Staff
Fan Chen, Reporter, is a journalist born and raised in Guangzhou, China. She has reported in Cambodia, Nepal, and the Czech Republic, writing about labor, gender, criminal justice, and historical trauma. She has worked for Newsweek, Reuters, and AsAmNews. Photography is Fan’s second language to explore humanity and the possibilities of living in the world. She is curious about underrepresented and marginalized communities. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School.
Lauren Feeney, Interim Executive Director, is a multimedia journalist whose work has been featured on PBS, The New York Times, The Intercept, and The Atlantic, among other publications. Most recently, she served as the Director of Video Production for The Intercept, a non-profit investigative news organization. Her work has been recognized with an Emmy nomination, four Edward Murrow Awards, the Newhouse Mirror Award, and an SPJ Award, among other honors. Lauren is a graduate of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she has also taught multimedia journalism. She lives in Lexington with her husband and two kids.
Regular contributors
Vikram Anantha, contributing photographer, is a senior at Lexington High School (LHS) and the Photos Editor of the LHS Yearbook and the LHS Musket Newspaper. He is the founder of HELM Learning, a free peer-to-peer online learning platform that connected student-teachers (middle to high school) who wanted to share their passion for a subject with students (K-12) around the world during the pandemic. In his free time, he enjoys going to school events to take pictures for the yearbook club and posting them on social media.
Helen Epstein, contributor, was born in Prague in 1947 and grew up in New York City. She attended Hunter College High School, CCNY and graduated from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She became an instant published journalist while a 20-year-old college student caught in the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia. Her account was published in the Jerusalem Post where she worked while an undergraduate studying musicology and literature. In 1971, she graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and began to freelance for diverse publications including the Soho Weekly News, the New York Times, Washington Post and MORE: A Journalism Review. She is best known for the non-fiction trilogy Children of the Holocaust; Where She Came From; and The Long Half-Lives of Love and Trauma. Her most recent book is Getting Through It: My Year of Cancer During Covid.
Olivia LeDuc, contributing reporter, is a senior journalism student at Emerson College. While she originally hails from Lowell, LeDuc has deepened her connections to the Lexington community since joining the LexObserver team. Previously, she interned at The Eagle-Tribune newspaper in North Andover and WCVB NewsCenter 5 and is currently the news editor at Emerson’s student-run publication, The Berkeley Beacon. LeDuc has been devoted to revitalizing local news efforts and has found Lexington to be a prime example of this endeavor. No matter the form of advocacy, LeDuc believes communities need to be well informed on its happenings. After graduation, she plans to pursue a career in freelance writing and public administration to help communities make meaningful change.
Elsa Lichman, Nature Columnist, retired after a 43-year career as a licensed independent clinic social worker. Her interest in the arts was also explored and expressed in a variety of media and venues. After joining a writing group, she became a regular columnist for the Waltham News Tribune, with her Nature in the City and Meet Your Neighbor pieces. Having grown up near the ocean, nature was always a significant part of her life, a lifelong interest and passion. She is pleased to have a new home for her musings, meditations, and research on the natural world around us.
Bangtam Ngo, Cooking Columnist, is a Minuteman senior with a remarkable flair for the culinary arts. Inspired by the expertise of her mother, a seasoned chef, and with four years of home cooking experience of her own, Ngo is eager to transform her love for food into this nonprofit venture. Alongside crafting delectable recipes for LexKooks, Ngo dedicates her time to volunteering at LexEatTogether, a local non-profit providing free weekly meals. With the help of her mom and friends from LexEatTogether, she will share not only the flavors of their creations but also a profound sense of compassion and community spirit.
Christin Worcester, Police Blotter writer, has been a Lexington resident for over 40 years. She graduated from a 16-week program at the Northeast Regional Police Institute and became one of Lexington’s first Auxiliary/Special police officers while teaching high school English in Belmont in the 1980s. She has a 35-year career as a public school English teacher and has published memoir pieces in the Lexington Lifetimes Magazine. She received magna cum laude from Boston College and a master of arts in teaching writing from the University of New Hampshire.
