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 Staff
The founding Director of The Norman Lear Center, Martin Kaplan has been Principal Investigator of Hollywood, Health & Society since its inception in 2001. He was associate dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism for 10 years and holds the Norman Lear Chair in Entertainment, Media & Society. A Harvard summa cum laude in molecular biology, he has an M.A. in English from Cambridge University where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a doctorate from Stanford in modern thought and literature. He was Vice President Walter Mondale's chief speechwriter and deputy national campaign manager of Mondale's 1984 presidential bid. He was vice president of motion picture production at the Walt Disney Studios; as a screenwriter and producer, his credits include The Distinguished Gentleman, starring Eddie Murphy, and the screen adaptation of Michael Frayn's play Noises Off, directed by Peter Bogdanovich.
Kate comes to Hollywood, Health & Society after working for over 20 years in the entertainment education field. After an early career in television and music production/management, Kate joined the Scott Newman Center as Director of Special Projects. There, she worked with top TV shows and films on issues of alcohol and other substance abuse. Later, she spent nearly 10 years as Director of the Media Project, a partnership of Advocates for Youth and the Kaiser Family Foundation, which addressed portrayals of adolescent reproductive health in the media. In 2001 she led Nightingale Entertainment, an independent consulting firm working with foundations and national non-profits including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Planned Parenthood Federation of America on entertainment education and celebrity involvement in national media campaigns. Kate speaks fluent Spanish, holds a bachelor's degree in Spanish from the University of Denver, and a master's degree in education from UCLA. Contact her at kate.folb@usc.edu.
Erica Rosenthal is the Research Specialist for the Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S) program at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, where she evaluates the impact of health-related television storylines on viewers' knowledge, attitudes and behavior, and manages the HH&S TV Monitoring Project. An applied research professional specializing in research design and quantitative analysis, Erica's interests center around the social-cognitive mechanisms underlying the influence of media messages. Her dissertation research, for which she received the Arthur Brayfield Outstanding Dissertation Award, examined the role of emotion-based messages in relation to media literacy approaches. She has also conducted research on the "digital divide" in obtaining health information online and the effects of stereotypical portrayals in reality television. Erica has nearly 10 years of experience designing and implementing evaluation studies in the education, health, and human services domains. She holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from Claremont Graduate University (CGU), and a B.A. in psychobiology (concentration in women's studies) from Swarthmore College. Contact Erica at erosenth@usc.edu.
Chris Dzialo manages the Hollywood, Health & Society Global Centers for Health & Development at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. Chris works with partner organizations in India, Nigeria and beyond in order to inspire and inform scriptwriters around the world interested in producing storylines on health and development topics. He holds a Ph.D. in film and media studies, with an emphasis in global studies, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master's degree in critical studies from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His Ph.D. dissertation on media reception analyzes the practices of medical diagnosis, narrative medicine and global entertainment education, and he has published on screenwriting theory and media reception studies. Previously, he served as a program specialist at Hollywood, Health & Society, and worked with Hollywood writers and digital content creators to create unique transmedia experiences. Earlier in his career, Chris worked in both the London and Hollywood film industries. Contact Chris at dzialo@usc.edu.
Matthew Rose is Program Manager for the Climate Change Initiative of the Lear Center's Hollywood, Health & Society program. Matthew joined HH&S from the U.S. National Park Service Climate Change Program in Colorado, where he led a greening initiative; he later collaborated with the Global Business Network and the Monitor Group to develop a simple method for communicating climate change science using storytelling and scenarios. Matthew holds a master's degree in Environmental Management from Duke University, a B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of Richmond, and is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional. Contact Matthew at matthew.rose@usc.edu
Russell DeVita is the web editor and writer for Hollywood, Health & Society at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. In addition, he oversees all social media outreach for HH&S and designs its communication publications. Before joining the Lear Center, he worked as a graphic designer, award-winning magazine art director and journalist, and spent several years as an editor, writer and designer at the Los Angeles Times, where he was part of an editorial team that shared two staff Pulitzer Prizes. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from SUNY College at Buffalo, and a bachelor of fine arts from Art Center College of Design. Contact him at devita@usc.edu.
Elliott Scher Elliott Scher is the Program Assistant for Hollywood, Health & Society Global Centers and The Norman Lear Center. A Baltimore native, Elliott's professional background consists of a career in the entertainment industry having worked for several bi-coastal talent agencies and management companies. He also has professional experience working in brand development, social media and public relations. Elliott is a graduate of Wagner College where he studied theatre arts. In his spare time, Elliott is also a professional dance teacher and acting coach and has taught at studios throughout Los Angeles, New York City and Baltimore, MD. Contact Elliott at elliott.scher@usc.edu. |
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