At the 61st Annual Southern California Journalism Awards, USC Annenberg was well represented among the winners and nominees.

Special donor-supported funds at the school became a financial lifeline for senior Savanna Mesch, keeping her on track for graduation.

For doctoral students, presenting their dissertation topics in front of relative strangers is an often nerve-wracking part of the PhD process. The 21 students who gathered in the Sheindlin Forum in Wallis Annenberg Hall the week of June 3-8 faced added wrinkles: Most of their dissertations weren’t finished yet, and their audience included not only their peers from many other top universities, but also several tenured and tenure-track professors.

From the very beginning, student journalists who produce video news segments for The Rundown proved they knew their audience: their fellow students.

The co-creator of the social networking app Grindr constructs creative career choices for himself.

For Melissa Dueñas, Father’s Day is a particularly poignant holiday. From the time she was two and a half years old until she turned 20, her father was in and out of prison. From her childhood through her teen years, Dueñas wrote him letters, sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly, later only a few times a year, until he died in 2017.

We stood wide-eyed in front of Nike West’s newest building in Culver City. The unmarked office looked like a futuristic airplane hangar from the outside. Inside, Nike running shoes, painted the colors of the rainbow, adorned one of the walls in the foyer. It was the only hint this was Nike’s headquarters. I would have taken a photo — if it wasn’t for the nondisclosure agreements we signed as we entered.

A new study examines the ecosystem of the animation industry and finds pluses and minuses for women in the field.