The Water Desk operates with the help of University of Colorado Boulder staff, faculty and students, as well as outside contributors. If you’re interested in contributing to The Water Desk, please contact us.
Directors and Staff
Luke Runyon
Co-Director, The Water Desk
Luke Runyon is co-director of The Water Desk, a journalism initiative at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism that focuses on Western water issues and the Colorado River Basin. In 2017 he launched the Colorado River Reporting Project at KUNC, the NPR station for Northern Colorado, where he hosted and reported the podcast, “Thirst Gap: Learning To Live With Less On The Colorado River.” He served as president of the Society of Environmental Journalists from 2022-2024.
309-219-1580 | luke.runyon@colorado.edu | Twitter | Instagram | Threads | Website
Mitch Tobin
Co-Director, The Water Desk
Mitch Tobin is co-director of The Water Desk, a journalism initiative at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism that focuses on Western water issues and the Colorado River Basin. From 1998 to 2006, Mitch covered water, environmental, and other issues for the Napa Valley Register, Tucson Citizen, and Arizona Daily Star. His 2010 book, Endangered: Biodiversity on the Brink, analyzes the impact of the Endangered Species Act and won a gold medal in the Independent Book Publisher Awards.
303-330-9487 | mitchtobin@colorado.edu | Twitter | Instagram | Website | Posts
Hong Tien Vu
Director, Center for Environmental Journalism
Hong Tien Vu is a professor of journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder and the director of the Center for Environmental Journalism. He previously served on the faculty at the University of Kansas’s School of Journalism & Mass Communications. Before entering academia, Hong spent nearly a decade working as a journalist, reporting for multiple news organizations, including the Associated Press. As a scholar, Hong researches journalism and nonprofit communication practices in addressing emerging global challenges, such as climate change, environmental degradation, health crises, and growing societal inequalities, particularly within the context of evolving technological advancements.
Geoff McGhee
Graphics and Data
Geoff McGhee specializes in interactive data visualization and multimedia storytelling. He is a veteran of the multimedia and infographics staffs at The New York Times, Le Monde and ABCNews.com. Geoff spent a Knight Fellowship year at Stanford in 2009-2010 researching data visualization, which resulted in the widely-cited video documentary “Journalism in the Age of Data.”
Geoff spent nearly nine years at Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the American West, overseeing its websites and digital publications, such as the ‘…& the West’ blog with Felicity Barringer, and the EcoWest series of environmental data trackers on wildfires, drought, and snowpack, among others.
Annie MacKeigan
Intern
Annie MacKeigan is a master’s student in journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. She received her B.A. in journalism from Hofstra University in 2024, where she developed her skill for still photography and became keen on telling visual stories. At CU, she has been expanding those multimedia storytelling skills through conservation photography and science writing. She is particularly interested in conservation stories across the West—stories that she continues to follow with The Water Desk.