Al Jazeera America has one of the largest news-gathering capabilities of any news organization in the U.S., with 12 bureaus in major cities around the country, three broadcast centers and a team of nearly 800 journalists and staff, according to its website. Based in New York, Balta assigned and edited news and feature stories from staff writers and a network of nearly 100 freelance writers around the country.

Balta was a news reporter, television critic and popular culture writer for The Herald in Everett from 2003 through 2006, and later held editorial management positions at Comcast.net in Philadelphia and Current TV in San Francisco before joining Al Jazeera.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism at California State University, Sacramento, in 2000 and held reporting and editing positions in the California communities of Vacaville, Walnut Creek and Stockton.

At the UW, he will head an office with six public information officers who cover research and learning in such areas as Earth sciences, social sciences, engineering and public policy. The office produces the news sites and . The office also includes the university photographer.

Balta replaces Bob Roseth who served as director for more than 30 years until his retirement in December.

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The organization is one of the world’s largest nonprofit educational associations and its international competition honors outstanding work in advancement services, alumni relations, communications, fundraising and marketing at colleges, universities, independent schools and nonprofits. The contest is open to more than 3,600 member colleges, universities and non-profit organizations in 82 countries.

Michelle Ma, Molly McElroy, Hannah Hickey and Doree Armstrong, public information officers in the , won a silver in the research, medicine, and science news writing category for an entry that included five news releases issued in 2013:

Each story in the entry showed how cross-lab connections, a strength of the UW, were central to the story of discovery. The news releases led to media coverage in outlets such as the New York Times, NPR, Washington Post and Slate.

In the portion of the contest for advancement services programs, the UW Office of Advancement Services won the gold in the category for overall operations for Michelangelo, a way to link data together that includes tools to build reports and lists that even people without database skills can use.

As the says, “Effortlessly query your data: Michelangelo helps create ad-hoc reports – without involving IT.”

Developed by the UW in 2010, the patented technology has been licensed to universities throughout the U.S. Thousands of reports on alumni, research and other topics have been generated using Michelangelo.

The final medal went to freelance writer for “,” her first-person account of breast reconstruction surgery that appeared in the June 2013 Columns magazine, published by the UW Alumni Association. The article was edited by Jon Marmor and Paul Fontana, the director and assistant director respectively of publications for the association.

Mapes won in the category for best articles of the year among entries in the three regions organized by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education that make up the western U.S. and Canada.