Work Experience

Reporter, The Markup| New York (2023 - Present)

Investigative reporter who covers technology.

Associate Professor, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY | New York (Fall of 2023)

Data journalist who teaches advanced data skills and investigative methods.

Data-Journalist-in-Residence, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY | New York (2021 - Present)

Data journalist who teaches advanced data skills and investigative methods.Reporter on racial inequalities, technology and policing as a Pulitzer Center AI Accountability Fellow & Soros Justice Fellow. Freelancer writing stories and doing data work for various publications, including Documented, ProPublica, ESPN Investigations, and the New York Times.

Senior Reporter for BuzzFeed News | New York (2017 - 2021)

Reporter and data journalist covering inequality. Report stories on race and economics, including the connection between gentrification and policing, the covid-19-related recession (unemployment and evictions) and parasitic industry that exploit undocumented immigrants.

Open Lab Fellow for BuzzFeed | San Francisco (2016 - 2017)

Reporter, data journalist and writer, who explored ethical ways to mine and utilize social media data for storytelling. Collaborated with various reporters from different departments on stories. Trained reporters and guided editors on stories around social media data. Covered misinformation, hatred online and information segregation often referred to as ‘filter bubbles.’

Data Journalist for The Wall Street Journal | New York, NY (2015 — 2016)

Data reporter, writer and graphics journalist for the investigations team and other parts of The Wall Street Journal. Managed and built major investigative projects for the newspaper and on the web, coordinating stories with editorial, social and video departments across the organization. Worked on stories around the gender pay gap and the uneven economic recovery.

Interactive Editor for Al Jazeera America | New York, NY (2013 — 2015)

Led a team of developer-reporters, spearheaded interactive coverage of news, and covered stories around poverty. Reported and produced projects on topics that intersect with race and economics, including voter suppression, undocumented low-income communities and police shootings.

Multimedia producer / reporter for NPR’s Planet Money | New York, NY (2012 — 2013)

Reporter, data journalist, writer and visual storyteller. Reported faster stories around the jobs report and other economic news as well as collaborative long-term projects for This American Life on money in politics and disability benefits.

Multimedia editor for The Wall Street Journal | Hong Kong (2009 — 2011)

Video reporter, regional editor of video content for Asia, and multimedia producer. Reported multimedia projects on the 2010 election in Myanmar, the economic repercussions of the 2011 Japanese tsunami and earthquake and the Chinese real estate market. Worked with a dozen bureaus in Asia to develop and lead video coverage for WSJ.com on the continent. Tailored content for various regional audiences. Developed and implemented workflows, wrote and edited scripts, guided reporters in the field and hired and managed video freelancers and staffers. Coordinated and produced the largest stories in the region for U.S. audiences.

Associate Multimedia Producer for The Wall Street Journal | New York, NY (2008 — 2009)

Video reporter and multimedia producer, who produced feature, analysis and breaking news videos for various sections of wsj.com, marketwatch.com and barronsonline.com. Pitched and wrote articles, multimedia packages and blog posts. Stories included news coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and HIV in Ho Chi Minh City. Coordinated video coverage with international bureaus. Conducted video workshops with reporters in bureaus worldwide.

Visiting researcher | Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School (Spring of 2020)

Conduct research around white supremacy, media manipulation and misinformation for the Technology and Social Change Research Project.

Journalism Instructor | International (2009 — present)

Teach semester-long courses and workshops at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Previously taught at courses at the International Center for Photography, Columbia University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Have spoken and instructed workshops for organizations around the world, including the ONA, NICAR and Global Editors Network conferences and in Pakistan, Myanmar, the Netherlands and Germany.

Education

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism | New York, NY (May 2008)

Major: New Media (Graduated with honors as one of the top five students). Coursework: Reporting and Writing I (high honors), Business and Financial Reporting, New Media Newsroom (interactive multimedia applications, videos and slideshows; high honors), New Media Workshop (high honors), Computer Assisted Reporting, International Reporting (high honors), Graphics in the Newsroom, Masters Thesis on Burmese refugees in New York (high honors)

University College London | London, England (August 2007)

Major: German with Italian Studies (First class with distinction, dean’s list of humanities and arts dep.)

School of Visual Arts | New York, NY (Spring 2014)

Semester-long continuing education course in JavaScript, JQuery and other front-end web development.

General Assembly | New York, NY (Summer 2013)

