About the Innovator Melissa Bell co-founded Vox.com in early 2014 and became the first person at Vox Media to hold both a technology and editorial title as Senior Product Manager and Executive Editor for Vox.com. Prior to Vox, Melissa oversaw digital platforms at the Washington Post. She was also one of The Post’s most-read bloggers and a columnist for the Style section. Before joining The Post, she helped launch Mint, a Wall Street Journal subsidiary in India, where she lived for four years. She has written for a number of publications, including Time, the Guardian and Town & Country. She hails from San Diego, California and makes a mean banana-and-cheese quesadilla.
The Innovators Series is sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. They believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged.
The Innovators Series is hosted at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.
The University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications is driving innovation and engagement across the disciplines of advertising, journalism, public relations and telecommunication. The strength of its programs, faculty, students and alumni — in research and in practice — has earned the college ongoing recognition as one of the best in the nation among its peers. The college offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees and certificates, both online and on campus. The college’s strength is drawn from both academic rigor and experiential learning. CJC students have the opportunity to gain practical experience in the Innovation News Center, which generates content across multiple platforms, and a strategic communication agency that will begin operation in Fall 2014. The college includes seven broadcast and digital media properties and the nation’s only program in public interest communications.