We are pleased to introduce the Fall 2023 James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professor in Journalism, Amanda Sperber!

Amanda Sperber is a multi-award-winning international correspondent and Investigative Fellow with Code for Africa whose work considers colonialism and capitalism. Her high impact reporting has prompted changes to military policy, open Congressional letters signed by leading House members, reports by organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Airwars and shifted narratives on state-building and U.S. foreign policy. Since she started reporting on U.S. airstrikes in Somalia, the military admitted its first civilian casualties since it began carrying out strikes in 2007 and instituted a civilian casualty reporting protocol.

Her reporting and writing is in print and online in a wide array of publications including Al Jazeera, the Atlantic, the Baffler, the Economist, Foreign Policy, the Guardian, the Intercept, the Nation, NBC, Marie Claire, Reuters, VICE World News, Virginia Quarterly Review and Vogue. Sperber won the Thomson-Reuters Kurt Schork Memorial Award (Freelancer Category) for her investigations in Somalia. She won the One World Media Award (Popular Features Category) for her coverage of sexualized violence in South Sudan’s civil war.  Her work has been recognized by the Frontline Club and the Amnesty International Media Awards. She is an IACC-Transparency International “Young Journalist”, a partner with Type Investigate and a former Logan Non-Fiction Fellow. She has received numerous grants from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, the Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting, the International Women’s Media Foundation and the UN Foundation.