The members of the MVJ Core Team are dedicated to supporting our community and advocating for military veteran and spouse voices in the journalism industry. Please see below for more information on each of our team members.
Caron LeNoir-Kelly is an American journalist, producer and proud U.S. Navy and Army veteran. A legacy podcaster and media personality in TV, radio, print and new media, her work examines life and love in the contexts of intersectionality—disability, entrepreneurship, military, mental health, sexual politics, women veterans, the arts, entertainment and culture.
Casandra Burr is a social media and engagement manager from Greenville, South Carolina. She has a B.S. from Indiana University in dietetics and has worked with VA patients in the past.
Devon Lancia is an Army brat from Savannah, Georgia. She graduated from the University of Florida with a B.A. in Classical Studies in 2015. She has spent much of her life volunteering with veterans' organizations to make a difference in veterans' lives.
Karolina is originally from Canada and has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto. She spent many years working in real estate and compliance before moving to the U.S. in 2016. After living in Arizona and Texas, she now lives in upstate New York with her husband and young son.
Kelly Pfeister has over ten years of experience in operations, marketing, and community engagement. She holds a Master’s degree in Communication and Media from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. After a decade of digital marketing and tracking performance metrics, Kelly transitioned into the nonprofit sector. Her experience includes directing volunteer workforces, curriculum design and instruction, managing digital communities, and creating multimedia content.
Outside of work, she is an avid photographer. Her photography has been published in The New
York Times and several other print and online outlets.
Lily is a designer and artist who was born in Montreal and raised in New York City. She has an extensive background as a multi-disciplinary graphic designer and art director who specializes in creative direction and development across multiple platforms. She specializes in art direction for web, interactive, print and video, with a focus on branding and identity design, creative strategy, and user interface experience.
She is an active creative director for small consultancy groups, and has worked as an art director for CSS Industries, Simplicity Creative Group, and Rode Advertising. She has years of design experience elevating brands into lifestyle identities so that they become authentic and memorable. She left large-scale corporate advertising to give more individualized attention to clients through her work at Drum Circle Media. Her vision combines vibrancy with minimalism, to draw attention to brands she believes in.
She is an active creative director for small consultancy groups, and has worked as an art director for CSS Industries, Simplicity Creative Group, and Rode Advertising. She has years of design experience elevating brands into lifestyle identities so that they become authentic and memorable. She left large-scale corporate advertising to give more individualized attention to clients through her work at Drum Circle Media. Her vision combines vibrancy with minimalism, to draw attention to brands she believes in.
Noelle Wiehe is an Army veteran with a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Cincinnati and more than 10 years of reporting experience. You can find her work in two separate Keith L. Ware Awarded publications, a tiny town's local newspaper in Texas, throughout Army.mil and on the former Coffee or Die Magazine by Black Rifle Coffee Company's website. She hails from Cincinnati, Ohio, but currently resides in Lafayette, Louisiana, where she prioritizes being an aunt to her Wiehe niece and nephew.
I’m a journalist and filmmaker with more than 15 years of experience producing award-winning stories from more than 30 countries, including Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the West Bank, and Kashmir, as well as rebel-held territory in Sri Lanka and Burma.
My work has been published by the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Reuters, AP, The Guardian, CBS, ABC, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, VICE, RYOT, Al Jazeera English, and other publications in video, radio, photo, and print formats. My videos on social media alone have more than 30 million views.
While based in the Central African Republic, I broke the news of the American military ending its mission against the Lord’s Resistance Army. My in-depth reporting on the Syrian town of Moadamiyah contributed to humanitarian access being granted to besieged people there. Weeks before Russian troops invaded Crimea, my reporting from the peninsula highlighted its political importance in the conflict.
I worked as director of video for the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, crafting anti-ISIS videos. For a year in Afghanistan, I worked on rural, remote bases for the U.S. Special Operations Command as a civilian videographer, alongside Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Afghan security forces.
I have also worked as an adjunct professor at New York University and New York Film Academy, teaching public relations and broadcast journalism. I've got a master of fine arts degree in documentary studies, a master of arts degree in international relations, another master’s in public relations and a bachelor's in journalism.
Email me at [email protected] .
