Pitt Oct. 10 Career Day Panel To Feature Communication Professionals

October 7, 2002

PITTSBURGH––The University of Pittsburgh Department of English will hold its annual Career Day panel from 2 to 4 p.m. Oct. 10 in the William Pitt Union Kurtzman Room, 3959 Fifth Ave., in Oakland. The free event, featuring communication professionals, is open to the public.

Pitt's Al McDowell Memorial Scholarship, named in honor of the late television newsman, will be presented at the event. The scholarship supports an undergraduate student in the English department's nonfiction writing program.

Career Day panelists are Andres Martinez, editorial writer at the New York Times; Edwini Kaikai, assistant managing editor for features at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Douglas Root, communications officer for the Heinz Endowments; Tonia Caruso, reporter for OnQ news magazine at WQED-TV; and Larry Kuzmanko, Allegheny County Parks special events director. David Guo, Post-Gazette local news editor and coordinator of Pitt's journalism sequence, will serve as moderator.

Martinez joined the Times as an editorial writer in August 2000. He was an editorial board associate editor at the Post-Gazette from 1995 to 1997, and rejoined it in 1999. From 1997 to 1999, Martinez worked at the Wall Street Journal as a reporter and wrote the book "24/7: Living It Up and Doubling Down in the New Las Vegas," a journalistic look at the city's growth and some of the characters who call it home. His publisher provided him with $50,000 up-front, which Martinez said he used to conduct "gamble-research."

Martinez received the Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Yale in 1988, the Master of Arts degree in history from Stanford in 1989, and the J.D. degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1992, where he was a member of The Law Review. He then served as a law clerk in Dallas for a federal district judge, Jerry Buchmeyer, and worked as an associate at Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand in Washington, D.C.

During her 27 years in journalism, Kaikai worked at the Pittsburgh Press and Jet Magazine, before coming to the Post-Gazette in 1993 as a metropolitan editor. She assumed her present duties there in 1996. She earned the Bachelor of Science degree in journalism at Temple University in 1975.

Kaikai also is the Pennsylvania Society of Newspaper Editors (PSNE) president and has been involved with PSNE for the past six years. As the journalism school committee head, she worked to expand the collegiate Keystone Press Awards competition to include high school journalists.

Root has been communications officer for The Heinz Endowments since July 2001. A journalist and book writer, he most recently had served as communications director for Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy since 1999. As communications adviser for Murphy, Root was responsible for speech writing, media relations, internal communications, and special projects.

Root began his writing and communications career as a reporter for several newspapers, including the Pittsburgh Press, where he became an award-winning senior writer for the Sunday magazine. He left daily journalism in 1994 after the Press' sale and completed an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship for documentary journalism the following year. He earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and journalism at Penn State University in 1978.

Caruso has been a reporter for OnQ news magazine at WQED-TV since earlier this year. Previously, she had spent four years as a reporter and producer at WTAE-TV, and nearly six years before that in a similar capacity at KDKA-TV. She is a native of Oakland and received the Bachelor of Arts degree in English writing/communications from Pitt in 1992. Caruso, who was hired at KDKA immediately after graduating from Pitt, quickly moved up the ranks to become producer of the 5 p.m. broadcast.

Kuzmanko is responsible for arranging and promoting guest artist appearances at all county parks venues, including the popular Hartwood Acres and South Park summer series that has included concerts by David Crosby, Art Garfunkel, Blues Traveler, and others. He was race director of The Pittsburgh Marathon from 1985 through 1990, helping the race gain national status as it hosted the U.S. Olympics women's team trials in 1988. He now serves as a member of the board of directors for the UPMC Pittsburgh Marathon.

Kuzmanko earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy in 1976 and the Master of Arts degree in English literature in 1978 at Duquesne University, and the Master of Public Administration degree at West Virginia University in 1979. He is a board member of Jubilee Kitchen in Pittsburgh and also director of development of the Child Health International, a newborn screening program for underdeveloped nations.

Guo, who has been with the Post-Gazette for more than 25 years, earned the Master of Business Administration degree at the University's Katz Graduate School of Business in 1984. He has taught basic journalism and English writing at Pitt's Greensburg campus and continues to teach part-time at the Pittsburgh campus.

The panel is cosponsored by the University's English nonfiction writing track, Pitt News, Pitt's Career Services, and Pitt's WPTS radio station.

There will be a table of informational handouts on jobs and internships available locally and statewide. For more information on Career Day, call 412-624-6506.

###

10/7/02/tmw