Dan Pacheco

Dan Pacheco is a Professor of Practice and Peter A. Horvitz Endowed Chair of Journalism Innovation at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications where he teaches courses about virtual reality storytelling, data and digital journalism, and emerging media platforms.

Pacheco is a pioneer in the use of virtual reality for journalism. In 2014 he started and co-produced The Des Moines Register’s Harvest of Change VR project for the Oculus Rift, the world’s first large-scale use of virtual reality by a commercial news organization. Harvest of Change earned an Edward R. Murrow Award in 2015 for its innovative use of 360-degree video for virtual reality. He was chosen as a member of the Interactive Board of Jurors for the 2022 Peabody Awards.

Previously, hePacheco spent 20 years in the trenches of digital publishing everywhere from Fortune 500 companies to startups. He started his career as an online producer for Washingtonpost.com, where he produced Interact, one of the first online news communities. Subsequently, as a principal product manager at America Online, he oversaw some of the Internet’s first truly global community products.

In 2005, after pioneering the first implementation of a social networking platform at a U.S. newspaper, he received an NAA “20 Under 40” award. And in 2007, he received a Knight News Challenge grant to build a democratized publishing service that evolved into an eBook platform.

In 2020, he received an Online News Association Journalism 360 grant to work with Newhouse school students to produce The Racial Divide, a virtual reality piece that explores the African American 15th Ward in Syracuse, whose thousands of residents were displaced in the 1960s order to create a highway overpass. The resulting project, which can be viewed at Visualizing81.thenewshouse.com, has received numerous awards. Among them are 1st Place for Immersion Journalism by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Mark of Excellent Awards, and 1st Place in Innovation by the Society for Features Journalism Mark of Excellence Awards.

Pacheco gives presentations and seminars about media innovation and XR internationally. He was born on an Air Force base in northwest Florida, and grew up in Colorado. He also spent significant parts of his life in Puerto Rico and Holland. He currently lives in the Syracuse University neighborhood with his partner and puppy.