Ed Madison is an innovative educator, seasoned media professional, public speaker/author and entrepreneur. His multi-faceted career in media and journalism began as a high school intern at the Washington Post-owned CBS television affiliate in Washington, D.C. during the height of Watergate. Shortly after graduating from Emerson College in Boston he became a founding producer at CNN. His own subsequent companies have produced projects for most of the major networks, studios and record companies in Hollywood, including Paramount, MGM, Disney, CBS, ABC, Discovery Networks, and A&E. Ed earned his Ph.D. in Communication at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication in 2012, where he continues to teach multimedia journalism, media entrepreneurship, and digital publishing.Ed is also a co-founder and executive director of the Journalistic Learning Initiative (JLI) (previously Media Arts Institute), a 501c3 nonprofit whose mission is to empower students to discover their voice, improve academic outcomes, and engage in self-directed learning through project-based storytelling. In 2016, MAI became the Journalistic Learning Initiative through a collaboration between University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication and College of Education and thought leaders Esther Wojcicki and Tara Guber. In its first 4 years, JLI has served more than 4,500 students at more than 18 middle and high schools in Oregon and California.JLI is the centerpiece of Ed’s research agenda. It informs his work with College of Education colleagues Jenefer Husman, Ross Anderson, and Matthew Kim who collaborated to develop “My STEM Story,” a $1.2 million federal grant project funded by the National Science Foundation. Ed is the 2020 recipient of the Robert P. Knight Multicultural Recruitment Award, from the Scholastic Journalism Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The award acknowledges his efforts to advance the Journalistic Learning Initiative (JLI). He is also an Apple Distinguished Educator and an Adobe Education Leader. Ed is also the author of two books: Newsworthy: Cultivating Critical Thinkers, Readers and Writers in English Language Arts Classrooms (2015 - Teachers College Press/Columbia University) and Reimagining Journalism in a Post Truth World (2018 - Praeger Books), with co-author Ben DeJarnette.