Sharon Coleman was the first of the Scripps Howard Visiting Professionals at Hampton University and creator of the online journalism course in the fall of 2000.

Since 1996, she has worked exclusively for commercial Web sites, first as a content editor and producer for the two jointly owned major newspapers in Philadelphia and, most recently, as a member of the managerial startup team for the free Web site of business news and information provider Dow Jones & Co.

Ms. Coleman has been a journalist for 20 years, mostly at major metropolitan newspapers in New York and Philadelphia. She has held a range of reporting, assigning desk and production positions. She was a staff writer for The Ledger-Star's Norfolk Compass, city hall reporter for The Virginian-Pilot, higher education reporter and later assistant metro editor at the Akron Beacon Journal, and an assistant foreign editor and an assistant news desk editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Ms. Coleman was among the first wave of print journalists to make the transition to new media. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.