Andrea Berry
B.S. in Computer Science, 1984
Emmy Award-winning television executive Andrea Berry discovered her passion for broadcast operations during her student days as a disc jockey on IIT's radio station, WIIT 88.9 FM.
"I spun records and produced a local newscast in a room on the top floor of Main Building and could be heard on campus and in nearby neighborhoods," she recalls. "It was this experience—along with my work-study job broadcasting IIT classes on closed-circuit television—that helped to launch my career."
A college internship at Chicago's WMAQ-TV gave her the chance to learn alongside local media pros Greg Gumbel and Deborah Norville. At CBS, where Berry worked for 12 years, she garnered Emmy Awards in 1991 for technical team remote coverage of the World Series and in 1994 for Winter Olympics coverage.
She continued her career at FOX, earning wide recognition for her broadcasting expertise. In 2004, Berry and her team enabled six National Football League games to be televised in High-Definition technology by one network on a single day, the first time such a feat had been accomplished.
Berry, recipient of a 2010 IIT Professional Achievement Award, is channeling her passion into mentoring engineering and computer science students, helping them to realize that broadcasting is an exciting career option. She has also coordinated discussions that address new-media and broadcast industry opportunities for students at National Society of Black Engineers annual conventions.