The personal toll of medical debt

Diagnosis: Debt, a collaborative project between NPR and KFF Health News, followed the scale and impact of medical debt in the U.S. As a creative director on the project, I worked with KFF visual editors and a developer on a unique visual interactive that led with the personal stories of those confronted with medical billing issues. Clicking on each tile takes the reader to that person’s account. Having strong photographs and moving portraits meant that the reporting could easily migrate to audiences on Instagram. The stories and visual grid updated three times over the course of the year-long coverage on medical debt.

The project was recognized with a Digital Media award by NIHCM (National Institute for Health Care Management) and by a Gerald Loeb award in consumer reporting in 2023.

See the full interactive on NPR.org here.

‘Change can happen’: Black Families on Racism, Hope, and Parenting

Following the murder of George Floyd and nationwide demonstrations, reporter Patti Neighmond talked to Black families about the difficult conversations they were having with their kids about racism. I produced this as a spin-off digital piece together with my colleague Ryan Kellman, hiring photographers who brought those voices to life and carried the piece over onto our visual-forward social outlets.

See the full story on NPR.org here.

Coronavirus variants explained using Legos

When the first coronavirus variants were identified, there were a lot of scientific questions about how exactly virus mutations were affecting transmissibility. But understanding those nuances required a basic knowledge of coronavirus transmission. To simply the science, I worked with NPR reporter Michaeleen Doucleff and freelance artist Meredith Miotke on an illustrated explainer using a very simple metaphor to show how a two-fold mutation could give the virus much more of an advantage.

Read the full story here.

Confronting An Addiction Crisis And a Viral Photo

Freelance photographer Ian Brown pitched this timely story to NPR. In 2016, a photo of a couple who had overdosed in the front seat of a car with their grandchild in the backseat went viral. The photo came from the East Liverpool, Ohio police who had decided to make the image public. A year later, Ian visited East Liverpool to ask residents how the national attention had affected them and whether any progress had been made on the small town’s addiction crisis. I produced the story with Ian, and along with editor Carmel Wroth, we distilled interviews, edited images and gave the story a structure that made the residents’ voices front and center.

Read the full story here.