Dawn E. Garcia is the director of the John S. Knight (JSK) Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University. Garcia helped transform the JSK Fellowships from a sabbatical model to one that coaches and challenges fellows to become innovative leaders and change agents to reinvent journalism. She began her career as a reporter and editor at West Coast newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle, where she focused on politics, immigration and legal affairs. She has served on nonprofit boards championing First Amendment rights, women’s leadership, social justice and quality journalism training and education. She earned a master’s degree in liberal arts at Stanford, writing her dissertation on the evolution of Spanish-language media in California and earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Oregon. She was a 1991-92 JSK Fellow, where she studied U.S.-Mexico relations.