Our Mission: The Medill Investigative Lab probes power brokers and programs that promise to provide a safety net to tens of millions of vulnerable Americans. Through real-time, on-the-ground reporting in Chicago and beyond, students learn to think, research and write like an investigative reporter, producing groundbreaking social justice stories from the ground up.
Our Team: Undergraduate and graduate students at Medill apply to take part in the lab and spend two terms — one in Evanston or Chicago and one in Washington, D.C. — working side-by-side with veteran journalists on an investigation of national or international importance. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Debbie Cenziper, a writer at ProPublica and director of investigative journalism at Medill, oversees the lab. Students at MIL have worked on investigations that have received a series of national journalism awards, including the George Polk Award and the Overseas Press Club Malcolm Forbes Award for best international business news reporting.
Our Classes: The lab complements a lineup of undergraduate and graduate classes at Medill that include Introduction to Investigative Reporting, Local Reporting, Multi-Media Storytelling, Magazine Reporting and Data Journalism. Medill’s classes are taught by top professors who are experts in their fields.