With the promotion of educator Joyce Yang to program manager, News Decoder prepares to expand its educational opportunities and global reach.

News Decoder has hired a familiar face to help us meet our mission. This week Joyce Yang, our spring program and communications intern, was promoted to full-time Program Manager.

During her six-month internship, Yang proved to be indispensable across all News Decoder program activities. Readers may recognize Yang as the voice behind our most recent Alumni and Faculty spotlights and the Decoder Podcast, featuring interviews with members of the News Decoder community. She manages our social media accounts, writes our monthly Educators’ Catalog and has co-moderated cross-border webinars among our school members.

Now she steps into a new full-time role to help take News Decoder to the next level.

Based in Paris, Yang recently graduated from Sciences Po Paris with a Master of Public Policy degree focused on education policy. She holds another Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of California. With her educator’s eye, she’ll help enhance the breadth and depth of News Decoder’s teaching and learning resources for audiences worldwide.

Extending our educational footprint

As a former classroom teacher in the United States and France and an advocate for equitable access to education, Yang connected with News Decoder’s mission from day one.

“News Decoder’s mission to grow global awareness and media literacy skills in youth across the world really deeply resonates with me,” said Yang. “We’re living in an era of immense digital change, one that requires critical thinking, empathy and active participation in the world around us. News Decoder teaches students these skills in a way that’s accessible and rewarding.”

With our global school network — now numbering 22 schools across 18 countries on five continents — Yang will collaborate with faculty to best integrate News Decoder into their classrooms and engage students directly with our publishing and virtual exchange opportunities. She will add to our library of free journalism and media literacy resources for students and teachers throughout the world and help lead outreach efforts to potential new school partners in underrepresented regions.

Since joining News Decoder in January 2023, Yang collaborated with fellow intern Karolina Krakowiak to improve the design of News Decoder’s website, newsletters, social media and campaigns, leading to more consistent organizational branding. Yang will continue to communicate News Decoder’s stories and accomplishments through our multiple channels.

The ability to hire Yang full-time is the next step forward in News Decoder’s goal to grow our global network and create more opportunities for young people to expand their horizons through journalism.

As News Decoder heads into our ninth year of operations, our followers can look forward to more outstanding original stories by our talented student reporters and seasoned correspondents, continued public forums for discussing the most important issues and some exciting new projects that respond to the changing media landscape.

Maria Krasinski is News Decoder’s Managing Director. Previously she worked in public diplomacy and youth media in Chicago before serving in the Peace Corps in Tbilisi, Georgia. She is a published illustrator of two art history books with a third in production.