Sharyn Obsatz teaches journalism and media studies at Santa Monica College, a community college west of LA. She uses her smarts, caring and creativity to help students build meaningful careers. She also coordinates a speaker series to bring inspirational journalists, filmmakers and social media experts to campus.
As a reporter, she covered city, county and first-nation government stories for The Gallup Independent, The Santa Fe New Mexican and The Press-Enterprise. She also covered the immigration and multicultural topics beat for three years.
Her areas of research include digital news, social media, pop culture and Spanish-language media. Obsatz has been a vegetarian for 31 years and served as a Peace Corps urban-youth-development volunteer in Paraguay. Her 7-year-old son, David, loves soccer.