JUDGES
Arlie Adlington
BEST SERIALIZED STORY JUDGE
Arlie (he/him) is a freelance audio producer, sound designer, and mix engineer based in London. He's made documentaries and podcasts for clients like BBC Sounds, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, VICE, Tate, Chanel, The Barbican, The Allusionist, Serpentine and Scottee.
Erisa Apantaku
BEST NEW ARTIST JUDGE
Erisa (she/her) is a Black/biracial, queer audio producer and educator from the lands of the Three Fires Confederacy of the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi First Nations (Chicagoland). She produces podcasts like the recent You Didn't See Nothin for the Invisible Institute, short audio documentaries for outlets including BBC Radio, and serves as a freelance story editor for projects such as The Alaskan Myth. Her work asks questions about race, sexuality, and gender through a process that seeks to be vulnerable, accountable, and generative for all those involved.
Stacia Brown
BEST DOCUMENTARY: SHORT & AUDIO UNBOUND JUDGE
Stacia (she/her) is a writer and audio producer whose work has been featured in BBC 4’s Short Cuts, Slate, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The New Republic. Learn more about her at stacialbrown.com.
Alana Casanova-Burgess
BEST SERIALIZED STORY JUDGE
Alana (she/her) is the co-creator, host, and producer of the bilingual podcast La Brega from WNYC Studios and Futuro Studios, hailed as one of the “Best Podcasts of 2021” by The New Yorker and The New York Times. Previously, she was a reporter and producer for WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show and the Peabody award-winning national public radio show and podcast On the Media. In 2021, she received an Exceptional Journalism Award from the Women’s Media Center for her work on La Brega. She was also part of a team that won the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for Blindspot: Tulsa Burning, a six-part podcast about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and the history of racial violence in America. Casanova-Burgess’ reporting has been featured in The Guardian, The New Yorker, 99% Invisible, Planet Money, Throughline, and Latino USA, among other radio shows and podcasts.
Wederik de Backer
BEST DOCUMENTARY: NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE JUDGE
Wederik (he/him) is a Belgian audio maker, specializing in radio drama, satire, and radio documentary. His productions found their way to media in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and the U.S. He won the prize for best radio play at the prestigious European media prize Prix Europa.
Julia Furlan
BEST DOCUMENTARY: NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGEJUDGE
Julia (she/her) is a Brazilian-American podcast host, editor and an adjunct professor at The New School and NYU. She’s hosted and produced audio for places like NPR, WNYC, Vox Media, and BuzzFeed News (rip). All of her work is rooted in a belief in uplifting underrepresented voices. In her free time, Julia can be found propagating a small jungle of spider plants and learning to make comics.
Jimmy Gutierrez
BEST DOCUMENTARY JUDGE
Jimmy (he/him) is an audio editor and service journalist based in Milwaukee, WI. He's previously worked at TED Audio Collective, Outlier Media, NHPR, and the Milwaukee Fire Department.
Axel Kacoutié
BEST NEW ARTIST JUDGE
Axel (they/them) is an audio artist and poet who's been crafting sound, music, and words to challenge the familiar and revive a magic in the mundane. Previously the Creative Director of Sound at The Guardian, their work has been featured on the BBC's airwaves, Spotify, and in physical spaces such as the Tate Modern (2023), and Sundance Film Festival (2022). Recent collaborations include those with Falling Tree Productions, Shade Podcast, Somerset House, and many, many more.
Sharon Mashihi
BEST DOCUMENTARY: SHORT & AUDIO UNBOUND JUDGE
Sharon (she/her) is an artist and storyteller, primarily working in audio and performance. She has worked on many podcasts, most notably The Heart, The Shadows, KCRW's Bodies, and her own autofictional series, Appearances. Described by New York Magazine as "a breakthrough for the podcast form", Appearances was named a best podcast of the year by The New York Times, Vulture, Indiewire, The L.A. Review of Books, and others. Sharon has won grants, fellowships, and awards from Third Coast, NYSCA, Yaddo, and MacDowell. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Rachel Matlow
BEST DOCUMENTARY JUDGE
Rachel (they/them) is a freelance audio producer, story editor, and writer from Toronto. They were a long-time producer on the CBC's flagship arts & culture program, Q, and have made podcasts for Feist (Pleasure Studies) and Pineapple Street Studios (Undistracted with Brittany Packnett Cunningham). Rachel's audio piece, "Dead Mom Talking," won the 2016 Third Coast Best New Artist Award and their darkly funny follow-up book, Dead Mom Walking: A Memoir of Miracle Cures and Other Disasters, was a national bestseller.
Melissa Mbugua
BEST DOCUMENTARY JUDGE
Melissa (she/her) is a multifaceted innovator and entrepreneur who carves a niche for herself. In 2019 she co-founded Africa Podfest, a company based in Kenya that has sparked growth in African podcasting, placing it in the global spotlight. She has earned more than 15 years of experience working in multicultural teams and in diverse cultural environments with some of the most creative organizations in the world. Her experience includes roles with iHub and Ushahidi, strengthening the African and Asian tech industries and supporting early stage startups. As a consultant, she has provided research and innovation support to organizations in Kenya's creative industries across entertainment, music, film, public libraries and fashion. She serves as an advisor to Creatives for Climate and the impact council at D&AD. Her academic background is in information technology, business and development management. Melissa thrives when bringing creativity and boldness to her efforts, exercising her skills in design, brand communication and research. At her core, she is driven by a commitment to modeling inclusivity for a more sustainable society.
