Sydney Mann is a talented communications professional, freelance producer, and public interviewer with a passion for storytelling. Sydney has a multi-faceted background in digital media, including professional experiences in social media research, audio-visual production, and campaign development.
Sydney graduated from Cornell University in 2018 with a degree in American Studies focused on the relationship between society and mass media in the United States throughout the 20th century, coupled with a minor in English. During her undergraduate career, Sydney interned with American Master’s at WNET: an Emmy-award-winning docu-series profiling America’s most influential artists. Sydney also worked alongside the Creative and Cultural Insights team at Viacom, developing communications strategies for the next generation of digital consumers.
A trained dialogue facilitator with Cornell’s Intergroup Dialogue Project at Cornell (IDP), a program that makes use of critical dialogue to make meaning across differences, Sydney then became a Digital Assistant for the organization, working across the program’s communications channels to expand its digital presence. Subsequently, Sydney worked at HarperCollins Children’s Publishing as an Advertising Assistant, delivering over 140+ campaigns per season.
Inspired by her experiences as a dialogue facilitator with IDP, Sydney focused her studies at OHMA on interview methodology. Her thesis explored the roles of power, social identity, and cooperative learning during the oral history interview.
With her OHMA degree, Sydney has continued to produce creative and influential stories for audio. Last summer, she hosted Cornell University’s podcast “Fresh from the Hill: Inside Stories of Noteworthy Cornellians,” and most recently, she conducted oral history interviews for NYU’s media production department on a freelance basis.
A passionate and empathetic storyteller, Sydney hopes to advance her career as a producer creating stories across radio, documentary, and podcast formats. In her free time, Sydney loves to play piano and write. You can check out Sydney's work at www.sydneywmann.com.