Madeleine Bair

Madeleine Bair is the Founding Director of El Tímpano—a local reporting and civic engagement lab designed to inform and empower Oakland’s Latino immigrant community.

Madeleine has been carrying a microphone in her backpack since she belonged to the Oakland bureau of the pioneering youth media organization, Children’s Express. As senior program manager at the international human rights organization, WITNESS, she led a pioneering initiative dedicated to advancing the use of citizen video as a tool for human rights reporting and advocacy.

Madeleine has taught radio production to young adults, worked on a morning show at Chicago Public Radio, and produced multimedia for Human Rights Watch. Her stories have appeared in the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Orion, and Colorlines, and broadcast on public radio programs including PRI’s The World and Afropop Worldwide. Her documentary film on a first-generation high school graduate aired on PBS as part of its Latino Graduates series. Madeleine earned a dual MA in Journalism and International Studies from UC Berkeley, and a BA from the University of Chicago.