In 2007, in response to cutbacks at major news organizations, the Investigative Reporting Program established the first postgraduate fellowships in investigative reporting in the nation. This yearlong program is without peer at any academic institution. It is designed to enable select journalists with a proven ability to tell complex stories in the public interest, to pursue a story for up to one-year by providing them with a salary, benefits and editorial guidance.

This year’s recipients are Daniel Alarcón, the author of several acclaimed novels and non-fiction books, and whose journalism has been published in Harper’s, Granta, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and Salon; Antonia Juhasz, an expert on energy and the environment whose articles have appeared in The Nation, The Progressive, and Petroleum Review; Emad Mekay, a journalist who has worked out of Cairo for Bloomberg, Reuters and the New York Times.

Alarcón divides his time between Peru and Oakland, California, though his writing, both fiction and non-fiction, is oriented towards Latin America. His fiction has received numerous awards: he was listed among the New Yorker’s “20 under 40” new writers, a finalist in the 2010 O. Henry Prize, winner of a PEN Literary Award in 2008. In addition, the British literary magazine Granta in 2007 named him the Best Young Novelist. As an IRP Fellow, Alarcón’s foray into investigative reporting will feature a series of articles and radio pieces that will explore the social and political landscape of the Peruvian penal system, with a special focus on Lurigancho, one of South America’s most notorious prisons.

Juhasz, based in San Francisco, has written three books on the oil industry and the environment and numerous articles on this topic, most notably her cover story in The Nation on the hidden health risks of the BP oil spill in the Gulf. Her articles and op-ed pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post and in many other publications.  She graduated from Brown University and has a Masters in Public Policy from the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute. Her topic, as an IRP Fellow, will be to explore the oil rush in Afghanistan in which China is pitted against the petroleum giants.

Mekay joins the IRP after a John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University in which he explored how to use information technology and Freedom of Information laws to make Arab governments and U.S. policy in the Middle East more transparent.  As an IRP Fellow, Mekay will be researching how the U.S. tried and ultimately failed to influence the political shifts of the Arab Spring movement that is sweeping dictators from power around the Middle East. From Cairo, Mekay reported on political and business issues around the Middle East for some of the world’s leading newspapers and news agencies.

This year’s fellowships are made possible by core grants from the Sandler Foundation and the Hellman Foundation along with donations from Scott and Jennifer Fearon, The Financial Times, Peter Wiley, and the Zimmer Family Foundation.

Annie Murphy is a regular contributor to NPR, and her writing has been published in The Atlantic, The Nation and The Virginia Quarterly Review. While at the IRP, Murphy has been reporting on the escalating conflict in Honduras—currently considered the most violent nation in the world—and how a 2009 coup contributed to the country’s breakdown. Her Honduras investigation has been a broadcast series for NPR’s Weekend Edition and will soon be published in Pop-Up magazine and the Spanish-language podcast “Radio Ambulante.”

Chanan Tigay has contributed to publications including Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 9/11, the United Nations and the U.S. Jewish community. As an IRP fellow, Tigay is reporting on U.S.-Israel relations in light of Iran’s nuclear program and a Syrian arms trafficker.

Joe Mullin previously worked as a reporter for paidContent, where he covered the intersection of media, technology and the law. Before that, he worked for American Lawyer, The Seattle Times and The Associated Press. Mullin is reporting on patent litigation and abuses of the patent system. Thus far, his work has included coverage of a major patent trial over web technology for Wired.com, as well as working with journalism students to create a website (patentexaminer.org) that tracks patent cases that have been underreported in the mainstream press. He is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley’s graduate school of journalism.

Winners of the 2010–2011 $47,000 full–time year–long fellowships are Trevor Aaronson, an award–winning print reporter, and Lee Wang, a documentary filmmaker and 2006 graduate of the Berkeley J–School. The Investigative Reporting Program is also providing special in–residence support to veteran investigative reporter and former Time magazine bureau chief Tim McGirk, who has covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Israeli– Palestinian conflict and the hunt for al–Qaeda.

This year’s fellowships were made possible by a core grant from the Sandler Foundation along with donations from Scott and Jennifer Fearon, The Financial Times, The Gruber Family Foundation, The Hellman Foundation, John Keker, Jerome Simon and Peter Wiley.

Because there were so many qualified applicants in the 2009 competition, the Investigative Reporting Program created a new category to help support the work of Zachary Stauffer, a 2008 graduate of the journalism school and Katie Galloway, a lecturer in the Media Studies department at UC Berkeley.

Mr. Stauffer continues his work as an in–residence cinematographer and reporter. Ms. Galloway, our Filmmaker in Residence, was given special support for her feature documentary on a domestic counterterrorism case to be completed by 2011. Mr. Isaacs continues his work as a staff reporter of the IRP.

Winners of the 2008–2009 fellowships were Jonathan Jones, a 2005 Berkeley graduate, Sam Kennedy, a 2001 Berkeley graduate and Carrie Lozano, a 2005 Berkeley graduate. Ms. Lozano, a documentary filmmaker, continues to work with the IRP as the project coordinator of a unique grants–funded project on collaboration in investigative reporting. Mr. Jones continues to work on his book on Liberia out of the offices of the IRP.

Winners of the 2007–2008 fellowships were Andrew Becker, a 2005 UC Berkeley graduate; Marton Dunai, a 2004 Berkeley graduate, and Siri Schubert, a freelance business and financial reporter.