Katherine Nagasawa
BEST NEWS FEATURE & IMPACT JUDGE
Katherine (she/her) is a multimedia journalist who specializes in participatory storytelling rooted in community and place. She's currently the Engagement and Impact Manager for El Tímpano, a local newsroom that serves Latino and Mayan immigrant communities in the Bay Area through a participatory model of journalism and civic engagement. Katherine previously worked for Full Spectrum Education, where she helped develop cinematic digital history projects for classroom use. She also previously worked at WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR news station, where she was a digital and community engagement producer within the newsroom and for the public-powered project Curious City.
You can learn more about her work at katherinenagasawa.com.
Priska Neely
BEST DOCUMENTARY JUDGE
Priska (she/her) is an award-winning journalist, writer and mentor based in Birmingham, Alabama. She is the managing editor of the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration among public media stations in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. In 2022, she was nominated by her team and named Editor of the Year by the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA). She currently serves as board president for PMJA. She has previously worked as a reporter and producer at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, KPCC/LAist in Los Angeles, and NPR in Washington, D.C. She loves to care for her plants and sing and once wrote a love song about condiments.
Habiba Nosheen
BEST NEWS FEATURE & IMPACT JUDGE
Habiba (she/her) is a Peabody and three-time Emmy-Award-Winning journalist and filmmaker. Originally from Pakistan, she now splits her time between Toronto and New York. She is the creator and host of the investigative podcast series, Conviction: The Disappearance of Nuseiba Hasan, with Gimlet Media/Spotify. The series was named one of the best podcasts of 2022 by The Guardian. Habiba’s works in audio and documentary films and her storytelling often focuses on themes of social justice and women's rights.
Her 2013 documentary, Outlawed in Pakistan, premiered at Sundance, where it was called “one of the standouts of Sundance” by The L.A. Times and aired nationally on PBS FRONTLINE. Habiba's radio documentary, "What Happened at Dos Erres," for This American Life, was dubbed “a masterpiece of storytelling” by The New Yorker and won a Peabody and two Overseas Press Club awards. In 2021, she was also recognized by DOC NYC as 40 under 40 for her work in documentary films. She is currently part of GOTHAM/HBO Documentary Films' inaugural cohort for the Documentary Development Initiative. Habiba teaches at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and is a proud special needs mom.
Lisa Pollak
BEST SERIALIZED STORY JUDGE
Lisa (she/her) is an award-winning journalist who focuses on narrative stories about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. She began her career in newspapers, and won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing while working at the Baltimore Sun. She then spent a decade producing radio stories for This American Life and two seasons as a producer for Showtime’s Emmy-winning TV series based on the show. More recently, Lisa has developed, produced and edited podcasts for ESPN’s 30 for 30, NPR’s Embedded, Gimlet Media, Vox, and Reveal, among others. She was one of the editors of "According to Need," a series on homelessness from 99% Invisible that won a DuPont award in 2022.
Elena Rivera
BEST SERIALIZED STORY JUDGE
Elena (she/her) is an award-winning health reporter with KERA, NPR's North Texas station. She covers statewide stories on health access and equity, with a focus on mental health, maternal health and gender-affirming care. She has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Texas Association of Broadcasters. She also served as the cohort captain for the Association of Independents in Radio's New Voices program from 2020-2022.
Juan Serrano
BEST DOCUMENTARY: NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE JUDGE
Juan is a founder and executive producer at La No Ficción, a podcast production company based in Bogotá, Colombia. He was part of the second cohort of the Google Podcasts Creator Program and a two-time winner of the Simón Bolívar National Journalism Award. He has overseen the production of podcasts for Spotify and Podimo. Currently, he is the host of Un Periódico de Ayer, a narrative-driven podcast about the personal toll of history.
Justine Tobiasz
BEST DOCUMENTARY: SHORT & AUDIO UNBOUND JUDGE
Justine (she/her) is a visual artist and archivist. Currently, she is the media archivist at WBEZ where she focuses on broadcast audio archives and news format obsolescence. She is also co-director of APO Pocket, a multidisciplinary art production studio in Chicago, IL. See more of her work at justinetobiasz.info.
Alice Wilder
BEST NEW ARTIST JUDGE
Alice (she/her) is a podcast producer and the creator of "Starting Out," a newsletter for early-career podcast-and-radio-makers. She got her start at Criminal and has gone on to work on podcasts at WNYC, ProPublica, Transmitter Media, and Pineapple Street Studios. Alice is currently a producer on Marketplace's This is Uncomfortable. She lives in Durham, North Carolina with her dog June.
Mike Williams
BEST DOCUMENTARY JUDGE
Mike (he/him) makes documentaries and podcasts about Australian characters and culture.
At the ABC he helped build the music station Double J, was part of the team that launched the current affairs show, RN Drive, co-founded their first ‘podcast-first’ documentary podcast, The Real Thing; created a series about trying to learn to do a backflip; and launched other projects including The J Files, Inside the Big Day Out, and Long Story Short.
Mike’s work is known for its use of humour and has been recognized and broadcast internationally. He’s performed stories live in a sausage restaurant, collaborated with a contemporary dancer, and once recorded 100 interviews in 24 hours (also in a sausage restaurant).
Richard Yeh
BEST NEWS FEATURE & IMPACT JUDGE
Richard (he/they) is a freelance producer and photographer. He has produced stories for Reveal, The New Yorker Radio Hour, The Takeaway, Studio 360, and others. Between 2007 and 2021 he was on staff at the WNYC newsroom. A native of Taipei, now based in Queens, he teaches audio journalism at Columbia University, New York University, and the City University of New York.