leader of The Associated Press’ Spanish-language service, has been named Spanish-language correspondent in Washington. He was a WPI fellow in 1997 from Venezuela.

As a deputy Latin America editor for the past four years, Alonso has helped build a more competitive Spanish-language news report, and to bring images and words together into a multiformat news endeavor. Alonso joined the AP in 2001 to help build its first Spanish-language multimedia team, and ran the Spanish Online service until late 2005.

He previously supervised StarMedia Network’s Spanish-language content. He was a political reporter and New York and Madrid correspondent for Diario El Nacional in Caracas, Venezuela, and Venezuela correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC.

Audronius Azubalis, a WPI fellow from Lithuania in 1990, has been appointed Foreign Minister of that country. Azubalis, 52, is a member of the Homeland Union/Lithuanian Christian Democrats Party of Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius and the conservative head of parliament's foreign affairs committee. He was first elected to Lithuania parliament in 1996.

 

Mamadou Thior, a 2006 fellow from Senegal, was among three African journalists asked to help choose the questions, from hundreds received, that President Obama would respond to during his trip to Africa in July 2009. The other two journalists were from Kenya and South Africa. Click here to see the video of Obama answering these questions and mentioning Thior

 

Bruno Lopez, a WPI fellow from Mexico during 1979-80 and currently senior vice president and general manager of Univision Online, Miami, has been elected to the WPI Board of Directors. Univision Online is the largest Spanish-language interactive company in the United States.

Before heading Univision’s interactive programming group, Lopez had a 20-year journalism career including working as the West Coast Bureau chief for CNN’s Spanish language channel, serving as the Mexico bureau chief for the Hispanic American Broadcasting Corp, correspondent for Mexico and Central America for The Arizona Republic, Mexico manager for ABC News and regional editor for United Press International.

Lopez joins Kaius Niemi, Finland, as the second WPI alumnus on the board.

Solange Azevedo, 2006 fellow from São Paulo, Brazil, and a reporter at Evista Epoca, has won an award for "the work 'Mamas e Down' (Moms and Down Syndrome), which presents in an educational and readable way the limitations of people suffering from Down Syndrome and their battle to receive equal treatment." The award was from The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and was among the awards that the organization gives each year to honor journalists and newspapers throughout the Americas for their contributions to excellence in journalism and the defense of freedom of expression.

Raphael Gomide, 2005 WPI fellow from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has been awarded the Lorenzo Natali Grand Prize for his article "Infiltrated - The Police from within" which appeared in Folha de S. Paulo. Raphael currently is a political, national security and human rights reporter in the Rio de Janeiro bureau of Folha de S.Paulo, the best-selling newspaper in Brazil.

The Lorenzo Natalit prize rewards journalists committed to human rights, democracy and development. Created in 1992 by the European Commission to promote dedicated journalism of the highest quality, it was named after Lorenzo Natali for his dedication to his work as former vice-president of the European Commission, in charge of cooperation and development between 1985 and 1989.
Click here to read the article and see a video of Raphael speaking about his experience as a police trainee.

Andrés Oppenheimer, a 1976 WPI felllow from Argentina, won the VII ALGABA prize in biography, autobiography, memoirs, and historical research for a collection of columns that ran in the newspaper and elsewhere and will be published in the book The Non-United States of the Americas. The collection of columns ran in the Miami Herald and other newspapers for the past three years. The pieces examined the inability of Latin American countries to integrate.

Oppenheimer, a Miami Herald columnist, was a member of the newspaper’s team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for its coverage of the Iran-Contra scandal. He has also received a 1999 Maria Moors Cabot Award, the 2001 King of Spain prize, and the 2005 Emmy Suncoast award. He is the author of Castro’s Final Hour; Bordering on Chaos, on Mexico’s crisis; Cronicas de heroes y bandidos, Ojos vendados, Cuentos Chinos and its English version, Saving the Americas.

Hu Shuli, a 1987 WPI fellow from China, was featured in an article in the New Yorker magazine July 30, for her work as founder and managing editor of one of China's most influential publications. Click here to read the article.

The AFP reported Nov. 10 that Shuli had resigned:

"The founder and managing editor of one of China's most influential publications has resigned - the latest twist in a battle for control of a magazine known for its daring investigative reports. The departure of Hu Shuli from Caijing magazine comes a month after general manager Wu Chuanhui and 60-70 staff stepped down, and amid intense speculation that Hu was battling management efforts to silence her editorial team. The SEEC, which owns and publishes Caijing, is a state-supported consortium of non-bank financial institutions. Widespread reports have said the SEEC was trying to wrest power away from Hu, who is widely credited with making Caijing perhaps China's most respected publication since she launched it in 1998. In a country where the media is tightly controlled by the ruling Communist Party, Caijing has pushed the limits, crossing the relatively safe lines of business journalism to publish exposes on corruption and health scares. One Caijing staff member told AFP last month it was common knowledge at the magazine that Hu has been fighting off SEEC pressure to soften its reporting, especially after deadly ethnic unrest in China's Xinjiang region in July. Caijing -- which is published twice a month -- has a circulation of 225,000, according to the China Daily."