About Me

I'm a Peabody-winning multimedia journalist and Fulbright Fellow. My background in public history informs all of my work — whether it be about architecture or the healthcare industry, communications infrastructure or amusement parks. In late 2022 I served as the sole reporter and host of On the Media’s limited-run, award-winning podcast series The Divided Dial, all about the political influence of talk radio. My written articles and essays have run in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Bloomberg’s CityLab, National Geographic, National Geographic History, National Geographic Traveler, Atlas Obscura, Wildsam Field Guides, and others, while my audio stories and documentaries have appeared on 99% Invisible (frequent contributor), the BBC, National Public Radio, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, Lantigua Williams & Co., and more.

Awards & Honors

2023 | Peabody Award for Radio/Podcast
2023 | Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism
2023 | Mirror Award Finalist
2023 | Fund for Investigative Journalism Reporting Grant
2020-2022 | Fulbright Alumni Ambassador
2021 | Fund for Investigative Journalism Reporting Grant
2021 | Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists’ Special Project/In-Depth Series Award
2020 | Minnesota Historical Society Legacy Fellow
2020 | National Geographic Society Storytelling Grant
2018-2020 | Visiting Scholar at the University of Bath
2018-2019 | Fulbright – National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellow
2019 | Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists’ Sports Journalism Award
2018 - ongoing | Resident at Bristol, UK’s Pervasive Media Studio

sKILLS

Research. Reporting. Interviewing. Investigation. Writing. Line Editing. Copyediting. Script Writing. Audio Editing. Sound Design. Conversational Mandarin Chinese. Trint, Descript, Reaper. Wordpress, Drupal, Microsoft Office, Google Docs. Bicycle Repair. Light Construction. Years of kitchen work. Falling off my skateboard. Making radio about it.

On the other side of the mic (or camera)

Peabody Awards, The Divided Dial (2023)
Razorcake, Katie Thornton Interview (2023)
KQED’s Forum, What Does AM Radio Mean to You? (2023)
WNYC’s On the Media, AM Radio’s Decline Will Hurt More Than Conservative Talk Shows (2023)
MSNBC’s 11th Hour, The Divided Dial (2022)
WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show, The Divided Dial: On the Media's Exploration of Far-Right Talk Radio (2022)
NPR’s The Takeaway, The “Divided Dial” of Talk Radio (2022)
Minnesota Public Radio, Shock Jocks and Talk Radio (2022)
Minnesota Public Radio, Katie Thornton Knows a Lot About Skyways (2022)
Forbes, Stories Are As Old As Humanity—And May Be The Key To Saving It (2021)
National Geographic, Storytelling for Impact: Audio (video-based audio storytelling course) (2021)
Star Tribune, Minnesota Historian Raises a Glass to Women, Bars and Suffrage (2020)
National Geographic Magazine, Magazine Profile (2019)
Fulbright’s 22.33 Podcast, The Needs of the Living (Profile) (2019)
National Geographic UK, Is It Time We Changed the Way We Remember the Dead? One Historian Has Been Investigating (2019)