Photo by George Itzhak
I’m an award-winning investigative journalist. As a contributing investigative reporter at The Intercept, I’ve covered immigration, criminal justice and labor. My investigation highlighting the more than 35,000 foreign-born adoptees in the United States who are undocumented was honored as a 2019 Livingston Awards finalist in the National Reporting category.
For the piece, I gained rare access into an ICE-run detention facility in South Texas to interview Mauricio Cappelli, a 38-year-old adoptee who grew up his entire life in Wisconsin before he was deported this past March to Costa Rica, a country he had not known since he was an infant. My investigation looked at the failures at every level of the federal government that allowed this phenomenon to continue. In 2020, I began the year in Beirut investigating the Lebanese Army’s alleged use of torture against protesters in that nation’s uprising and, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic I’ve spent months reporting the stories of the nation’s frontline workers. I broke the story of the May 1 general strike, which was one of the largest worker-coordinated strikes in the United States in decades.
Previously, I worked as a digital producer at NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and as a frequent contributing digital reporter for NBCNews.com. In my role, I regularly produced original reporting, appearing on both TV, online and on all NBC News’ social platforms. Some of my work included a documentary feature on Hurricane Katrina survivors and their fight to repair their battered homes a decade later amidst rampant contractor fraud, in-depth reporting on the nation’s opioid crisis as part of NBC’s “One Nation Overdosed” series and a feature on the future of America's HBCUs in the Trump era, which won a 2018 National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Award. I was the lead reporter spearheading all NBC News series coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in North Dakota, contributing dozens of written articles, video features, exclusive investigative scoops and live on-the-ground dispatches. My reporting was honored by the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) in 2017.
Prior to NBC, I worked as a contributor for The Guardian US where I covered City Hall in New York City. My investigation into abuses within the city's foster care system revealed that the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) had for years abused its power in family courts, wrongly taken children into custody and inadequately assisted those it claimed to help. The article, in addition to a subsequent class-action lawsuit on behalf of the victims, led to Gov. Andrew Cuomo announcing four major reforms to ACS in November 2015.
My first job in journalism was as an Associate Producer for a special investigative documentary project, “Marijuana Wars” on the social, legal and moral implications of the nation’s 40-year War on Drugs, both in the US and in Latin America, and the rise of the marijuana legalization movement in the United States for “People and Power,” a long form investigative current affairs program broadcast weekly on Al Jazeera English.
I'm a dual-degree graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and School of International and Public Affairs, where I served as Lead Editor at the Journal of International Affairs. I also hold a BSc degree in broadcast journalism and political science from the University of Miami.
Awards:
Livingston Awards
2019 Finalist, National Reporting
Adopted and Undocumented - The Intercept
National Association of Black Journalists
Best General Assignment TV News Story - Black Colleges and Trump
NBC Nightly News
Native American Journalists Association
Best TV News Story - Army Corps Denies Dakota Access Pipeline
NBC Nightly News
Ida B. Wells Fellowship
Investigative Reporting
2016 Nominee
NBC Nightly News
Best Social Media Campaign - Cynopsis Digital Model D Awards
NBC Nightly News
Nominated: 2016 Webby Awards - News & Information (Social Media)