Please note that all previous work was completed under my former name.
Homelessness in the U.S., a Howard Center Investigation
In the fall 0f 2019, I worked with UMD’s Howard Center for Investigative Journalism on data analysis for a project about homelessness across the U.S. We are examining causes and changes over the past decade using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, real estate agencies, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and more.
I have collected my work into a GitHub repository.
Code Red: Baltimore’s Climate Divide
“Urban heat islands vividly illustrate the price humans will pay in the world’s growing climate crisis. With an abundance of concrete and little shade, they get hotter faster and stay hotter longer. And the people who live there are often sicker, poorer and less able to protect themselves.” —Howard Center for Investigative Journalism / Capital News Service, August 2019
- The National Press Foundation’s Innovative Storytelling Award
- The Online News Association’s Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education
A team of multimedia and data journalists, on-the-ground reporters and editors collaborated on this multi-month project to document the unequal effects of climate change across the city of Baltimore during the summer of 2019, resulting in four individual stories.
I analyzed data for all four stories, but my main focus was “The Role of Trees” story, a version of which was picked up in the Washington Post, among other outlets. Using R and QGIS, I analyzed and visualized data gathered by Baltimore City about thousands of individual trees lining its streets; tree canopy LIDAR data; and temperature and demographic data across the city.
The data team analyzed more than a dozen data sources, including data we collected by building and placing heat and humidity sensors in homes across our target neighborhoods. Articles from the project were picked up by dozens of outlets across the country.
Links: Project homepage, GitHub repository
Learn more about the overall project here.
Death Behind Bars
“Why are mentally ill inmates killing themselves in jails? The Associated Press and the Capital News Service investigate troubling questions about whether deaths could have been avoided.” —Associated Press / Capital News Service, June 2019
Myself and two colleagues reported extensively on the lack of official data available surrounding inmate suicides in jails across the country. I also contributed alongside nine other reporters to the database of lawsuits examined for the larger project.
This project was picked up by The Washington Post, The New York Times and numerous local papers. Following the death of Jeffrey Epstein in August 2019, the Poynter institute also cited our work.
Link: AP project site
Trading Away Justice
“An analysis of available Virginia court data found that 42 percent of guilty pleas in capital murder cases over the past five years involved a reduction in charges that essentially cut the defendant’s sentence in half.” —Capital News Service, December 2018
I worked in PostGreSQL and Excel to clean and analyze data from thousands of criminal records to examine sentencing disparities in Virginia for a large, cooperative project on voluntary guilty pleas by the innocent.
Links: Story on Capital News Service, GitHub repository
Racial Sentencing Disparities in VA
For a class project, I ran my own analysis of the Virginia court records and found that in many Virginia localities, black people are spending more time in prison than white people for committing the same crimes.
For this project, I taught myself R. The final product was a memo detailing my findings, including visualizations.
Link: Virginia Court Analysis memo on GitHub
Local Coverage
From January to May 2019, I covered occasional local stories for the Hyattsville Life & Times and The Montgomery Caller. My reporting included: changes to voter registration laws, profiles of leaders for Women’s History Month and an astronaut’s World Water Day speech at a local elementary school. I also wrote a profile of state Delegate Wanika Fisher, published in Maryland Matters.
Link: My work at Hyattsville Life & Times
Link: My work at The Montgomery Caller
Link: “One Session in, a First-Year Lawmaker Reflects” for Maryland Matters
State isn’t keeping its promises, officials say
“More than 20 years ago, the state government promised AACC and Maryland community colleges it would devote 29 percent of its higher education budget to community colleges each year, starting in 2012. It has yet to keep that promise.”
—Campus Current, March 2018
Links: Website, PDF of Print
AACC’s recovery center aids addicted students
“Ron Easley compared his more than 20 years addicted to drugs to putting a gun to his head every day, never knowing if it would go off.” —Campus Current, November 2017
Links: Website, PDF of Print
‘Wait and see’ on DACA, say trustees of college
“AACC officials say the college supports students who immigrated to the U.S. as children without legal permission. But they have not taken any public actions on those students’ behalf.” —Campus Current, April 2018
Links: Website, PDF of Print
Print Edition, Campus Current
Campus Current published all issues under my editorial leadership in the 2017-2018 academic year. In addition to editing every story that printed, I oversaw and contributed to reporting and layout, including photo placement and writing headlines and cutlines according to strict style guidelines.
Link: PDFs