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Al Shaw

Al Shaw is a Senior News Application Developer at ProPublica.

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Al Shaw is a Senior News Application Developer at ProPublica. He uses data and interactive graphics to cover environmental issues, natural disasters and politics.

A year before Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston, Shaw was part of a team that produced “Hell and High Water,” which warned of the region's vulnerability to coastal storms. The project won a Peabody Award in 2017. Shaw's project, “Losing Ground,” about the century-long erosion of Louisiana's coast won a Gold Medal from the Society for News Design. His interactive maps surrounding FEMA's response to Hurricane Sandy were honored with the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award. Before joining ProPublica, Shaw was a designer/developer at the political news website Talking Points Memo.

Roots of an Outbreak

How We Found That Sites of Previous Ebola Outbreaks Are at Higher Risk Than Before

Research links deforestation to outbreaks. Combining two peer-reviewed models and the latest satellite images of tree loss, we discovered that the sites of five previous outbreaks have a greater chance of facing Ebola again.

Roots of an Outbreak

The Next Deadly Pandemic Is Just a Forest Clearing Away

Returning to the starting point of the world’s worst Ebola outbreak reveals how the global community failed the people of Meliandou, Guinea — and the many ways we’re not doing enough to prevent the next virus from jumping species and taking off.

Sacrifice Zones

Visualizing Toxic Air

Making data public isn’t enough when it’s incomprehensible to the people it affects. ProPublica set out to decode a complex EPA data set to expose hot spots of industrial air pollution across the U.S.

Sacrifice Zones

We’re Releasing the Data Behind Our Toxic Air Analysis

Last year, ProPublica revealed more than 1,000 hot spots of carcinogenic industrial air pollution. Now we’re releasing the data behind that analysis.

Sacrifice Zones

Planta de esterilización de equipo médico contamina con sustancias cancerígenas a decenas de miles de alumnos

Nadie le dijo a la familia de Yaneli Ortiz que la fábrica cerca de la que vivían emitía óxido de etileno. No les dijeron cuando en la EPA se descubrió que causa cáncer. Tampoco cuando le diagnosticaron leucemia.

Sacrifice Zones

A Plant That Sterilizes Medical Equipment Spews Cancer-Causing Pollution on Tens of Thousands of Schoolchildren

Nobody told Yaneli Ortiz’s family that the factory they lived near emitted ethylene oxide. Not when the EPA found it causes cancer. Not when she was diagnosed with leukemia. And not when Texas moved to allow polluters to emit more of the chemical.

Sacrifice Zones

Veneno en el aire

La EPA permite a los contaminadores que conviertan barrios en “zonas de sacrificio” donde los residentes respiran carcinógenos. ProPublica revela dónde están esos lugares en un mapa, el primero de este tipo, y con análisis de datos.

Sacrifice Zones

El mapa más detallado de contaminación atmosférica industrial que causa cáncer en los EE. UU.

Utilizamos información de la EPA para trazar un mapa de las emisiones atmosféricas industriales que causan cáncer hasta el nivel de los barrios. Busque su casa para ver si usted y sus seres queridos están viviendo en un lugar peligroso.

Sacrifice Zones

¿Puede la contaminación del aire causar cáncer? Lo que usted tiene que saber sobre los riesgos.

Si usted vive cerca de ciertas instalaciones industriales, puede tener un riesgo estimado de cáncer más alto. Aquí hay respuestas a preguntas comunes, datos producto de una colaboración participativa y cómo compartir su experiencia.

Sacrifice Zones

Poison in the Air

The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones” where residents breathe carcinogens. ProPublica reveals where these places are in a first-of-its-kind map and data analysis.