I’m an investigative reporter at Hearst Connecticut Media Group, where my work appears in newspapers and online across the state.
I’ve been on investigative and enterprise teams at NBC News, CQ Roll Call and ThinkProgress. I’ve also worked in various roles at ProPublica, GBH News, Spare Change News and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.
My work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The New Republic, FiveThirtyEight, Kaiser Health News, Al Jazeera America, The Intercept, Religion News Service and elsewhere.
In addition to my reporting, I offer trainings for organizations on how to dig into public records.
Impact and awards
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, cited my reporting during the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in October 2020. Another story in the same series resulted in disciplinary action against Judge William J. Martínez of the U.S. District Court of Colorado.
In February 2020, Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., introduced new firearms legislation based on my reporting about weaknesses in the gun background check system.
My stories have also led Congress to ask former Attorney General William Barr and former CIA Director Gina Haspel to clarify their testimony; prompted senators to call on YouTube to better enforce its own gun policies; led to sexual misconduct investigations at a shelter for migrant children in Kansas, a Buddhist group in Colorado and a Christian college in Massachusetts; and been cited in a federal voting rights lawsuit and two Congressional Research Service reports.
I was one of the only reporters on the ground as torch-wielding white supremacists marched through the University of Virginia campus the night before the Unite the Right rally, in Charlottesville, Va. My on-the-ground reporting from the march was cited by Religion News Service, The Christian Century and the book “American Prophets.” I also make an appearance in Insider’s graphic novel about the rally.
My story with Gina Ciliberto on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Fulton et al. v. City of Philadelphia for Sojourners won an honorable mention in the 2021 Best of the Church Press Awards.
Harvard Divinity School awarded me the Peter J. Gomes Distinguished Alumni Honors in 2021 for my reporting.
Outlets that have cited my reporting include The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, NBC Nightly News, NPR, Politico, Axios — and even The Late Show and Saturday Night Live. My series on Covid vaccine waste has also been cited in scientific journals.
Skills and background
Many of my investigations are based on data and documents obtained through public records requests. I’ve brought successful lawsuits against the FBI and the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, and I usually have dozens of open records requests at a given time. I’ve led trainings on public records at NBC News, ThinkProgress, Boston University and American University.
I’ve also done workshops on digital security and source protection for the GroundTruth Project, InsideClimate News, Texas Observer and ThinkProgress.
I have a master’s in Tibetan Buddhist studies from Harvard University and a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of West Georgia. In between, I spent a year serving in AmeriCorps with the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless.
I’m a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors, where I mentor other reporters, and the Religion News Association.
The best place to follow my work is on Twitter (or, if that falls apart, Mastodon).