What I Cover

I’m reporting on threats to federal social safety net programs, including Social Security, SNAP and Medicaid. I also write about systems that lower-income families interact with at the state and local levels, including child welfare, child support and the juvenile justice and education systems, as well as private companies that profit off of the poor.

My Background

Over the past decade, I’ve reported on how public policy affects some of the most vulnerable people in this country, whether in cities or rural areas, schools or jails.

I was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2022 for my investigation of foster care agencies in Alaska and elsewhere that pocket the Social Security benefits of orphaned and disabled children; my story led to the practice being banned in more than a dozen states and major cities. I’m also a three-time finalist for the Education Writers Association’s national award.

I previously worked for seven years at The Marshall Project, a news organization that covers the U.S. criminal justice system. My 2017 investigation of deaths, crashes, escapes and abuse on vans operated by for-profit prisoner transport companies prompted a major Justice Department investigation. My work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, on “This American Life” and “NBC Nightly News,” and elsewhere.