Journalism alum Karina Anglada selected as winner of 2026 College of Media Emerging Leader Award

After transitioning from sports to the tech industry, Anglada now helps others shape their narratives as a senior strategic development manager for video at Adobe.

“I made the jump to the tech world and that’s been an incredible career opportunity for me,” she said. “Now I get to meet with customers across the globe who are using Adobe software to help tell their company’s and their brand’s stories.” Her portfolio includes customers across media and entertainment brands, news and sports broadcasting, and marketing, advertising, and content teams for corporate and enterprise organizations.

Anglada’s career trajectory, along with her dedication to the College of Media, led to her being named the 2026 College of Media Emerging Leader Award recipient.

“The College of Media is pleased to honor Karina Anglada as this year’s Emerging Leader Alumni Award winner,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin. “Her eagerness to share her technical and creative knowledge, her award-winning career in sports media and digital media, and her engagement with Illinois overall make her an exemplary recipient.”

Anglada, who grew up in Chicago and now lives in Georgia, never expected to build a career in the tech industry. In hindsight, she recognizes how well her journalism education prepared her for the transition.

Working on a global team with colleagues across Australia, Europe, and Latin America, Anglada supports customers using Adobe Video, while also gathering feedback that helps shape new implementations and inform product strategy. She frequently presents at large events, showcasing the software’s capabilities.

Anglada likens her presentations to being “on-air” talent—requiring her to be engaging, understand audience needs, and translate complex ideas into clear, accessible language.

“I feel like I did that in my journalism classes. You take these stories that have a lot of information, and you condense them down into bite-sized pieces so that people can understand them,” she said. “Looking back, it’s like I was built for this [job] because I had so much of the foundation [already]. A lot of things apply from my degree that I still take with me every day.”

Anglada said her journalism classes, as well as her internship at Fighting Illini Productions, were a catalyst for her future in sports media. The hands-on experience allowed her to put into practice what she learned in the classroom, whether it was shooting, editing, directing, live video production, or post-production work, for a variety of Illinois sports including football, women’s basketball, wrestling, and volleyball.

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the beginning of my career kind of taking off,” she said.

Following graduation, Anglada worked as a producer and editor for the Detroit Pistons, and then at Auburn University where she worked as assistant director of video services.

In 2017, she moved to California to take a job as a producer and editor for the Golden State Warriors. Most of her job focused on post-production editing for video boards, social media, and documentary-style television shows that aired on the regional sports network.

One of her favorite projects—and one that garnered her a Regional EMMY® Award—was a video she helped produce featuring Vice President Kamala Harris, who is from the Warriors’ former home city of Oakland, California, and a young African American girl who shares the same hometown. The video’s underlying theme centers around the widespread impact Harris had on Black female youth while making history as the 49^th vice president of the U.S. 

“To have that honor bestowed on our team, and to have my skill set and my craft of editing be recognized by my peers was an incredible, incredible thing,” she said.

As an alum, Anglada has stayed engaged with the College of Media, participating in alumni panels, serving as a keynote speaker at University of Illinois Web Conference in 2023, and mentoring Media students.

In addition to offering advice about the current industry, Anglada emphasizes the opportunities a journalism education can offer.

“There are the standard jobs, like on-air talent, producer, director, newsroom-type-focused careers. But there are so many other fields that you can go into with a journalism degree, and I’m a testament to that. I worked for three different sports organizations, and now I’m in tech,” she said.

Anglada speaks often at professional events about the use of AI in today’s media landscape and can appreciate both the power and challenges it presents.

Anglada says she’s excited about the innovations the Adobe Research teams have been working on to help creatives and video editors across the industry, including Project TurnStyle, Project SoundStager, Project FrameForward, and Project CleanTake.

“I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing some of these features in our tools down the road.”