Trevor Timm
Trevor Timm is a co-founder and the executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation. He is a journalist, activist, and legal analyst whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, USA Today, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Harvard Law & Policy Review, and Politico.
Trevor formerly worked as an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Before that, he helped the longtime general counsel of The New York Times, James Goodale, write a book on the Pentagon Papers and the First Amendment. He received his J.D. from New York Law School.
In 2013, he received the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for journalism.
Louise Black
Louise Black is the vice president of development and operations at Freedom of the Press Foundation, where she oversees the organization’s fundraising goals and day-to-day operations. She has a rich background in progressive activism and previously worked as the deputy director of major gifts and events at People For the American Way in Washington, D.C. Louise also received a graduate certificate in nonprofit management from the George Washington University in 2017 and a graduate certificate in nonprofit financial stewardship from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2022. She resides in Brooklyn, New York.
Harlo Holmes
Harlo Holmes is the chief information security officer and director of digital security at Freedom of the Press Foundation. She strives to help individual journalists in various media organizations become confident and effective in securing their communications within their newsrooms, with their sources, and with the public at large. She is a media scholar, software programmer, and activist. Harlo was a regular contributor to the open source mobile security collective Guardian Project, where she spearheaded the media metadata verification initiative currently empowering ProofMode, Save by OpenArchive, eyeWitness to Atrocities, and others.
Kirstin McCudden
Kirstin is the vice president of editorial for Freedom of the Press Foundation, overseeing the organization’s editorial strategy and standards. She’s also managing editor of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project documenting press freedom violations in the United States. X: @TrackerKK
Ahmed Zidan
Ahmed Zidan is the deputy director of audience at Freedom of the Press Foundation, where he oversees the organization's audience strategy, social media, and newsletters. Prior to joining FPF, he was the deputy director of digital and social media at the Committee to Protect Journalists, where he worked for six years. Before that, he was social media editor of Radio Netherlands Worldwide, and editor of ArabNet, which covers tech entrepreneurship. He was also the editor of Mideast Youth, a blogging collective that championed freedom of speech and expression in the Middle East and North Africa, and that won many awards, including the 2011 Best of Blogs Award from the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. He also worked as a freelance fixer and interpreter for several media organizations following the 2011 Egyptian revolution, and as a freelance journalist for various digital and print outlets. Hailing from Cairo, Egypt, Ahmed is fluent in both English and Arabic. In a former life, he studied medicine at Cairo University, obtaining an MB BCh. You can find him on Twitter @zidanism. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.
Erik Moeller
Erik is the vice president of engineering at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Prior to joining FPF, Erik worked on many free and open projects. Chief among them was the Wikimedia Foundation, where he was a volunteer, board member, and executive, and helped build the organization into the free culture powerhouse it is today. Erik has also worked as a journalist and author, project manager, public speaker, and software engineer. He lives in Portland, Oregon, and enjoys hiking, reading, and building alternatives to proprietary tech platforms.
You can follow him on Mastodon.
Seth Stern
Seth Stern is the director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation. He oversees FPF’s efforts to defend press freedoms and stand up for journalists and whistleblowers who have been denied their rights. Prior to joining FPF, Seth practiced media and First Amendment law in Chicago for over a decade. Before that, he worked as a reporter and editor in the Chicago and Atlanta areas. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.
Lauren Harper
Lauren Harper is Freedom of the Press Foundation’s first Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy, a position established to honor and continue the legendary whistleblower’s fight for secrecy reform. Harper joins FPF after a decade fighting excessive government secrecy with Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, the National Security Archive. There she served as public policy director and helped historians, journalists, and the public win the declassification of historically significant government documents. She holds a master’s in public policy and a master’s in Middle Eastern studies, both from the University of Chicago.
Harris Lapiroff
Harris Lapiroff is the engineering manager (web, Dangerzone) at Freedom of the Press Foundation, overseeing the design and technical details of web projects. Previously, Harris was co-founder of a worker-cooperative web development agency that developed nonprofit and social good websites in a variety of fields. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Allie R
Allie is the engineering manager of the infrastructure team at Freedom of the Press Foundation. In her previous role as a senior software engineer, she led the development of the SecureDrop Workstation. Her expertise lies in computer systems, and she harbors a deep-seated interest in exploring how technology can intersect with human life and contribute to the public good.
Kevin O'Gorman
Kevin is the engineering manager for the SecureDrop team at Freedom of the Press Foundation. His involvement in digital security stems from his time spent working in various roles with media organizations including the Canadian Broadcasting Company and The Globe And Mail, where he led security workshops for journalists, and worked with FPF to implement the first Canadian SecureDrop instance. Kevin is based in Toronto, Canada.
