ProPublica Staff

Officers

Stephen Engelberg, Editor in Chief

Stephen Engelberg was the founding managing editor of ProPublica from 2008-2012 and became editor in chief on Jan. 1, 2013. He came to ProPublica from The Oregonian in Portland, where he had been a managing editor since 2002. Before joining The Oregonian, Engelberg worked for The New York Times for 18 years, including stints in Washington, D.C., and Warsaw, Poland, as well as in New York. He was a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 2012 to 2021.

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Robin Sparkman, President

Robin Sparkman became president of ProPublica in 2021. She has responsibility for all of ProPublica’s non-journalism operations, including fundraising, communications, legal, finance and budgeting, and human resources. Prior to ProPublica, Sparkman was the founding CEO of nonprofit media organization StoryCorps (2014-2021). Previously, she spent more than two decades as a reporter and editor. She served as editor-in-chief of the American Lawyer from 2010-2014, and earlier as executive editor, as well as deputy editorial director of parent company American Lawyer Media. Previous work included stints at MSNBC.com and Newsweek. She is a graduate of Wellesley College, Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and Harvard Business School's SPNM (Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management) program. Robin serves on the boards of the Columbia Journalism Review, the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism CUNY Foundation and F.Y. Eye.

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Charles Ornstein, Managing Editor, Local

Charles Ornstein is managing editor, local, overseeing ProPublica’s local initiatives. These include offices in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Northwest, a joint initiative with the Texas Tribune, and the Local Reporting Network, which works with local news organizations to produce accountability journalism on issues of importance to their communities. Projects he has worked on as both a reporter and editor have been recognized with the Pulitzer Prize for public service, as well as other national journalism awards. From 2008 to 2017, he was a senior reporter covering health care and the pharmaceutical industry.

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Ginger Thompson, Managing Editor

Ginger Thompson is a managing editor at ProPublica. In addition to reporting and writing, Thompson oversees ProPublica’s staff development and recruitment efforts. She joined ProPublica from The New York Times in 2014. She has spent much of her career covering Latin America, and her work has won numerous awards.

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Tracy Weber, Managing Editor

Tracy Weber helps oversee and maximize projects across the newsroom. Prior to this role, as a senior editor, she guided landmark projects on family separation, jailhouse informants, the dismantling of workers’ compensation and a Mexican massacre touched off by the Drug Enforcement Administration, among others. Work she edited has earned virtually every significant honor in journalism, including the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. As a reporter at the Los Angeles Times, Weber won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2005 and was a finalist for the same award at ProPublica in 2010.

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Tyson Evans, Chief Product and Brand Officer

Tyson Evans is the chief product and brand officer at ProPublica where he oversees teams working on product, design, technology, communications, events and audience efforts.

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Jeremy Kutner, General Counsel

Jeremy Kutner is general counsel at ProPublica, where he provides legal advice on the organization’s full range of activities, with emphasis on its newsroom. He has litigated cases involving libel, freedom of information laws, subpoenas seeking testimony from reporters about sources, and access to sealed documents. Prior to joining ProPublica as deputy general counsel in 2018, Kutner practiced media law at Ballard Spahr (formerly Levine, Sullivan, Koch & Schulz), and was a First Amendment Fellow at The New York Times.

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Stephanie Little, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer

Stephanie Little oversees all financial activities for the organization, including financial planning, management and analysis. She also directs human resources policy and benefits administration and brings experience in nonprofit management to the role. Prior to joining ProPublica in March 2016, as Director of Finance and Human Resources, her career has spanned such prestigious organizations as The Metropolitan Opera and The New York Times. She holds an MBA in Finance and Media Studies from Fordham University and was named a 92Y Women in Power Fellow in 2018.

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Ragan Rhyne, Chief Development Officer

Ragan Rhyne is ProPublica's chief development officer. With more than 15 years of nonprofit executive experience, Rhyne has effectively developed programs and built relationships for global, national and regional institutions. She most recently served as senior director of development and strategic programming for the International Center of Photography, where she steered organizational and fundraising strategy, managed a portfolio of major donors, and directed special events.

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Alexandra Zayas, Deputy Managing Editor

Alexandra Zayas is a deputy managing editor at ProPublica, running a team of reporters and overseeing senior editors of its global public health and visual storytelling teams. Stories she edited have won two National Magazine Awards, two George Polk Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. As an investigative reporter, she won the Selden Ring and Livingston awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

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Sarah Blustain, Assistant Managing Editor

Sarah Blustain is an assistant managing editor with ProPublica. In this role, she helps oversee ProPublica’s local journalism initiatives, including its Local Reporting Network, its joint initiative with The Texas Tribune, the addition of offices in the South and the Southwest and the expansion of its presence in the Midwest.

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Talia Buford, Assistant Managing Editor

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Alison Fitzgerald Kodjak, Assistant Managing Editor

Alison Fitzgerald Kodjak is an assistant managing editor on ProPublica’s national staff, overseeing a team of reporters and senior editors across the country.

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Diego Sorbara, Assistant Managing Editor

Diego Sorbara is an assistant managing editor at ProPublica. He helps ensure the consistency and quality of the newsroom’s work. Sorbara joined ProPublica in 2018 as the newsroom’s first standards editor after 10 years at The New York Times.

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