Pulitzer-Winning Investigations Editor Joins College, Will Lead Innovative Carnegie Program
For immediate release, April 18, 2006
COLLEGE PARK, Md.— Deborah Nelson, Pulitzer Prize winner and one of the nation’s leading investigative journalists, will join the Philip Merrill College of Journalism this summer to direct the new Carnegie Seminar program at the University of Maryland, Dean Thomas Kunkel announced today.
Nelson, the Washington investigative editor for the Los Angeles Times, will join the Merrill College’s prestigious faculty, which includes five other Pulitzer winners.
"Deb Nelson is widely considered one of the best journalists in America," said Kunkel. "Our college and our students are very fortunate to have her joining us. She is not only a great reporter and editor but one of the most thoughtful people in our business. I can't think of anyone better to launch our Carnegie curriculum initiative."
Maryland’s Carnegie University Seminar is part of a curriculum enhancement package underwritten by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Merrill College has joined seven other top journalism schools and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy in an ambitious effort, sponsored by Carnegie and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, to improve the education of tomorrow’s journalists.
The initiative is designed in part to integrate the schools of journalism more deeply into the academic life of the university. The Maryland program will bring in three of the university’s most distinguished professors, each of whom will teach a four-week colloquium in his or her area of expertise. During the semester, the graduate students and select undergraduates taking the course will write a significant piece of journalism that ties in with one of the seminar topics.
Nelson will co-teach the Carnegie Seminar and oversee the student journalism projects. She also will teach investigative reporting, law, ethics and other courses.
“This was an irresistible opportunity,” said Nelson. “Not only will I get to teach at one of the country's top journalism schools, I'll help launch an innovative program that could make a real difference. So many people are wringing their hands about the future of the news business. I'd rather be actively trying to influence it. I've had a long, rich career as a reporter and an editor, and I'm as excited about this new venture as anything I've done.”
Nelson, who has been an adjunct professor at the Merrill College since 2001, has been writing investigative stories since the late 1970s and has worked for top investigative papers such as The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Seattle Times. She is a former president and active member of Investigative Reporters and Editors and serves on the board of the Fund for Investigative Journalism. She holds a J.D. from DePaul University College of Law in Chicago.
Nelson won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1997 for her report on abuses in HUD’s Indian housing program, with Eric Nalder and Alex Tizon at the Seattle Times. As an editor she has worked on two other Pulitzer-winning projects, a series on the deadly accident record of the Harrier jump jet at the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post series on children who died while in the District’s child welfare system.
Nelson and her husband, Tom Brune, a reporter for the Washington bureau of Newsday and 1999 Pulitzer finalist, have two daughters.
For more information on the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, visit this site.
For more information contact: Matthew C. Sheehan at 301.405.8320.