Caitlin Vogus
Caitlin Vogus is a senior advisor at Freedom of the Press Foundation, where she works to defend and protect press freedoms, journalists, and whistleblowers. Prior to FPF, Caitlin was the deputy director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a senior staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, an attorney advisor at the Federal Communications Commission, and a law clerk at the Virginia Court of Appeals. Caitlin received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia, where she was a student journalist.
David Huerta
David Huerta is a senior digital security trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation, where he trains journalists in privacy-enhancing technology to empower a free press. He’s taught hundreds of trainings across the world and has previously organized the digital security track at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference. He’s also spoken on the subject of usable privacy technology at DEF CON, Radical Networks, RightsCon, FACETS, Allied Media Conference, and anywhere the words “use PGP” summon him to a stump speech.
Dr. Martin Shelton
Dr. Martin Shelton is the principal researcher at Freedom of the Press Foundation, conducting user research on harassment of journalists and digital security education in J-schools. He also leads security editorial and the U.S. J-school digital security curriculum.
As a UX researcher, he previously worked with Google Chrome and the Coral Project at The New York Times, where he learned from journalists and at-risk groups about their security concerns. In a former life, he was a disaffected academic and earned his Ph.D. at the University of California at Irvine.
Davis Erin Anderson
Davis Erin Anderson (she/her) is a senior digital security trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Davis has been training learners at all levels on concepts in digital security and data privacy since 2016. In addition to crafting fun and engaging hands-on workshops, she has produced training videos and online tutorials for those interested in keeping their data safe. Past projects include NYC Digital Safety, Data Privacy Project, and Web Literacy for Library Staff. In 2019, she helped secure funding to provide digital security and data privacy training to libraries and community-based organizations in advance of the 2020 U.S. Census.
Davis holds degrees in library science and music performance, and she performs regularly as a French horn player with orchestras and other ensembles in and around NYC.
Abigail LP
As program manager for the digital security training team, Abigail stewards client services and program development. They have an eclectic professional background, including experience in content production, project management, grassroots fundraising, facilitation, and communications, as well as a rich history as an artist, educator, and community organizer. Abigail is the founder and artistic director of folkLAB, an applied arts project based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that sits at the intersection of social justice and artmaking, and focuses on creating new work with underrepresented artists.
Stephanie Sugars
Stephanie Sugars is the senior reporter for the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. She documents press freedom violations in the U.S. and by U.S. officials abroad. A graduate of NYU's Global and Joint Program Studies program in journalism and international relations, her professional work focuses on human rights, politics, and identity-targeted violence. She has previously worked at the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Post-Conflict Research Center, and her freelance reporting has appeared in Al Jazeera, openDemocracy, Muftah Magazine, Civic Ideas, and Balkan Diskurs.
A New Mexican living in New York, her interests include hiking, board games, pool, and reading all the books she amassed while working at a bookstore.
Sophie Hagen
Sophie Hagen is the research reporter for the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, the canonical news database documenting press freedom violations in the United States. She researches and helps document assaults on journalists, legal orders for their work product and source information, and other violations. She has worked as a writer and editor in book and magazine publishing, and as a paralegal helping workers recover lost wages. She is passionate about press freedom and privacy, and resisting surveillance. She is from Brooklyn, New York.
A. Adam Glenn
A. Adam Glenn is deputy editor at Freedom of the Press Foundation, where he runs the copy desk. An award-winning journalist for newsrooms in New York and Washington, D.C., and a longtime educator and media adviser, Adam currently teaches journalism at the City University of New York and consults on publications for the Society of Environmental Journalists. He holds degrees from The Fletcher School in international environmental policy and from Boston University in journalism, and has won numerous fellowships, grants, and awards. Adam lives in the Lower Hudson Valley with his college-aged daughter and his middle-aged Russell terrier.
Aishwarya Nag Choudhury
Aishwarya Nag Choudhury is the social media editor at Freedom of the Press Foundation, working on FPF’s audience strategy and social media outreach. After receiving her master’s degree from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, Aishwarya worked as a journalist for outlets including The Young Turks, USA Today Network, and CNN before joining the fight for press freedom. Originally from India, she is fluent in English, Hindi, and Bengali, and currently lives in Washington D.C.
Max Abrams
Max Abrams is the social media fellow at Freedom of the Press Foundation and works to define the organization’s digital outreach. He was previously an audience engagement editor at the New York Daily News.
Max holds a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and his reporting has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and museums across the country. He believes that journalism is a social good and that anyone, anywhere, has the unfettered right to tell a story. He hails from Buffalo, N.Y., and lives in Brooklyn.
Rowen S
Rowen is a senior software engineer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. They have worked within the internet freedom community as a software developer and as a digital security trainer on projects spanning circumvention technology, privacy, digital safety for at-risk communities, and free expression.