5-week course in Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

Accolades

2023 Brown University Information Futures Lab Fellow
2022 Pulitzer Center AI Accountability Fellow, Society of Professional Journalists Top of the Rockies Award for Public Service, EPPY Best feature story on a college/university website (led and edited project on housing)
2021 Poynter of Diverse Voices Writing Workshop, Type Investigations Ida B. Wells Fellowship, Soros Justice Fellowship
2020 Poynter Leadership Academy for Diversity in Digital Media, AAJA Leadership in Diversity Award
2019 Online News Association Community Award
2018 Best Portfolio Shortlist, Data Journalism Awards
2017 Best Portfolio Shortlist, Data Journalism Awards
2016 Information is Beautiful Awards, Silver Medal for Interactive Visualization and longlisted for Dataviz - Project
2015 EPPY Awards for Best News or Event Feature Video (reporter/producer) and Best Innovation Project on a - Website (editor)
2015 Two Online News Association Award nominations, categories: Planned News Event and Breaking News
2015 Two Data Journalism Awards nominations for Investigation of the Year and winner for the General Excellence - Data Journalism Award
2015 Webby Awards Nominee for Online Film & Video (News & Politics: Individual Episode)
2014 World Media Summit Honorable Mention for New Media Reporting
2014 EPPY Award Finalist for Best Investigative/Enterprise Feature
2014 Two nominations for ONA Awards in Explanatory Reporting
2014 Shorty Awards Nominee for Tumblr of the Year
2013 Knight Prototype Fund Recipient
2013 Overseas Press Club Award (video producer for WSJ entry)
2011 Online News Association MJ Bear Fellow, as journalism stand-out under 30
2011 Online News Association Award Nominee, category: Breaking News
2011 Society of Publishers in Asia Honorable Mention, category: Breaking News
2011 Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award
2011 Human Rights Press Award
2011 Official Honoree for the Webby Awards
2010 Finalist for South Asian Journalists Association Journalism Award
2010 Society of Publishers in Asia Award for Editorial Excellence
2009 Finalist for Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Club Awards
2009 Webby Awards: winner; finalist and official honoree in three categories
2008 Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship
2007 Third Prize from the Foreign Press Association Scholarship Fund

Selected teaching, speaking and other engagements

Courses

Advanced Data Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY
Advanced Coding at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY
You and Me as Data Points (Collaborative Authorship) at the International Center for Photography
Metrics & Outcomes (Social Journalism) at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY
Fundamentals in Interactive journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY
Introduction to Data Journalism at UMass Amherst

Workshops

Investigating the Social Web at NICAR
Mining the Social Web at NICAR
Fasttrack Video: Video shooting at the Online News Association, Native American Journalists Association, Alaska Press Club, Global Editors Network Summit, Public Radio News Directors, East Meets West Conference (Hong Kong University), Journalism Summit (Karachi, Pakistan)
Fasttrack Video: Video editing at the Online News Association and the Native American Journalists Association
Data Journalism and Data Visualization at the United Nations, Alaska Press Club, Native American Journalists Association
Managing Your Interactive Media Project at the IFP Media Center
User Engagement and Crowd-Sourced Storytelling and How to Use Data to Engage Your Audience at the IFP Media Center, Native American Journalists Association, Funglode (Dominican Republic)
Weeklong multimedia and data journalism workshops at the Alaska Press Club, Journalism Department of Yangon University (Myanmar)

Newsroom Training

Mining the Social Web at BuzzFeed
Video workflows and newsroom training at The Wall Street Journal
Multi-platform journalism workflows and newsroom training at Al Jazeera America

Selected panels, talks and on-stage storytelling projects

Covering and demystifying Artificial Intelligence (2023) at the African Investigative Journalism Conference
Holding Algorithms Accountable Through Collaboration (2023) at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden
High Stakes, Measured Takes: Making Sense Of The Latest Developments In Technology And The Law (2023) at ONA
Democracy and disinformation (2023) at AAJA
Data scraping and mining: What are your legal rights? (2023) at NICAR
Keynote conversation with Sisi Wei (2022) at the IRE DBEI conference
Who’s it for? Bringing investigative stories to the communities we cover (2022) at the IRE DBEI conference
How does inequality and/or inequity show up in your beat? (2021) at NICAR
Gentrification as a lens into inequality (2021) at IRE
Seeing FOI through Millenial and Gen Z Eyes (2021) at the National Freedom of Information Coalition Summit
Networked Media Ecologies and Public Discourse (2020) at the Georgetown University Election Integrity Symposium
2020 Australian International Documentary Conference: Finding stories in internet data and juror for the Raw Data, Real Stories data journalism pitch presented by Google News Initiative
Reporting on Networked Factions (2019) at ONA
Conversations with Data (2018) at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy
You and I as data points (2017) at Tech Poetics in San Francisco
ONA Local Salon: Fact Checking Political Leaders’ Social Media (2017) at the local ONA San Francisco
💬 🌎 ✊ (2016) for Popup Magazine’s Fall Tour
Super-powering watchdog journalism with data — and empathy (2016) at The New School
How to make people care about your data (2016) at Mozfest in London
All you care about is yourself (on personalization in journalism) (2016) at Hacks/Hackers in Berlin
Your biggest Fan (2016) at Tapefest
Finding Humans in Data (2016) at Facets Con
Clueless in the Digital Age, keynote address (2016) at the Stichting Verhalende Journalistiek in Amsterdam and later at the Neue Deutsche Medienmacher in Berlin
Loving Long-Distance (2015) at Storycode in New York
You and Me as Data Points (2015) at the Tribeca Film Institute’s Interactive Day in New York
Loving Long-Distance (2014) at Power to the Pixel in London
How (Not) to Tell a Story (2014) for TEDxNewYork
Discussion on multimedia storytelling (2014) at the WAM!NYC Conference
How should today’s newsrooms push the limits of technology to better connect with audiences? (2013) Google Media Summit (New York)