SARAH L. RYLEY  Investigative & Data Journalist

Hi, I'm an investigative and data journalist. I'm currently working as a fellow with the Boston Globe's Spotlight investigative team and as an M.S. advisor at Columbia's Graduate Schoo of Journalism. As a freelancer, I've reported on police impunity for ProPublica, the U.S. response to Covid-19 for a series of mini-docs with the New York Times Opinion video team, and on the pandemic's economic impact on women for The Fuller Project.

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Previously, I was an investigative journalist at The Trace, a non-profit newsroom that covers gun issues. I produced a series of data-driven investigations in partnership with BuzzFeed News and Chicago's WTTW on law enforcement’s increasing failure to solve shootings. The reporting helped free a man from prison. We also made public raw data obtained from 56 law enforcement agencies via Freedom of Information requests, along with documentation detailing the architecture of more than a dozen police databases.

From 2012 - 2017, I was an investigative journalist, data projects editor and courts editor at the New York Daily News. My reporting triggered new 22 laws and numerous other reforms, and played a significant role in dismantling “broken windows” policing in New York City. My series on the NYPD's abuse of civil enforcement laws to push people from their businesses and homes, done in partnership with ProPublica, resulted in sweeping changes to the law and was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Prior to The News, I was an investigative producer for the national tablet publication The Daily (R.I.P.), where I delved into topics such as Homeland Security, high-profile criminal trials, foreclosures, and tax shelters. I started my career in 2006 as a beat reporter covering New York’s billions of dollars' worth of development projects. My earliest impacts, which I’m still very proud of, include helping to save an Underground Railroad home from eminent domain and jump-starting the construction of Brooklyn Bridge Park.

I studied journalism at Wayne State University in Detroit and was name a distinguished alumna in 2018. Prior to discovering my love of reporting, I was an artist, community organizer and waitress.

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