Barbara Allen is the marketing communications lead and editor at Poynter. Barbara was formerly the director of college programming at Poynter. She spent most of her professional career working in local media and higher education before coming to Poynter to serve as managing editor of Poynter.org. Barbara spent 12 years as a writer and editor at the Tulsa World, where she covered cops, courts and features, then became a features editor and helped direct an award-winning section aimed at local teenagers. She took that interest in students to her alma mater, Oklahoma State University, and worked as the adviser to the school paper, The O’Colly, and as an adjunct professor in journalism. In her nearly 10 years at OSU, Barbara helped the school reimagine its college media department from one that produced a single daily newspaper to eight separate digital, print and consulting properties. She is married and has three children.