J. Carl Ganter is director and co-founder of Circle of Blue -- the international team of journalists, scientists and communicators focused on the global freshwater crisis -- and coordinates the organization’s global team and strategy. He is an award-winning photojournalist, writer and broadcast reporter, and his reportage in one form or another has appeared in most major magazines, newspapers, and major television and radio networks. His work has directly impacted lives and policy, from the front lines of AIDS in Southeast Asia for Time Magazine to the exoneration of a wrongfully convicted father (and revelation of the real murderer) in Illinois. Carl advises some of the nation’s largest news outlets, identifying strategies for merging traditional and interactive newsrooms. Since seeing water as an “axis issue” at the core of global crises while covering the World Summit on Sustainable Development for MSNBC.com, Carl has become one of the few journalists consistently at the heart of the global freshwater crisis. He works with policy makers, scholars and government leaders through his term on the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars working group, “Navigating Peace.” 

Carl regularly serves on committees and sessions focused on water and sustainability, and he recently co-presented the session, "The Future of Water," at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Carl earned his MSJ in investigative and magazine writing at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism after graduating with honors from the University’s American Studies Program. He enjoys the outdoors in all weather and is an avid skier and hiker. One of his goals is to stay one pun ahead of his wife, Eileen, who is a writer and former classical music radio host. He has traveled on assignment throughout South East Asia, Central and South America, Africa and Europe.