David Cuillier, Ph.D., is director of the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project, and co-director of the Brechner Center for Advancement of the First Amendment, at the University of Florida. Contact David.

Before joining the University of Florida in July 2023, Cuillier taught access to public records, data journalism, and other courses at the University of Arizona School of Journalism for 17 years, where he also served as director of the school and director of graduate studies. He has published peer-reviewed research on freedom of information and co-authored, with Brechner alum Charles N. Davis, the books “The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records,” and “Transparency 2.0: Digital Data and Privacy in a Wired World.”

He served as national president of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2013-14, as well as SPJ FOI chair for five years, was president of the National Freedom of Information Coalition 2019 through 2023 and served as head of the Communication Law & Policy Division for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. He is founding editor of the open-access peer-reviewed Journal of Civic Information, from 2019 to present.

Cuillier currently serves on the Federal FOIA Advisory Committee under the National Archives and Records Administration and has testified three times before Congress regarding FOIA. He writes the FOI Files column for the Investigative Reporters & Editors Journal, and since 2004 has trained more than 10,000 journalists and citizens in how to acquire public records.

He got his start in public records as a newspaper reporter and editor in the Pacific Northwest for a dozen years before earning his doctorate in communications at Washington State University, studying under Dr. Susan Dente Ross, who earned her Ph.D. from UF while aiding the Brechner Center. Cuillier lives in Gainesville, Florida.

Marianne is President and Co-Founder of Coda Ventures. Her primary focus is working with the Coda team and clients to deliver high quality, innovative audience and ad effectiveness research to help companies sustain and grow revenue.Previously she was co-founder of Affinity LLC which developed new and innovative audience and ad effectiveness metrics for the magazine industry. Marianne has also held positions as President of Audits & Surveys, President of the IntelliQuest Media Group and SVP of Kantar/CMS’ Print Division. She began her career as an Account Executive for Interactive Market Systems’ publisher clients

Matt Waite is a professor of practice in journalism, teaching courses in data journalism, sports data analysis and visualization, reporting and a variety of technology related courses involving drones and AI. He joined the faculty in 2011.

For nearly 15 years, Waite worked in daily newspapers in Arkansas and Florida, winning numerous awards in both states for his work. At the Tampa Bay Times in Florida, he won awards for a series of stories he co-authored exposing state and federal efforts to protect wetlands as being stacked toward developers seeking to destroy them. That work was later turned into the book Paving Paradise: Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss. In 2007, Waite was the principal developer of PolitiFact.com, a website that fact-checks politicians. PolitiFact became the first website to win a Pulitzer Prize in 2009.

As a member of the faculty, Waite has won several awards for his teaching and outreach to the profession. He was inducted to the Nebraska Press Association Hall of Fame in 2016 and the Daily Nebraskan's Hall of Fame in 2022.

Waite is a two-time graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, receiving his Bachelors of Journalism in 1997 and a Masters of Science in Business Analytics in 2020.

He is married to CoJMC alumna Nancy (Zywiec) Waite and has two children, Paige and Brady.

Stephen Wolgast, the Knight Chair in Audience and Community Engagement for News and professor of the practice of journalism, has three decades of professional and academic experience. He started his career as a photographer at the Topeka Capital-Journal, worked as a reporter at The Baltic Independent in Tallinn, Estonia, and as an editor at the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune and The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. He became a newsroom manager at the Akron Beacon Journal, a Knight-Ridder newspaper, and from there worked as an editor at The New York Times for nine years. He was among the staff who contributed to the special section “A Nation Challenged,” which was published daily after 9/11 and which received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2002.

Wolgast entered academia at Kansas State University, where he was director of Collegian Media Group, the nonprofit company that publishes student media. In that role he initiated the transition of the campus phone book to a student lifestyle magazine, and during his tenure student staffers won two Hearst Foundation Journalism awards, a national first-place award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and had a student named as K-State’s first Rolling Stone College Journalist of the Year. Wolgast also served as a professor of the practice of journalism, teaching classes in reporting.

Lindsey Young began her post-college life as a high school teacher, instructing students in everything from English to public speaking to journalism.

Soon, when she and her husband purchased their first community newspaper, she added another skillset of professional journalist to her repertoire.

Today, Lindsey works full time as a part owner of Kansas Publishing Ventures, which owns four community weekly newspapers in south central Kansas.

She has a passion for community journalism and education, which led to the creation of the Press Pass course.

Max Kautsch, licensed to practice law in both Kansas and Nebraska, focuses his practice on First Amendment rights and open government law. He helps news media and members of the public assert rights of access to court proceedings, court records, and government agency documents. He serves as the legal hotline attorney for the Kansas Press Association and the Kansas Association of Broadcasters, is president of the Kansas Coalition for Open Government, and is an adjunct professor at the University Kansas School of Law. Kautsch is also hotline counsel to both the Nebraska Press Association and the Nebraska Broadcasters Association.

Kautsch, a Lawrence native, received his law degree from the Washburn University School of Law in 2003, after earning an undergraduate degree in 2000 with honors in English Literature from the University of Kansas. He has been a licensed member of the Kansas bar since 2003, and has been admitted to practice in the state and federal courts of Kansas. His previous areas of practice included criminal defense and landlord/tenant law.