Scroll to view my work in television, audio, video and data journalism.
Television & Social Video Appearances
PBS NewsHour
CBS New York
NBC10 Philadelphia
When news of the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy broke in 2023, I was in the midst of reporting a year-long series on the opioid settlement funds. PBS NewsHour invited me to discuss my reporting and explain what the bankruptcy news meant for state and local governments receiving these settlement funds. Read the articles in my series.
At the end of 2023 — the first full year that many states had opioid settlement funds in hand — I joined CBS’s streaming service Newspath for an interview about the money was being spent. My interview, which runs from 6:18-10:20, summarizes findings from more than a year of my reporting on this topic.
Black women are more likely to face sexual violence but less likely to speak out or be believed when they do. I wrote a feature about one Philadelphia woman, LaQuisha Anthony, who is trying to change that. We were invited to speak about the story and her work on NBC10.
KFF Health News Social Video
In December 2023, the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether the Sacklers, the family behind Purdue Pharma — which marketed OxyContin — could claim immunity from future lawsuits without claiming bankruptcy. I was on the scene, reporting that day.
KFF Health News Explainer
Opioid settlement funds come from companies like Purdue Pharma, McKesson, CVS, and others that made, distributed, and sold opioid painkillers. It’s meant as restitution for the companies’ roles in fueling the epidemic. In this video, I break down the money’s path – from when it lands to how it’s spent.
Audio Stories & Appearances
NPR
Hundreds of Native American tribes are getting money from settlements with companies that made or sold prescription opioid painkillers. The money can be used for traditional and cultural healing practices — anything from smudging ceremonies to basketmaking and programs that teach tribal languages. I traveled to Presque Isle, Maine, to visit a new sweat lodge the Mi’kmaq Nation built with its opioid settlement cash. Listen to the audio feature I reported for NPR and read the accompanying story I wrote for KFF Health News.
As state and local governments begin deciding how to spend billions of dollars in opioid settlements, a crucial question has emerged: Who is best equipped to make these decisions? Some people posit that statistical models can produce unbiased, data-informed recommendations, while others prefer workers on the frontlines of the crisis to guide decisions. I traveled to Mobile, Alabama, to see this tension play out. Listen to the audio feature I reported for NPR and read the accompanying story I wrote for KFF Health News.
State and local governments are receiving a windfall of more than $50 billion from settlements with healthcare companies accused of fueling the opioid crisis. In 2023, one of the early years of these 18-year settlement payouts, many jurisdictions used the money to buy law enforcement equipment, including patrol cars, roadside cameras, and body scanners for jails. In this superspot, I explain how those purchases have triggered important questions about what the money was meant for and what saves lives. Read the accompanying story I wrote for KFF Health News.
Penny Wingard, 58, of Charlotte, North Carolina, worries she won’t ever get out from under her medical debt despite new policies that are supposed to prevent medical debt from harming people’s credit scores. I followed Wingard for nearly a year to report both a written story and an audio feature for NPR illustrating the ways medical debt has impacted her daily life, work prospects, relationships, and mental health. Read the accompanying story I wrote for KHN.
Research shows six months of abstinence is not a good predictor of long-term sobriety in people with alcohol use disorder. Yet many hospitals still require this waiting period for patients who need liver transplants. In this 5-minute audio feature, I explore why policies have not kept up with data and how that’s impacted one Missouri family. Read the accompanying story I wrote for KHN.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, I visited a nursing home in North Carolina during their first vaccination clinic to talk to staff members about why they chose to get a shot or not. Listen to the 4-minute audio feature I put together for NPR, and read the accompanying story I wrote for KHN.
1A
In May 2023, I joined 1A to discuss the $50 billion companies like Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and Walmart had agreed to pay out in opioid settlements. I was joined my multiple sources from my previous reporting in a year-long series that uncovered a lack of transparency around this money and misuse of the funds. Read the full series.
In summer 2022, the U.S. launched 988, a new shortened number to connect individuals in crisis to the national suicide prevention hotline. The launch was considered a huge step forward in diverting mental health calls away from police intervention via 911. But some concerns emerged during the service’s rollout, including how sustainable it was and if Black and queer communities would benefit equally. Listen to our discussion on this topic and read my related story for KHN.
Even as rates of mental illness soared after the Covid-19 pandemic, access to mental health care remained incredibly difficult. Insurance coverage is one barrier, but there’s also racial disparities and a lack of providers. I joined 1A to discuss.
Marketplace
In January 2024, I joined Marketplace to discuss how state and local officials in charge of distributing billions in opioid settlement dollars were being inundated with marketing pitches from private, public, nonprofit and for-profit entities, all intent on getting a slice of the settlement payout. Read my original story for KFF Health News.
