Irena Hwang
Irena Hwang is a data reporter at ProPublica.
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Irena Hwang is a data reporter at ProPublica. She previously worked at NPR, The Associated Press and The Dallas Morning News. She has a master’s degree in journalism and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University, and studied electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Heritage Foundation Staffers Flood Federal Agencies With Thousands of Information Requests
The conservative think tank’s requests are clogging the pipeline at federal agencies in an apparent attempt to find employees a potential Trump administration would want to purge.
The Failure to Track Data on Stillbirths Undermines Efforts to Prevent Them
Fetal death records are often missing cause of death, race and other crucial information. ProPublica found that the problem is only getting worse.
How Many of Your State’s Lawmakers Are Women? If You Live in the Southeast, It Could Be Just 1 in 5.
A record number of women were elected to statehouses last year. But in the Southeast, where some legislatures are more than 80% male, representation is lagging as lawmakers pass bills that most impact women, like near-total abortion bans.
How We Used Machine Learning to Investigate Where Ebola May Strike
ProPublica spent months teaching a computer to analyze past Ebola outbreaks linked to deforestation. What we found reveals a weakness in the way that governments and public health experts are preparing for future pandemics.
The (Random) Forests for the Trees: How Our Spillover Model Works
ProPublica borrowed machine learning methods from academic research to better understand links between forest loss and spillover risk. The results were surprising, but led us to a story we wouldn’t have found otherwise.
Close to 100,000 Voter Registrations Were Challenged in Georgia — Almost All by Just Six Right-Wing Activists
The recent transformation of the state’s election laws explicitly enabled citizens to file unlimited challenges to other voters’ registrations. Experts warn that election officials’ handling of some of those challenges may clash with federal law.
After Pandemic Delays, FDA Still Struggling to Inspect Foreign Drug Manufacturers
In the wake of recent deaths from bacteria-tainted eyedrops, a ProPublica analysis of FDA data reveals that the agency only inspected 6% of the overseas plants where drugs and their ingredients are produced in 2022.
Au bord de la catastrophe
Une simple clairière de forêt nous sépare de la prochaine pandémie mortelle. Mais nous n’essayons même pas de la prévenir.
How Forest Loss Can Unleash the Next Pandemic
The forests around the epicenter of the world’s worst Ebola outbreak are getting patchier. The next pandemic could emerge from the edges around these patches, where wildlife and humans mix.
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.
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.