Julie Bandy joined the Bankrate editorial team in 1999 and was named Editor in Chief in June 2007. She and her team of reporters, editors and copy editors have won seven national awards over the past five years, including a Sigma Delta Chi award for Deadline Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists for the team’s coverage of the Federal Open Market Committee meetings and its effect on consumers. The 2011 special package, "Financial Regulation: One Year Later," won a Best in Business national award from SABEW in the large website feature category.

Under her leadership, traffic to Bankrate content in 2011 tripled and reader engagement has grown by 55 percent. All the content published at Bankrate is produced by her award-winning team of reporters and editors.

Julie began her career at Bankrate as an Assignment Editor. During her tenure, she oversaw the creation of a Frugal Living channel, was the lead editor for the launch of Bankrate’s Financial Literacy series and managed the site’s newsletter program.

Prior to joining Bankrate, she was an editor and a member of the launch team for the national magazine Country Weekly. She and her family live in northern Palm Beach County.

Julie earned her BA at St. Mary’s Dominican College in New Orleans.

Katie Doyle joined Bankrate as a Copy Editor in May 2005. She quickly moved to Chief Copy Editor where she was part of the team that earned a Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi award for breaking news for Federal Reserve coverage and helped to establish Bankrate's presence on Facebook and Twitter.

In July 2010, she was promoted to the Director of Content, and in September 2011 to her current role as Managing Editor.

As Managing Editor, she handles editor, copy editor and freelance issues, as well as works with other departments to create the best editorial content for our readers.

Prior to arriving at Bankrate.com, she copy edited for a magazine and newsletter publisher in Palm Beach County, and worked as a sports reporter and clerk for The Palm Beach Post.

While attending undergrad, Katie held a regional reporter internship for Scripps-Howard News Service in Washington, D.C., was editor in chief of the university newspaper, and interned for the research and ratings department at NBC in New York City. She holds a bachelor's degree in communication and is currently working toward her Master's in Business Administration at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Katie lives in South Florida with her husband, daughter and Jack, their shih tzu.

Holden Lewis joined Bankrate as a reporter in May 1999 and wrote for a couple of years about online banking and other personal finance topics. He wrote one of the first articles about a then-obscure service called PayPal. He took over the beat covering mortgages, real estate and the Federal Reserve in September 2001 and won numerous awards for his articles and blog posts.

Lewis has been a board member of the National Association of Real Estate Editors for several years, and served as the organization's president in 2009.

In the fall of 2010, Lewis switched over to editing articles about mortgages, real estate and the Fed.

Before working for Bankrate, Lewis spent nine years as a reporter, copy editor and the first web editor for The Blade, the daily newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. Prior to that, he was a reporter for the Associated Press in Dallas and Baltimore, before being named the AP's correspondent in El Paso, Texas. He was reporting on the scene in 1987 when Baby Jessica was pulled from a backyard well in Midland, Texas. Later, he was the AP's correspondent in Lubbock, Texas.

Lewis is a 1985 graduate of the University of North Texas.

Barbara Mlotek Whelehan has been covering personal finance topics for 15-plus years. During her seven-year tenure as senior editor of Mutual Funds Magazine, she interviewed hundreds of portfolio managers as well as financial planners, analysts and top-level corporate management of major fund firms.

She wrote several cover stories, including two which garnered awards from the Florida Magazine Association in 1996 and 1997. Prior to joining Mutual Funds Magazine, she served as managing editor of Delta SKY Magazine.

Barbara Whelehan joined the editorial team in October 2003 and currently edits stories related to investing, college finance, retirement and taxes, as well as other personal finance topics. She contributes to Bankrate's Retirement blog and tweets on retirement issues.

Barbara earned a Master's Degree in journalism from the University of Illinois. More recently she received a Certificate of Specialization in Financial Planning from Nova Southeastern University's School of Business and Entrepreneurship. In 2011 she completed Morningstar's Stock Investor Training course.

