During a recent trip to New York City, I struck up a conversation with Emily Van Zandt, a University of Missouri School of Journalism alumna who noticed my Mizzou shirt.

Emily graduated in 2009 and is now a senior program manager of event content at Amazon Web Services, a job that takes her around the globe. She’s had a distinguished career as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, the Chicago Tribune, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and as an editor at the Washington Business Journal. It was great to hear her story and how the School of Journalism prepared her for success.

Emily also shared that her husband, Chad Day, is a fellow ‘09 J-School graduate and the chief elections analyst for The Associated Press (AP). In that role, he’s one of three people who review and approve the AP’s final call on election results. Like Emily, Chad has had an impressive career in journalism – first at the Kansas City Star and then at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Before the AP, Chad was the lead data reporter for The Wall Street Journal and was on the team that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting. Also on the team were two other School of Journalism grads, Coulter Jones and James Grimaldi.

The MU connections don’t stop there. Emily’s father, Mark Van Zandt, is a longtime member of the Office of the General Counsel at the University of Missouri System.

I enjoyed meeting Emily, and I’m proud to see our alumni are achieving incredible things. No matter where you go, the Mizzou community is never far away.

— Mun