MIMEF Leadership
Birgit Rieck is the director of the Moment Institute Middle East Fellows program. As associate director at the Wallace House Center for Journalists, University of Michigan, she managed the Knight-Wallace Fellowships and the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. She worked as a radio reporter in her native Germany, and received a master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Mainz after completing undergraduate studies at the University of Bonn. Rieck serves as a board member (treasurer) of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and is a long-time member of several journalism associations, currently IRE, ONA, JAWS, SEJ and NAJA. In 2020, she completed the Media Transformation Challenge; the program - then housed at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University - is now part of Poynter Institute.
Birgit Rieck
Award-winning journalist Nadine Epstein, co-founder of MIMEF, leads Moment Magazine as editor-in-chief and chief executive officer. She founded Moment Institute, the home of MIMEF. She also founded the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Creative Change , where she serves as executive director, and is co-founder of the Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative. Epstein reported for the City News Bureau of Chicago and the Chicago Bureau of The New York Times, and later covered the U.S.-Mexico border and rural America. After a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan, she taught in the Master’s Program in journalism there. She holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and was a University Fellow in the political science doctoral program at Columbia University. Epstein has written and edited several books and her writing has been published in a wide range of publications.
Nadine Epstein
Tanya George, co-founder of MIMEF, is chief operating officer at Moment Magazine and Moment Institute and a development professional with more than 30 years of experience working with nonprofit organizations.George began her career managing training programs for the Peace Corps in Northern Africa (Tunisia) and later served as Vice President for Development for Partners of the Americas, which provides technical assistance and training programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. She has also worked for Justice at Stake, the ARAVA Institute for Environmental Studies, Wider Opportunities for Women and the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance.
Tanya George
Johnna Raskin is special assistant to the editor and also supports MIMEF with her expertise. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she previously worked as Senior Press Specialist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and helped launch the National Geographic Channel as Manager of Communications.