Stephen joined Bankrate in 2009 from The Palm Beach Post, where he was a business writer, bureau chief and assistant metro editor for more than 20 years. While at The Post, he was a four-time winner in business writing in the Society of Professional Journalist's Sunshine State Awards for his coverage of the Tyco International scandal and identity-theft crisis, among other stories.

After working at three newspapers in the Midwest, Stephen was awarded a Kiplinger Fellowship in Public Affairs Reporting at Ohio State University. He taught beginning journalism and received a master's degree in journalism.

He also has studied at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland, attending four programs since 2002 aimed at defining news coverage of prominent issues. Most recently, he took part in sessions examining the effects of the financial crisis. Stephen earned bachelor's degrees in journalism and photography at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

At Bankrate, he shepherded coverage of financial reform in 2010 and 2011 for which he and a team of writers were honored for excellence in business coverage in digital journalism. Steve edits the auto and banking beats.

Jessica Patel is a graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in magazine journalism. She worked as a sports copy editor for the Independent Florida Alligator newspaper and served as executive editor of Orange & Blue magazine. Her print career continued as a copy editor, photographer, reporter and associate editor for a conglomerate of weekly papers on the west coast of Florida. She was also a reporter and stringer for the Miami bureau of The New York Times, covering such news events as Anna Nicole Smith's death, hedge fund manager Seth Tobias' death and interviewing Mitt Romney during his bid for republican candidate in 2008. She joined Bankrate as a copy editor in August 2007. She was part of the team that earned a Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi award for breaking news for Federal Reserve coverage.

In July 2010, Jessica was named chief copy editor and led a team of copy editors that published all Bankrate content with proper grammar and sentence structure. She was an integral part of Bankrate's content migration and serves as a go-to for many projects, from blogs to Fed coverage. She also helped establish Bankrate's presence in social media on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

In July 2011, Jessica relocated to the New York office after being promoted to personal finance editor. She covers all general personal finance stories, frugal matters and celebrity content. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and her cat.

Doug Whiteman came on board Bankrate in February 2012 after nearly 18 years with The Associated Press. During 11 years as a Washington-based consumer and business reporter for AP Radio, he interviewed everyone from scam victims to CEOs, covered numerous events at the Federal Trade Commission and other government agencies and reported live from the New York Stock Exchange on a particularly ugly day for the financial markets.

Later, Doug moved on to the AP’s Columbus, Ohio, bureau as an editor, writer and the audio and video specialist for Ohio. He wrote about a full array of subject matter, including crime, sports, the arts and business and consumer news. With a video camera, he captured a community in fear after the killings of three members of a household and the kidnapping of a fourth, and rolled as AP’s Cape Canaveral correspondent interviewed Ohio native John Glenn about his pioneering flight into space in 1962. Doug was named Ohio’s AP Staffer of the Year in 2007 and was recognized twice in a company-wide headline-writing contest.

Earlier in his career, he worked as an assignment editor for the NBC Radio Network, anchored news for NBC Radio’s The Source network and covered Congress for the Unistar Radio Networks.

Doug was born in Erie, Pa., earned a BA from Fordham University in the Bronx and likes to box as a hobby.

Claes Bell graduated from Florida State University with degrees in History and Writing, after serving as a staff writer and assistant Arts & Entertainment editor for The FSView and Florida Flambeau. He took a three-year hiatus from journalism to teach intensive reading at two West Palm Beach-area high schools before returning to journalism as a sports desk clerk for The Palm Beach Post, a freelance copy editor for Bankrate, and a freelance writer published on Bankrate and other outlets.

He joined Bankrate full time as a copy editor in 2007. In February 2009, he was promoted to reporter and now writes about banking, CDs, cars and a variety of other personal finance topics for Bankrate. Claes also frequently blogs, tweets, and appears regularly as a guest on various media platforms to speak on personal finance.