Rowen enjoys coding, not coding, and can often be found outdoors under a tree. They are based in Canada.
Kunal Mehta
Kunal Mehta is a senior software engineer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. He previously worked at the Wikimedia Foundation, where he served as a core developer for MediaWiki, among other roles. He's a strong believer in the free knowledge and software movements, spending free time editing Wikipedia and contributing to the Debian Project. Having earned a degree in journalism from San José State University, Kunal is blending his interests in First Amendment rights and free software by working on SecureDrop.
Cory Myers
Cory Myers (he/him) is a senior software engineer on the SecureDrop team at Freedom of the Press Foundation. He studied philosophy at Deep Springs College and Yale College, where he was an undergraduate fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. In 2023–2024, he is an Internet of Rights fellow with ARTICLE 19, focusing on anti-censorship advocacy within the Internet Engineering Task Force. He also serves on the board of the Telluride Association, a nonprofit that runs transformative educational experiences rooted in critical thinking and democratic community. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Nathan Dyer
Nathan Dyer is the newsroom support engineer for Freedom of the Press Foundation. His previous work includes providing customer support for a Linux-focused hardware vendor, as well as being an AP computer science instructor and managing a 1:1 technology deployment for a public school district. He is a proponent of free and open source software, and actively maintains multiple open source apps for the Linux desktop. He lives with his wife in Tennessee.
Francisco Rocha
Francisco is a Qubes systems engineer at Freedom of the Press Foundation, working on the SecureDrop team. In his previous role as a software engineer, he worked on the Dangerzone project. His teenage years were highly influenced by the Snowden revelations, which sparked his interest in privacy, digital security, and journalism. Ever since, he's been active in the digital rights community. He has a master’s in computer science and is a longtime Qubes OS user, having worked in the Qubes OS team under the Internews BASICS project just before joining FPF.
Alex Pyrgiotis
Alex (he/him) is a senior software engineer at Freedom of the Press Foundation, where he supports the ongoing development of the Dangerzone project. Previously, he was part of a team that built the first public cloud for the Greek academic and research community, as well as a tech lead in a software company, where he designed and built peer-to-peer systems, multicloud applications, and security-sensitive software.
He believes in free press and free software, and occasionally likes to mix these two.
Cameron Higby-Naquin
Cameron Higby-Naquin is a senior software engineer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. He works on the web development team building and maintaining the organization's web projects. He believes in the open web, free software, and that technology can solve problems in the world and in our everyday lives. He has witnessed the rise and fall of a great number of trends in the design and construction of websites, and in spite of this continues to think building them is a good idea. He resides in Vermont, where he enjoys music, dance, and the outdoors.
John Halpin
John Halpin is director of development at Freedom of the Press Foundation, where he works to cultivate and sustain partnerships to support the organization’s mission and programs. He previously worked at The City, a nonprofit news organization covering the five boroughs of New York, and at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. He has a master’s of public administration from Columbia and a bachelor’s in social work. He resides in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, and enjoys gardening and reading in his spare time.
Ryan Rice
Ryan Rice is a development coordinator for Freedom of the Press Foundation. Combining an academic background in political science with the practical education of social justice movement building, Ryan has worked previously in rights for the unhoused, foreclosure defense, and nuclear disarmament. They are thrilled to have found a way to help whistleblowers, journalists, and free press advocates with their current work.
Zillah Elçin
Zillah is the grant writer at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, bringing experience in grant fundraising, sponsorship fulfillment, and donor engagement. Having worked in public media, Zillah is proud to secure funding that advances press freedom. Outside of work, she enjoys writing, baking sourdough, making yogurt, and expanding her homesteading skills.
Chris Porras
Chris Porras (he/him) is the director of HR, talent and culture at Freedom of the Press Foundation, where he leads initiatives that build and sustain a cohesive organizational culture. Chris’ professional background includes Tribeca Enterprises (which owns and operates the Tribeca Festival) and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. He’s also volunteered as a mentor at Big Brothers Big Sisters of NYC and through UStrive, and as a kitchen supervisor at New Alternatives for LGBTQ+ Homeless Youth. Chris is passionate about media in all its forms, making people laugh, and nurturing burgeoning talent.
Grace Samaritano
Grace Samaritano (they/she) is the operations manager at Freedom of the Press Foundation, where they oversee the organization’s daily operations and on-site activities. Grace has a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from New York University, with a focus on environmental justice movements in the Levant. Before joining FPF, Grace worked at a community-focused nonprofit organization serving immigrant families in Brooklyn. Grace is passionate about animals, the Arabic language, and music, and enjoys spending time with their cat.