Bio
Jessica Z. Brown

Jessica Z. Brown, media literacy proponent and educator, is an award-winning communications professional with more than 30 years experience, including newspaper reporting and photography, television news and feature programming, video production, corporate marketing communications, customer service management and education consulting.  In addition to her career credentials, she is a highly-respected community leader on the subject of media education and the importance of on-going media literacy education as a vehicle toward economic development and healthy communities.   She is founder and director of a growing bi-state effort-- the St. Louis-based Gateway Media Literacy Partners (GMLP)--that brings public-, private-, volunteer- and independent-sector individuals and organizations together to create and sustain media literate communities: www.gatewaymedialiteracypartners.org

In addition to starting her fifth year as a SOC adjunct professor, she is a lecturer at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and also guest speaks at parent-, education-
and business-focused events.

During her almost 17 years with SWBELL/SBC/AT&T, Brown was continuously entrepreneurial, implementing and managing a number of strategic and complex initiatives in television communications, public relations, customer relations, interactive technology and business-to-business advertising.  She is especially proud of her leadership of SBC’s first inter-active advertising campaign; of the Television Communications college-intern program; and of the cultural diversity committee she created to develop company-wide diversity education courses and video productions.  

In recognition of her television production and directing work at SBC, she received numerous awards and honors, including both Silver and Gold TAM awards; two Gold, one Silver and two Bronze medals from the International Film and Television Festival of New York; and personal recognition as a "Woman of Distinction" from the St. Louis Alliance, to honor her documentary work. 

Brown is a 2003 graduate of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change/St. Louis LeadershipPlenty program; a 2005 national finalist in the cable television industry's
Leaders in Learning Awards, for media literacy; and St. Louis' 2006 National Federation of Press Women Virginia Betts QUEST Award-winner for continued excellence in communications.

Earlier in her career, she worked in TV as producer and on-air talent for KSDK-TV in St. Louis, for the “Midday AM” daily, live, news, information show, and as a newspaper reporter-photographer for the Newtown Bee in Newtown, CT.  She also served as Public Information Officer for Missouri as part of the Women’s International Year Conference.
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As a member of professional and community organizations, she has recently completed her seventh year as a United Way of Greater St. Louis campaign representative, and is also on  the “It’s the Soul That Sees” Foundation board.  Brown is also on the national board of the Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA) and on the Regional Health Commission’s advisory committee on health literacy.  She is a member of FOCUS St. Louis, the National Federation Of Press Women (NFPW) and its local affiliate, Missouri Professional Communicators,  as well as the Action Coalition for Media Education and United Way's Marketing and Public Relations Committee.
                                                           
She is a past participant in the FOCUS St. Louis-Leadership St. Louis program, a past president of the St. Louis chapter of Women In Communications, Inc., and a past vice-president of the St. Louis chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.   For seven years she served on the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' mid-west chapter board where she headed its Creating Critical Viewers television literacy project; for six years served on the Ranken Jordan Pediatric Rehabilitation Hospital’s Board of Directors and also served as United Way's Volunteer Recognition Committee chair.  

Brown received her Masters Degree in Communications, specializing in interactive media and media literacy, from Webster University, St. Louis, and her Bachelor of Arts Degree, majoring in journalism and marketing, from Northeastern University, Boston. 
Brown is certified as a Newspapers in Education teacher, and is fluent in French.

Brown is married to Curtis Billhymer.  They have two daughters, Leslie and Jacqueline Billhymer.                                                                   
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