Leif Utne

Leif Utne is the Online Managing Editor of Utne Magazine, and Associate Director of Utne Communities, the magazine's online community-building program. Leif edits the Utne Web Watch www.utne.com/webwatch, an e-news review of the best alternative writing on the web, and writes regularly for Utne Magazine on topics like internet activism, globalization, technology, the environment, and Latin American politics. He works closely with the award-winning Cafe Utne www.utne.com/cafe online community, organizing online discussions with authors and others who appear in the magazine, and maintains a weblog at http://weblogs.utne.com/leif.

Also a jazz musician and social activist, before becoming a journalist Leif spent the early '90s working as an organizer for the State Public Interest Research Groups www.pirg.org, where he was involved in many early internet-based environmental, consumer and government reform campaigns. He speaks Swedish, Spanish and Portuguese, holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and lives in Minneapolis with his wife Cecilia.