During his time at Bankrate, Claes has been part of teams that won notable journalism awards, including a Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists for coverage of the Federal Reserve, and two Best in Business awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for coverage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. He also helped establish Bankrate's presence on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Polyana da Costa writes about mortgages for Bankrate.com. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from San Francisco State University with a minor in international relations.

Prior to joining Bankrate in March 2011, she was a real estate reporter at the Daily Business Review for about five years. While at the Review, she covered the crash of the housing market and an array of issues related to the foreclosure crisis.

Polyana also has worked as a business writer for the Pensacola News Journal, where she covered personal finance and small businesses. Before her move to Florida, she held an internship at KGO-TV, an ABC-owned television station in San Francisco. She also interned as a reporter for the Statesman Journal of Salem, Ore.

Polyana has been recognized with numerous journalism awards, including the National Association of Real Estate Editors' James D. Carper Award in 2009, for best entry by a young Journalist.

She also won two other NAREE awards for her commercial real estate and finance/mortgage coverage; two Green Eyeshade Awards; and two Sunshine State Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, including best real estate reporting in 2009.

Polyana speaks fluent Portuguese and Spanish. She spends much of her spare time working on endless home renovation projects in her Fort Lauderdale house, where she lives with her husband and Phoebe, her Cocker Spaniel.

Janna Herron covers credit cards, credit reporting and scoring, and credit card debt management for Bankrate.com. Her coverage includes blogging about the latest happenings and trends in these areas along with writing articles offering advice and tips on managing credit cards and navigating the world of credit reporting and scoring. She also has contributed to other personal finance topics for Bankrate and has served as a personal finance expert for radio programs.

Before joining Bankrate in June 2011, Janna was a business reporter for more than five years at The Associated Press, mainly covering real estate, mortgages and housing. While at the AP, she covered housing’s  boom and bust and the subsequent stories to come out of the crisis, including the mortgage mess, the foreclosure onslaught, the unprecedented decline in housing prices, the financial meltdown of 2008 and the foreclosure paperwork scandal.

She received the Peter Lisagor Award for Business and Consumer Reporting in 2007 for her co-written article on the toll of the subprime mortgage crisis on homeowners of varied social and economic backgrounds. She was also a finalist for The Gerald Loeb Award for the News Services Category that year for the same story. She was part of the group award for Best in Business Projects in 2008 from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for an article explaining what aid was available for homeowners facing foreclosure.

Janna also has worked as an associate editor for the now-defunct industry magazine Commercial Property News, where she reported on commercial real estate in the U.S. and abroad. While there, she moderated a panel on U.S. commercial real estate at the international EXPO REAL conference in Munich in 2005.

Janna graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Drama. She lives with her husband, son and two cats in Manhattan.

Before joining Bankrate, Sheyna Steiner worked as a customer service representative in a brokerage, an assistant in an actuarial office, a writer's assistant and as an inattentive receptionist on several separate occasions.

She joined Bankrate in April 2006 as an editorial assistant. After two years she was promoted to staff writer, working primarily on investing and retirement beats. In addition to writing articles, Sheyna blogs about investing and CDs.

Her favorite topics include socially responsible investing and anything about consumers being ripped off by the man -- and how they can fight back.

Sheyna is known for making complicated investment and personal finance topics accessible for everyone. She has been interviewed by The Palm Beach Post, Fox Business and CNN.

In 2011, Sheyna was part of a team that won a prestigious journalism award -- a Best in Business award from the Society of the American Business Editors and Writers for coverage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. In 2007, she was part of a team that won the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for the coverage of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee's cut to short-term interest rates in September 2007 and the impact it had on consumers.

Sheyna is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y.

Rose Raymond's 2008 summer internship at Bankrate exposed her to the wide worlds of finance and economics. She subsequently developed an unhealthy obsession with following coverage of the U.S., and later world, financial crisis, which was her inspiration for her master's thesis on lifestyle journalism at newspapers before, during and after the economic collapse.