Jeri Zeder, contributor and Lexington resident since 1996, is a recovering lawyer and freelance writer. She writes regularly for the law school alumni magazines of Boston College and Northeastern University. Her feature stories have also appeared in Lexington Times Magazine. She has served on the boards of the Cary Memorial Library Foundation and the Lexington Education Foundation and is currently chair of the Vision for Lexington Subcommittee on Local Election Voter Participation.
Advisory Board
Nicco Mele, founder, is a resident of Lexington for more than ten years, a published expert on local news and former director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to that, he was the deputy publisher of the Los Angeles Times. Nicco co-founded the Massachusetts Poetry Festival where he still serves as board chair.
Lauren Feeney, Interim Executive Director, and resident of Lexington for five years, is a multimedia journalist whose work has been featured on PBS, The New York Times, The Intercept, and The Atlantic, among other publications. Most recently, she served as the Director of Video Production for The Intercept, a non-profit investigative news organization. Her work has been recognized with an Emmy nomination, four Edward Murrow Awards, the Newhouse Mirror Award, and an SPJ Award, among other honors. Lauren is a graduate of Columbia’s journalism school, where she has also taught multimedia journalism.
Harry Forsdick, Lexington resident and Town Meeting Member, retired from a successful software development career in 2004. His groundbreaking work with companies like Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN), CMGI, and Level 3 Communications included prototypes of and precurors to many of the applications currently in use on the Internet, such as Microsoft Word, Outlook, Google Docs, and Gmail. He and his teams also worked on some of the first video teleconferencing applications, forerunners of the now-indispensable Zoom. He founded and moderated the Lexington List and has advised LexMedia and the Lexington Community Center. Currently, he owns and operates Lexington Photo Scanning.
Elizabeth Hansen, is a Lexington resident and the CEO and co-founder of the National Trust for Local News, a nonprofit working with funders and communities to keep local news sustainable and in local hands. In its first transaction, the Trust worked with the Colorado Media Project, the Gates Family Foundation, the Colorado Trust, the American Journalism Project and the Colorado Sun, to acquire 24 community newspapers and place them under an innovative new structure, preserving local ownership.
Cameron Hickey, is the CEO of the National Conference on Citizenship, a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening civic life in America. Previously, Hickey covered science and technology for the PBS NewsHour and NOVA with correspondent Miles O’Brien. Hickey has won a News and Documentary Emmy Award and a Newhouse Mirror Award for his journalism and was also a Knight Foundation Prototype Grantee for his junk news monitoring tool NewsTracker, and won a 2019 Brown Institute Magic Grant to investigate inauthentic activity on social media. His work has appeared on the PBS NewsHour, NOVA, Bill Moyers, American Experience, WNET, and The New York Times.
Robert Rotberg is an internationally-recognized scholar and author in the field of governance and foreign affairs. He has written extensively on African nations and leaders, serving on the Secretary of State’s Africa advisory panel in 2003-2004 and directing the establishment of the Index for African Governance. His work in peace studies led to his appointment as director of the World Peace Organization, and he continues to teach at several institutions around the world.
Craig Sandler is the owner and founder of State House News Service, a media company that tracks legislation and legislators on Beacon Hill. He also serves as the Managing Editor for News Service Florida. He is a member of the board of the Lexington Historical Society, and he also publishes the Massachusetts Almanac.
Nagarjuna Venna, resident of Lexington for 4 years, is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management where he teaches classes in Entrepreneurship. He is the co-founder of BitSight, a security ratings company based in Boston and Saperix, a risk management company, which was acquired by Firemon in 2011. He also serves on the board of Prochant, a healthcare services company.
Gerry Yurkevicz, a resident of Lexington for over 30 years, has spent his entire career in the energy industry as a management consultant and company executive. He will provide commentary on energy, climate, and environmental issues that are important to Lexington residents. His perspectives on energy-related topics have appeared in leading multimedia outlets including Public Utilities Fortnightly and the Edison Electric Institute’s Electric Perspectives. Previously, he was a partner in the energy practice of Oliver Wyman, where he wrote extensively on the energy transition. Gerry is a graduate of the University of Chicago’s business school.
If you have an interest in serving on the board, apply here!