Emilia Askari teaches environmental journalism at the University of Michigan and works to support the international community of environmental journalists. She chairs the advisory board for a news nonprofit, Planet Detroit; chairs the judging panel for Columbia University's prestigious Oakes Award in Environmental Journalism; and serves on numerous committees of the Society of Environmental Journalists. Emilia was SEJ’s second president and co-chaired SEJ’s annual conference twice. She has been a staff reporter for the Detroit Free Press, the Miami Herald, and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner – winning numerous journalism prizes and fellowships, including the Knight Wallace Fellowship. Her reporting has taken her from a bear's winter den in northern Michigan to the southern tip of Patagonia, with much of her reporting attention focused in Detroit. Emilia has earned a PhD in educational technology from Michigan State University; master’s degrees in Information Science from the University of Michigan and Journalism from Columbia University; and a bachelor’s degree in economics and creative writing from Brown University. Her education research focuses on the intersection of digital citizenship, media literacy, environmental justices and innovation in educational contexts. Over the years, she has served on the national council that accredits university journalism programs, and in a USA national role for a global peace education nonprofit, CISV.