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Show Staff

• Barbara Cahn

  Barbara studied art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and New York University, and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras. When not at WNYC, she can generally be found making pottery in her Greenwich Village studio.

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  Julia Corcoran - Assistant Producer, The Leonard Lopate Show

  Julia Corcoran joined the show as an intern in spring 2007 after listening to the show for many years, and joined the staff full-time in February 2009. She produces the Please Explain series and other segments. She has reported and produced radio features for WAMC Northeast Public Radio in Albany and for WSHU Public Radio in Connecticut. Julia studied literature and art at the University of New Mexico, and holds a degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. In her spare time, she enjoys escaping the city living to climb up and ski down mountains.

• Virginia Dorris

  In addition to working for The Leonard Lopate Show, Virginia is a freelance writer who has written frequently about architecture, engineering and construction. She has an MS from the Columbia University School of Journalism and a BS in architecture from the University of Virginia.

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  Melissa Eagan - Executive Producer, The Leonard Lopate Show

  During the time Melissa has been Executive Producer, the program has won three AP Awards for Best Interview and three James Beard Awards, among others. Before that, she wrote for publications including The Christian Science Monitor and Yankee, covering everything from windmills and stained glass studios to tugboat captains. 

• Debbie Fountain

  Debbie Fountain has been with the show since 2005. She comes to us from freeform station WFMU in Jersey City, New Jersey, and hosts a 24-hour webstream of solid gold hits at http://wfmuichiban.blogspot.com. Her motto: "Don't piss off the sound guy."

• Bonnie Lafave

  Bonnie Lafave worked for many years as a producer of national news and current affairs programming with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto. In 1996, she was awarded a Nieman Fellowship and spent a year studying at Harvard University.

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  Leonard Lopate - Host, The Leonard Lopate Show

  Leonard Lopate studied painting with Mark Rothko and hosted a gospel music show in the 70's and early 80's. He also marketed records for Slim Whitman and Boxcar Willie, and knows enough Cantonese to order the best dim sum in Chinatown.

• Jessica Miller - Intern

  Jessica Miller joined the Lopate Show as an intern in January 2011. She studied religion and English at Barnard College and enjoys blogging, sailing, and playing music.

• Jessica Raimi - Intern

  Jessica Raimi is a writer, editor, photographer, and independent radio producer. Her work has been heard in New York on WBAI-FM and nationally on NPR. 

• Blakeney Schick - Associate Producer, The Leonard Lopate Show

  Blakeney joined the show as an intern in the fall of 2004, before becoming an Associate Producer in 2007. She contributes to the "Underreported" series and keeps an eye on national and international politics, and produced the year-long "States of the Union" series during the 2008 presidential campaign.

• Steven Valentino - Assistant Producer, The Leonard Lopate Show

  Steven contributes to the "Underreported" and "Backstory" series. Before joining the Lopate team as an Assistant Producer in 2008, he produced two full-length radio documentaries for Pacifica and Sirius Satellite Radio, one on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and another on gay marriage called “Regulating Love,” for which he won the 2005 NLGJA Student Journalist of the Year Award.