Denise Cheng lives at the intersection of civics, media, and work. She specializes in designing frameworks for meaningful participation, whether in media creation or workforce development. Denise received her masters in Comparative Media Studies from MIT, where she was funded by the Knight Foundation as part of the Media Lab’s Center for Civic Media. In past lives, she was a Tow-Knight entrepreneurial journalism fellow with CUNY J-School, the citizen journalism coordinator for The Rapidian, a hyperlocals community wrangler, strategist for involving marginalized groups in community media, and Peace Corps volunteer. She has appeared on NPR, Harvard Business Review, and The New York Times, and she has spoken at numerous conferences in both community-focused journalism and the future of work.