Meet the smart, creative, and super-dedicated team behind the Live Wire Radio magic.

LUKE BURBANK
HOST

Luke Burbank (he/him/his) grew up as one of seven kids, learning early on how to vie for attention. Those profound childhood issues have propelled him to various media projects including This American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, CBS Sunday Morning, and the daily podcast Too Beautiful To Live. Luke is thrilled to be hosting Live Wire and keeps telling himself you're chanting Luuuuuuuuuke and not saying Booooooooo because you're not doing that, right? Wait, seriously, you were booing? At a public radio show? This would never happen to Ira Glass.

ELENA PASSARELLO
ANNOUNCER

Elena Passarello (she/ her/ hers) is an author and professor who joined the Live Wire team after appearing on the show to discuss her second book, Animals Strike Curious Poses, in 2017. When not having a blast as Live Wire’s announcer, Elena writes essays about pop culture and the natural world. Her next collection covers an obscure American performer named Elvis Presley. Her lifelong dream in life is to host a podcast that talks to writers about their reading habits. Oh wait... mission accomplished! On to the other item on her bucket list: jumping out of a cake.

HEATHER DE MICHELE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Heather de Michele (she/they) has a background in theatre, film, live event production, and non-profit management. She joined Live Wire in June of 2020 after serving as the Managing Director of The Groundlings Theatre and School in Los Angeles for over a decade. Previous to that epic stint she was in NYC as the Artistic Director of American Girl Theatre. Heather is the momma of two hell-raising daughters, the wife of one badass creative, and is often found roller skating in the streets. She hopes you'll find as much unabashed joy and unexpected wisdom in Live Wire as she does. Email Heather here.

LAURA HADDEN
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

Laura Hadden (she/her/hers)​ spent three years producing media for The Moth in New York City before returning to her beloved Pacific Northwest in 2014. Her ongoing creative projects include co-­producing Wage/Working (a jukebox­-based oral history project), co-­hosting United Noshes (a one­-meal­-per­-country dinner party series), and keeping her two small children entertained. When she was a kid, she wanted to be a country singer and/or dog. She now spends her free time hanging out with her dogs, Emmylou & Reba, which is close enough. Email Laura here.

MELANIE SEVCENKO
PRODUCER AND EDITOR

Melanie Sevcenko (she/her/hers) moved to Portland by way of Berlin, Germany, where she lived for almost a decade and turned her film career into a journalistic one. She’s reported for The Guardian, Marketplace, NPR, BBC, CBC, among others. Melanie is also a published poet and her debut full-length collection I Still Go to Bed With Water was published in 2022. You can find Melanie’s work at msevcenko.com and email her here.

TEJA PALLIKONDA
PRODUCTION FELLOW

While stuck at home after graduating college at the onset of the COVD-19 pandemic, Teja created her first podcast, Three (Un)wise Women, alongside her best friends from college. What started as an experiment to see what impact putting a mic to their intimate conversations could have quickly became a platform for her and her friends to host nuanced conversations about social, political, and cultural issues in an engaging, humorous way. Creating her own podcast revealed Teja's passion for storytelling, which led her to getting her Masters in Journalism from Columbia Journalism School. After graduating as one of her class’s top audio journalism students, Teja went on to work as an Associate Producer and Researcher on the hit Wondery podcast, MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries. Outside of podcasting, Teja is an avid dancer and traveler.

ASHLEY PARK
MARKETING MANAGER

Ashley Park (she/her) is a multimedia creative who moved to Portland from her home state of Virginia. She brings an intense passion for all things music, the arts, and digital culture to work. Ashley’s journey in radio began at the University of Virginia's two community stations in Charlottesville—home to a small but mighty indie music scene that saw the early days of greats like Pavement and Kate Bollinger—and she credits her four years of living there as a major influence on her deep love and appreciation for live, local music. As a student, she was a DJ, social media manager, podcast and video producer, and eventually station director of WXTJ. Off-the-clock, you can find her doing silly crafts and building her portfolio as a freelance concert photographer. Email Ashley here.

VALENTINE KECK
DEVELOPMENT & OPERATIONS MANAGER

Valentine Keck (she/her) moved around a lot before realizing that everywhere she went, she was looking for Portland, OR. Now she lives in a cabin in the woods with her girlfriend where she bakes sourdough and reads too many books—and by golly, she actually enjoys the rain! With a background in theatre and performance art, she’s thrilled to be contributing to a show like Live Wire. Valentine still treads the boards by night so keep your eyes peeled—you might catch sight of her on stage around town!

HAZIQ BIN AHMAD FARID
ASSISTANT EDITOR

Haziq (he/him/his) is an audio nerd who loves stories. His experience includes working for shows like 99% Invisible, What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law, and Immigrantly. When not lost in a book, podcast, or documentary, he's happiest collaborating with others to bring their stories to life. In a world that can at times feel lonely, he believes that stories have a special way of reminding us all that we're more connected than we think.

EBEN HOFFER
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

Eben Joondeph Hoffer was grown in a damp corner of Portland, to which he returned in 2020 after a decade making performance art in NYC basements and inflicting it on college students around the eastern United States. Now he teaches, makes and mixes music, and manages projects and tours for artists who think about how things could be different. You can listen to his podcast Post Office Poems (a collaboration with an actual mail carrying human), or inflict his performance art on yourself at ebenhoffer.com.

LEONA KINDERMANN
ASSISTANT TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

Leona's life is woven together through work as an interdisciplinary teacher, as a Music Director for children's theater, a live and recording sound tech and musician, and physical artist. Born and raised in this cloudy corner of the world (and in an equally cloudy corner of Germany), Leona has a lot of questions about life, but also an endless appreciation for the people that hold it all together, the youth she gets to work with, who will (and should) take over the world, all the beautiful art and artists coming out of these hard times, the planet, and every cat.

A WALKER SPRING
HOUSE BAND

A Walker Spring (she/her/hers) - Cohost of Honest Jams songwriting podcast, recording engineer and veteran Portland songwriter and multi-instrumentalist (Bitch’n, Sallie Ford, Point Juncture, WA).

ETHAN FOX TUCKER
HOUSE BAND

Ethan Fox Tucker (he/him/his) is from Portland and grew up on '70s funk and '60s folk. He attended the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies and earned a degree in "Studio Art, Creative Writing, and Songwriting." He has worked as a session musician and loves to be in the studio crafting and recording. His current projects include Fox Tucker, Siren and the Sea, Saroon, and Mean Sun.

AYAL ALVES
HOUSE BAND

Ayal was born in a settlement 10 families large to parents from the northern and southern halves of the other side of the world. He has picked up every musical instrument dropped in his path since. ayal believes in music as a beacon towards self-actualization and his love for sound has expressed itself through international tours with his genre-fluid project Saroon, as host of the music podcasts Sketches with Songs and Honest Jams, contributing to numerous Portland artists’ records and bands, and as a Music Therapist. 

SAM PINKERTON
HOUSE BAND

A native Floridian, Sam first discovered Portland while on tour in 2016 and moved shortly after. She earned her degree in songwriting from Belmont University in Nashville, TN. Currently, Sam works in marketing and recruitment at Oregon State University and also serves as the executive director of the Portland Songwriters Guild, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit she co-founded in 2022. In addition to her professional roles, Sam plays guitar in Girlgoyle and MORROW, and enjoys several phantom hobbies like sewing and gardening.

THE BOARD

Live Wire Radio is a 501c3 non-profit organization. These incredible people donate their time to ensure the continued success and longevity of their favorite public radio show and we are so grateful.