Death, Sex & Money
In a special live broadcast of the show — which was later packaged as a podcast episode — I talk with host Anna Sale about how policies on gun control and housing are actually affecting mental health access in America, and some interesting policy experiments underway in North Carolina and California that could change our approach to mental illness.
Science Friday
In 2021, there was a collective sigh of relief when the CDC announced that — despite the mental health impacts of Covid-19 — the national suicide rate had declined. However, that was not the full picture. In a 17-minute segment on Science Friday, I explain that suicide rates actually increased for Black, Hispanic, and other communities of color in many states, and had been on the rise even before the pandemic. Read the accompanying enterprise story I wrote for KHN.
WHYY The Pulse
Listen to a seven-minute audio feature story about the unique challenges faced by women of color with postpartum depression that I reported and produced for the health podcast The Pulse. Read the accompanying feature story I wrote for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
WNYC
Find an eight-episode national podcast I produced, several radio stories I reported, live interviews I conducted and more on my SoundCloud page, as well as this page featuring my work for WNYC, New York's NPR station.
Northeastern University Course Work
Jonathan Kelleher, who was born without a cerebellum, but is able to live a functional and independent life. As part of my course work at Northeastern University, a classmate and I interviewed him and put together this audio story. I scripted and voiced the piece.
Video Stories
Boston Police Peace Walks
This video received an honorable mention for General Assignment/Serious News at the New England College Emmy Awards in 2016.
After a night of gun violence left three people dead in August 2015, the Boston Police Department began a series of Peace Walks through city neighborhoods. Officers gathered with clergy and community leaders on dozens of nights to walk the streets of Boston.
I conducted interviews and helped to produce this video on Boston Police peace walks.
Sardine Family Circus entertains scores in San Francisco
Forget balancing a checkbook.
Orion Griffiths spends his days balancing atop a wooden board perched on a rolling cylinder. The 27-year-old street performer entertains scores of San Francisco spectators who look on in awe as he juggles clubs and stands on his hands, without falling 10 feet.
Most people would probably opt for the checkbook task, but Griffiths loves his job. He’s a member, along with his parents and adult siblings, of the Sardine Family Circus – named for a funny scene in which the Griffiths piled out of a packed RV.
This was the very first video story I filmed, edited and produced.
Community Art in Nashville
The Frist Center in Nashville, Tenn., hosted a series of community art workshops in early 2017. The art created during these workshops was to be displayed in an exhibition over the summer that would complement another exhibition of artist Nick Cave's work, which focuses on the five senses, self-representation and social justice issues.
I shot and edited this piece with a partner while participating in the Chips Quinn Scholars program, which seeks to increase newsroom diversity by supporting young journalists from underrepresented communities. The program provides a week-long multimedia training camp, along with career coaching during a summer internship.
Creating Their Own Labels
This series of videos won a 2017 New England College Emmy for Public Affairs/Community Service.
For the final project in my Video News Production class, two classmates and I pitched, filmed and edited three stories on the theme of programs for people with disabilities. The project was entitled "Creating Their Own Labels." We presented the project on a class blog as a combination of the videos, a written story and additional multimedia components, such as a photo slideshow and interactive map.
Data
Our Shrinking Vocabulary of Death
When a 29-year-old woman was murdered in 1974, Boston police recorded the homicide as a blunt trauma by ice chopper. The description paints a gruesome image. Yet a similar murder today would likely be given a simpler classification: trauma — a more sterile description of what could be an equally grisly crime.
The difference shows up in a Boston police database of more than 4,000 homicides that occurred in the city from January 1963 to September 2016. An analysis of the data reveals that causes of death were often described in more colorful terms back in the 1960s and ’70s.
The History of Religious Hate Crimes in American
After the election of President Donald Trump, media stories centered around the narrative that white Christian supremacists may be regaining traction, bolstered by Trump's caustic rhetoric against Muslims, Hispanics, women and other minorities. There was a particular concern of a rise in Islamophobia and a return to anti-Semitism.
This view assumes that hatred, particularly on the basis of faith, has long been dead in America. But the nation’s history is not as rosy as Americans might wish. Data collected by the FBI tells a much more nuanced story.
For this project, a partner and I collected data through FOIA requests, used Excel and Access to clean it and then created visualizations in Tableau and Carto. We also found human subjects and experts to add greater depth and emotion to the data-fueled story.
Maternal Mortality
Why are more American women dying from pregnancy-related causes today than they were 20 years ago? It is puzzling that the maternal mortality rate in the United States has increased over the past 20 years, while it has fallen in most other developed countries (and developing countries, for that matter).
For an explanatory journalism assignment, I set out to explain why this might be happening. I found and analyzed the data myself. I also created my own graphs.