After completing her master's degree in journalism at the University of Missouri, Rose built Web pages for NPR.org and assisted NPR's news desk with planning and coordination efforts. She returned to Bankrate in August 2010. Rose has won awards from the White House Correspondents' Association and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Her work has been featured on NPR.org and The Huffington Post.

Before embarking on her journalism career, Rose spent two years teaching English, learning Korean and eating rice-based dishes in South Korea. She has a bachelor's degree in sociology (urban studies) from North Central College and spent one year of her degree studying sociology and photography in England while working at a newspaper there. In her spare time, Rose enjoys running, Woody Allen movies, eating tacos, cooking elaborate breakfasts and spending time outdoors.

Kim Fulscher attended the University of Florida and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in Asian studies. While at UF, she was a reporter and copy desk chief at The Independent Florida Alligator, and she spent a summer studying abroad in China. After freelancing in multimedia, photography and reporting at The Fort Myers News-Press in 2008, she moved to Switzerland to work and learn German for six months.

She returned to the journalism world afterward and gained experience at Atlantic Publishing Group as a project manager/editor for instructional books. At The Palm Beach Post, Kim copy edited stories and wrote headlines. Throughout these opportunities, she kept up experience in creating multimedia, writing for a magazine and editing on a freelance basis. She took a short course on HTML basics and plans to learn more about the subject.

Kim arrived at Bankrate as a copy editor in September 2010, and she sometimes writes articles for the website. She is in the market to adopt a puppy and has healthy addictions to running, learning languages and drinking coffee.

Dan Miranda graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and a minor in communications. While in Tallahassee, he worked as a staff writer and video game columnist for The FSView and Florida Flambeau's Arts & Life section.

In 2010, he worked as a copy writing and creative directing intern for advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day in Manhattan. While there, he earned the title of "MVP Intern" for the creation of an advertising campaign for Michelin Tires and for his work in the TBWA\World Health department.

Almost immediately upon graduating from FSU, he joined Bankrate as resident geek and editorial intern during the summer of 2011.

By September 2011, Dan had updated enough spreadsheets and watered enough plants to become a full-fledged copy editor for Bankrate. He has a bigger obsession with video games, food and music than he would care to admit.

Lisa Weinberger joined Bankrate as the SEO Editor in February 2010 and was promoted in January 2011 to Director of Content Promotion.

Lisa has more than 15 years of experience combining search (SEO) and social allowing them to work together to bring the most traffic, reach and engagement to a website. She has worked with PBS/Annenberg Media, Laurel Tech, Howard Johnson hotels and Wyndham Hotel Group as a consultant and has mentored and encouraged young adults into building their own online businesses.

An early adaptor to social media, Lisa now brings her experience to Bankrate. Lisa earned her B.A. in English Writing and her Master of Arts in Teaching from William Paterson University.

Janet Stauble attended the University of Kentucky and earned a degree in Spanish with a minor in business. While in college, she interned as a contributing writer and editor at Chevy Chaser and Southsider, two lifestyle publications in the Lexington, Ky., area. After graduating, Janet worked in various business development and recruiting positions, but she longed to return to her interests in writing, marketing and advertising.

Janet found a job as a copywriter at an interactive advertising agency in Boynton Beach, Fla., where she learned the ins and outs of search engine optimization and social media strategies for businesses. Before joining Bankrate in September 2010, Janet was working as a copywriter and social media coordinator for DentalPlans.com.

Offain Gunasekara joined Bankrate in April 2011 as the Free Content Coordinator. She attended Monash University in Australia after completion of high school in Florida. She has an earned degree in Communications and a minor in Marketing. Upon graduation, she went on to work for a radio station as a brand executive in Sri Lanka. After a year, she returned to the U.S. to join her family and interned as a SEO/link building coordinator at Bluegreen Corp., where she was introduced to the world of search engine optimization and link building strategies.

Prior to becoming an employee of Bankrate, Offain worked for H&R Block as a Marketing Coordinator of West Palm Beach and Jupiter.

