I’m a journalist based in Antwerp, Belgium. I also mentor students in the Literary Reportage program at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
Most recently, I was a reporter at De Standaard in Brussels, where I covered immigration and politics, and was awarded the 2021 Belfius Press Prize in the Print/Web category as part of a team that exposed 3M’s role in polluting local communities with PFAS or “forever chemicals.” Before that, I was the managing editor of the digital team at The World, an international news show based at WGBH, PRX, and co-produced with the BBC World Service in Boston. Before that, I was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, which featured my work on health and politics in an interview here, and co-wrote EUROPA أوروپا, An Illustrated Introduction to Europe for Migrants and Refugees, a guidebook spearheaded by Magnum Photos in 2016. That year, I also worked as a field producer for CNNi based in Brussels. From 2013 to 2016, I was a staff reporter at Al Jazeera America in New York City, where my reporting on homeless women’s menstrual health spurred Intros 1122-A, 1123-A, and 1128-A in the NY legislature providing free tampons and pads to shelters, prisons, and public schools. In 2014, I won a Society of Professional Journalists award in the Online Non-Deadline Reporting category for my contributions to a series on Native American veterans’ mental health. In 2011, I was awarded the Aanmoedigingsprijs Dick Scherpenzeel for young foreign correspondent of the year writing in the Dutch language.
I’ve also freelanced for outlets like The New Yorker, The Nation, The Atlantic, and The Village Voice. Some of that reporting has been featured on NPR, ABC, Deutschlandfunk, and ARTE.
My stories have been taught at Harvard College, and supported by the Broad Institute, a 2019 Resilience Journalism Fellowship, a 2017 African Great Lakes Reporting Fellowship, and Fonds Pascal Decroos, among others.