Dru's bio
Dru designs media sector support projects for IREX, conceptualizing strategies, partnerships and activities to get people the news and information they need and underpin democratic and economic development.
Dru also directs IREX's Communities of Practice, which draw together our cross-cutting work in four focus areas: Conflict, Gender, Technology and Youth. These communities advance IREX's expertise through internal and external collaborations around best practices and innovative approaches.
Dru has developed media strengthening programs now being implemented by IREX teams in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Eurasia. Additionally, she provides a range of other technical expertise to IREX, including program management, capacity building for current and aspiring journalists and editors, integration of media into civil society and education initiatives, and advocacy for international development attention to building free and sustainable media sectors.
Dru also is a founder and associate director of IREX Europe, IREX’s partner organization based in Lyon, France. She joined IREX in 2001 in Moscow as Chief of Party for an independent print media program in Russia funded by USAID.
Before coming to IREX, Dru was a foreign correspondent working across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and a reporter, editor and bureau chief for The Associated Press in the United States. She received a MS from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dru has been posted to Warsaw, Johannesburg, Cairo, Moscow and London, living and working internationally for 18 years before moving back to the New York area where she grew up.