Maria Romas

Maria Romas is a senior English major, with a creative writing minor, at the University of Maryland. She completed the College Park Scholars’ Media, Self and Society program after attending weekly seminars discussing the future of media and its place in the world.

She was a news reporter for the Diamondback, University of Maryland’s award-winning paper, and has covered Graduate Student Government, health, crime, student housing and political advocacy. She now holds the position of Opinion Editor, and is responsible for developing a daily budget, ensuring 30 columnists and cartoonists meet their deadlines, and handling the layout of the print and online pages. She writes the staff editorial and edits all columns/cartoons daily.

Maria was a part of the American Hellenic Institute Foundation's Foreign Policy Trip summer 2012, where she met with political officials in Greece and Cyprus and learned about the issues the two countries face.

As a 2011 Athens Fellow, Maria had the opportunity to spend three weeks of her summer in Greece, reporting and writing about the events she witnessed and people she interviewed. Along with her experience in editing — Maria loves to correct people’s grammar and sentence structure — she loves to write. Writing is what lured her to the field of journalism — and any opportunity to write is exciting to her.

In Maria's words:
"I am incredibly honored to have been chosen to receive the David Mills scholarship. After interviewing with people who knew Mr. Mills, including David Simon, I came to realize that his spirit and tenacity is something I have always admired in the newsroom, and hope to be able to embody, as well as encourage others to take on, so that the work he put forth into the journalistic community will never be forgotten."