Team

Executive Producer Kara Oehler is a Peabody award-winning journalist who has been making groundbreaking radio documentaries and innovative multimedia storytelling projects for over 15 years. She is a Co-Founder of UnionDocs, metaLAB (at) Harvard and Zeega, has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute and Film Study Center at Harvard University, been recognized as one of America’s most accomplished and innovative artists by United States Artists, and her work has been exhibited at MoMA and SFMoMA, amongst many other venues. She is also Co-Founder of GoPop, a social video app acquired by BuzzFeed in 2015.

Producer Andres Caballero is a public radio producer and filmmaker based in New York. He is a former producer at StoryCorps, NPR’s Latino USA, and 2013 NPR/Above the Fray fellow. He co-directed GAUCHO DEL NORTE (2015), which premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and aired on PBS' America ReFramed. He is a 2016 MacArthur Documentary Grant recipient for THE INTERPRETER, and current Firelight Media fellow with the film. He holds a M.S. from the Columbia School of Journalism.

Jesse Shapins and James Burns serve as Founding Advisors. Jesse is Director of Product at BuzzFeed, and is also an artist and designer, who has been working in geolocative media and database documentaries for over a decade. James Burns is Director of Video Engineering at BuzzFeed, and has been a widely recognized pioneer in interactive storytelling and mobile video.

Laura Kurgan, Director of Columbia’s Center for Spatial Research, is an advisor focused on data, mapping and community engagement.

In 2008, Mapping Main Street was started through funding from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and Maker's Quest 2.0, an initiative between the Association of Independents in Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The founding project team was Kara Oehler, Jesse Shapins, James Burns and Ann Heppermann.