J-SOS Mission

Jeje Mohamed is a holistic safety and security advisor and risk management expert. She co-founded Aegis Safety Alliance, a collective of women and non-binary media safety experts. She has extensive experience in journalism, human rights, and safety and security. She offers holistic, trauma-informed, identity-centered safety training and resources focused on digital safety, physical safety, de-escalation, and psychological first aid. Mohamed works with journalists, documentarians, media-makers, and human rights activists working in various contexts, working with newsrooms, media agencies, and NGOs.

Previously, Mohamed was the Senior Manager for Digital Safety and Free Expression at PEN America, where she led the training program and resource building. She was a Next-Gen Safety Trainers fellow with the International Women’s Media Foundation, developing holistic safety training programs and incident response support for journalists. She has worked as a journalist in Egypt and the United States, producing documentaries and podcasts on human rights abuses and leading human rights programs focused on combatting sex trafficking.

She received her bachelor’s degree from American University in Cairo in multimedia journalism and international relations and her master’s degree from American University in Washington, DC, in international media, focusing on human rights and democracy in areas of conflict as an Open Society Foundation Civil Society Leadership Award Fellow. She serves on the advisory board for the Coalition Against Online Violence and was a fellow with the Online News Association’s Women’s Leadership Accelerator.

Kat Contreras is a freelance photojournalist and editorial technologist who works at the intersection of visual storytelling and software development. With over a decade of experience in documentary photography and digital media production, they partner with small and nonprofit newsrooms to build the tools, interfaces, and systems journalists need — without requiring enterprise-scale resources.

Their editorial work has appeared in TIME, the Los Angeles Times, Essence, and The Advocate. On the tech side, they specialize in full-stack engineering, interactive experiences, and mobile development, bringing the same attention to clarity and accessibility that shapes their photography.

Vanessa Charlot is an award-winning photographer, filmmaker, lecturer, curator and media safety trainer. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Multimedia at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media. Her work focuses on the intersectionality of race, politics, culture and sexual/gender expression to explore the collective human experience. The purpose of her work is to produce visual representations free of an oppressive gaze. Vanessa seeks to humanize Black bodies through her photography, restoring the dignity and vitality of those often shot as subjects divorced from context, motives, and histories.

She has worked throughout the U.S., Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Her photographs have been commissioned by the New York Times, Gucci, Vogue, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Oprah Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Apple, New York Magazine, Buzzfeed, Artnet News, The Washington Post and other national and international publications. Vanessa lectures at the International Center of Photography and is the recipient of the International Women's Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award for 2021. She is currently an Emerson Collective Fellow.

Rosem Morton, is a Filipina photojournalist, nurse and safety trainer based in Baltimore, Maryland. As a visual journalist, she is a National Geographic Explorer whose work focuses on daily life amidst gender, health, and racial adversity. She documents issues from the effects of gender based violence, the unheard stories of healthcare workers, to the legacies of western colonization that have shaped Filipino culture and migration. Her work has been awarded the Leica Women Photo Award and the Visa d'or Daily Press Award. She has also been recognized by the Pictures of the Year International, the World Press Photo 6x6 Talent and the 30 under 30 list. Rosem has worked at major trauma centers as a registered nurse for the last 10 years. She draws on these experiences alongside the IWMF Next Gen Fellowship to provide holistic safety trainings for journalists.

Mari Galicer is a technologist and educator working at the intersection of privacy, safety, and software. As a digital security trainer, she aims to create accessible and collaborative spaces for learning about digital safety, centered in the needs of those not traditionally represented in journalism and tech. As a researcher and software developer, she has worked with Mozilla, ACLU, NYU, and several start ups. She is currently a product manager for consumer privacy at Cloudflare.