Dr. Don Taylor, in addition to answering our readers' questions about personal finance, is an assistant professor of business administration at Penn State Brandywine in Media, Pa. He teaches courses in financial services for the university. Previously, Don was an associate professor of finance at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa., where he taught course work in financial planning and investments. He is co-author of the textbook "Financial Planning: Process and Environment," now in its second edition. He has professional experience as a treasurer, consultant, financial planner and debt analyst.

Don holds a doctorate in finance and has earned both master's and bachelor's degrees in finance. A Chartered Financial Analyst since 1990, he also has earned his Chartered Financial Planner certificate and is a Chartered Financial Consultant. He is a member of the CFA Institute, the Academy of Financial Services, the Financial Planning Association and the Financial Management Association. He is on the review board of the Journal of Financial Planning and the Journal of Financial Service Professionals.

Justin Harelik has been working with English- and Spanish-speaking clients in the personal finance industry for close to a decade. He has worked as a bankruptcy attorney, credit manager, debt negotiator and student loan adviser. He has applied his financial and legal skills to managing the estates of high net-worth individuals, and to helping improve the financial well-being of hundreds of people living below the poverty line. Currently he is a practicing attorney in Los Angeles.

Harelik earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his law degree from the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He spent a year studying in South America, and speaks fluent Spanish.

He is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife, Felicia. He is also a volunteer Big Brother for the Los Angeles Division of Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

Steve Bucci is the author of Credit Management Kit for Dummies" and co-author of "Managing Your Money All-In-One for Dummies." He is the founder of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Rhode Island, developed in the wake of the 1991 Rhode Island banking and credit union crisis. Steve also founded and was the former managing director of the University of Rhode Island Center for Personal Financial Education. The center is a joint venture with the University of Rhode Island to raise the level of financial literacy through innovative mass education programs and research. Steve was formerly president of Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Southern New England. Today, he works with InCharge, a nonprofit credit counseling organization.

Steve graduated from East Providence Senior High School and the University of Rhode Island at Kingston, where he received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees. He and his wife, Barbara, live in the seaside community of Narragansett, R.I.

Steve McLinden has written on virtually all aspects of the real estate world for the past 15 years. His writings have appeared in newspapers around the country on the Scripps-Howard and Knight-Ridder business wire services. A resident of Arlington, Texas, McLinden spent seven years covering real estate for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, winning multiple writing awards. At present, he is a correspondent for National Real Estate Investor, Shopping Centers Today and REO magazine. He has also written for Urban Land and Tierra Grande, a quarterly published by the Texas A & M University Real Estate Center, plus covered real estate beats for business journals in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

McLinden is a native of Peoria, Ill., and a graduate of Bergan High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in communications from Western Illinois University

George Saenz is a certified public accountant living in Miami. With more than 15 years of experience in income, corporate and estate taxes, George brings a real-life perspective to tax problems. He's a member of the Florida and American Institutes of CPAs and the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.

George earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Florida, and continued graduate studies at Florida International University, where he is a member of the university's advisory board for its Executive Masters of Science in Taxation program. George also is a licensed life insurance agent and a Series 6 Registered Representative.

Tara Baukus Mello is a full-time automotive writer, who has been published regularly since 1987. With over 3,500 articles published, her work has appeared in such publications as The New York Times, Autoweek, Woman's Day, Parade, Automotive News, Woman's World and Westways, as well as on cNet.com and Edmunds.com. She is also the author of ten nonfiction chapter books for children, seven of which are on automotive topics.

A passion for automobiles brought her to Petersen Publishing (now part of SourceInterlink), where she was the editor of the special interest publications in the automotive performance group, producing a new magazine every three weeks. More recently, she was the former news anchor for Motor Trend Radio, writing and recording the show's twice-weekly broadcasts.

Originally from Cape Cod, Mass., Tara graduated cum laude from Harvard University. She and her family reside in the Los Angeles area, where she enjoys cruising year-round in the '32 Ford street-rod pickup that she built with her father in 1992.