Who we are
Our Story
We love podcasts. Our morning coffee is accompanied by Michael Barbaro’s “hmms.” Sarah Koenig is our favorite celebrity.
It takes a huge amount of time, effort and expertise to build long-form podcasts, but highly produced, investigative audio stories don’t have to come from a major studio in New York or L.A.
Something amazing and unique is happening on the University of Texas campus. Students and alums are reinventing what it means to create the most popular podcasts. The next big audio story won’t be coming from a national podcasting powerhouse. It will come from The Drag.
We’re an audio production house built by students, professors and Moody College alums. We love audio storytelling, and we especially love long-form journalistic podcasts that guide listeners through a complex story. And we want to help the media world figure this out, so we partner with media organizations to help them tell fascinating stories. The next generation of podcasters will come from the Moody College. Where did we get our name? Guadalupe Street, famously called The Drag, runs alongside our home on campus. The Drag was created thanks to the Dallas Morning News Innovation Fund, which supports innovative student projects in the Moody College of Communication.
Our first podcast, “The Orange Tree,” hit the top 20 in all categories on Apple Podcasts and continues to stay in the charts. We’ve got many more exciting projects in the works, and we can’t wait to share them all with you.
Love what we do? Show your support for The Drag today by making a donation to support our student podcasters who, in addition to juggling school work, internships, jobs and extracurriculars, are working hard to create the compelling longform podcasts you’ll soon see at the top of the charts.
Our Team
We aren’t a typical team of audio storytellers. We’re professors, students and people who just walked the graduation stage. Some of us didn’t know how to hold a shotgun mic when we started, while others edited audio in their closets all night. All of us love a good story and are passionate about podcasts.
Robert Quigley
Executive Director
Quigley founded The Drag in 2019 as a way to give students a chance to create compelling podcasts. He is a Moody College professor who spent 16 years as a journalist, mostly at the Austin American-Statesman.
Katey Psencik Outka
Associate Director
Katey joined The Drag full-time in 2021 after working in newspapers, TV, digital media and nonprofit marketing. In her free time, Katey cheers on Longhorn sports, listens to way too much Taylor Swift and plays with her dogs, Oso and Mav. She’s also an adjunct lecturer in UT’s School of Journalism and Media.
Christian McDonald
Technical Director
Christian is the director for the DMN Journalism Innovation Endowment and an assistant professor of practice in the School of Journalism and Media, teaching data, coding and digital media project classes. He joined UT-Austin’s faculty full-time in 2018 after 28 years working for Cox Media publications in Austin, Atlanta, Phoenix and Longview, Texas.
Cesar Perez
Producer, Crooked Power
Cesar comes from Ecuador and goes way back with storytelling; he comes from a family of journalists. He’s an avid coffee drinker who loves soccer, music and a good conversation.
Aurora Berry
Host and Producer, Planet Texas
Aurora is a junior studying Journalism at the University of Texas and a serial houseplant killer. She chose to work in podcasting because she thinks that the ability to tell stories is one of the coolest things about being a human being.
Ashley Miznazi
Host and Producer, Darkness: Austin Bomber
Ashley is a cat-loving, plant-nurturing senior studying journalism and communication. She likes reading, traveling and reporting on issues that matter to her. Check out her work at ashleymiznazi.com
Tamara Rodriguez
Associate Producer
Tamara is a sophomore studying journalism and creative writing. She loves reading and writing fiction, painting scenery and meeting new people.
Jackie Ibarra
Host and Producer, Darkness
Jackie is a third-year journalism major from San Antonio, Texas. She loves podcasts, plants and all things Taylor Swift.
Jade Emerson
Host and Producer, Lady Bird
Jade is a junior studying journalism at UT. She likes books, earl grey tea and learning new things, but storytelling will always be one of the great loves of her life.
Anahi Chavero
Host and Producer, Hi, How Are You Season 1
Anahi is a journalism and textiles & apparel major at the University of Texas at Austin.
Helen Hulsey
Graphic Designer
Helen Hulsey is a senior advertising major exploring the intersection of art and humanity. When she’s not up late art directing ads for the Texas Creative program, she likes to create artwork for nonprofit organizations. If you’re looking, you can probably find her downing cold brew at Bennu.
Maren Bennett
Audio Editor and Producer
Maren Bennett is a third-year journalism student at the University of Texas at Austin. She began working in audio at The Daily Texan in the summer of 2021 and joined The Drag in September of 2021.
Marissa Greene
Host and Producer, Hi, How Are You
Associate Producer
Marissa is a third-year journalism major who loves quirky earrings, all variations of soup and the people she gets to meet through digital storytelling.
Meena Anderson
Associate Producer, Devilish Deeds
Meena is a fourth-year journalism and radio-TV-Film major with a minor in French, where she has achieved conversational fluency. She’s a member of the Moody Honors Program at UT. She likes traveling, writing, social justice, kpop, sushi and cats.
Megan Parker
Host and Producer, Devilish Deeds
Sara Kinney
Host and Producer, Darkness
Kameryn Griesser
Associate Producer
Sofia Vargas Karam
Marketing and Communications Manager
Peyton Sims
Host and Producer, Devilish Deeds
Sewa Yo’otu Olivares
Audio Editor and Sound Designer
Sewa is a 4th year Journalism major with a passion for audio fidelity and engineering. She spends her free time producing music, performing and DJing, as well as working with the Native American community in Austin through the Native American and Indigenous Collective.
Heather Stewart
Audio Editor and Sound Designer
Aisling Ayers
Host and Producer
Aisling is a journalism senior from Boerne, Texas. She loves reading historical fiction, watching British period dramas and swimming in Barton Springs. She joined The Drag to further pursue her passion for long-form journalism and create work that matters.
Dina Barrish
Producer
Dina Barrish is a junior journalism major pursuing a Hebrew minor and business Spanish certificate. She joined The Drag fall 2022 to further explore the audio world and learn from her professors and peers.
Carly Rose
Fall 2022 intern
Carly Rose is a senior journalism major at the University of Texas. In her quest to make podcasting her main personality trait, she is also Audio Editor at The Daily Texan. She loves road trips, Duolingo, and Dolly Parton.
Doing this for a grade
Moody College students get a chance to produce professional-quality podcasts as part of a capstone class at the School of Journalism. Working on teams with our paid staff members, the students are getting an experiential learning lesson of a lifetime. Each semester, a fresh group of students will help shape our stories and get credit for their work when our podcasts hit the top charts.
