Jonathan Miller’s work as a media project leader, radio and television producer, communications specialist, editorial consultant, reporter, writer, editor, podcaster, and human rights advocate has taken him to more than 25 countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. He joined Homelands Productions in 2001 and has been executive director since 2006.
Jon’s features, news reports, commentaries, and documentaries have been broadcast on NPR, Marketplace, The World, BBC, CBC, PBS NewsHour, and many other radio, television, and podcast outlets. As a print journalist, he has written for the New Yorker, Condé Nast Traveler, Parents, Far Eastern Economic Review, Christian Science Monitor, and dozens of other publications. He has won several awards for his writing and radio projects.
Jon spent 13 years living in the Philippines and Peru before moving to Ithaca, New York, in 2001. He has also lived in Kenya and France.
Jon is founder and co-director of Story House Ithaca, a local organization devoted to building community through storytelling. He currently coordinates ONWARDS, a national initiative by civil society groups to help displaced writers, artists, rights defenders, and scholars find employment and stability in the United States. He also serves on the board of Ithaca City of Asylum, a nonprofit that offers refuge to persecuted writers and artists.
From 2019 to 2020, Jon was senior producer of the Wondery podcast “The Next Big Idea.” From 2016 to 2018 he was associate director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University. Prior to that, he was executive producer of Homelands’ “Food for 9 Billion,” “WORKING,” and “Worlds of Difference” projects, and editorial director of “Think Global,” the Public Radio Collaboration involving 30 national shows.
Before becoming a journalist, Jon worked as a farmhand, forest ranger, firefighter, construction worker, bicycle messenger, maintenance man, cafeteria worker, and day laborer. After completing a degree in English Literature at Swarthmore College, he served as a VISTA volunteer in Seattle, where he helped establish a child care center for the children of families living in emergency shelters.