COLLEGE PARK — Sean Mussenden, principal lecturer at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, has been named director of the college's award-winning Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, Dean Rafael Lorente announced Wednesday.
Mussenden had been interim director since founding director Kathy Best retired in January.
“Sean Mussenden is a leading journalism innovator, talented editor and exceptional teacher — without whom the Howard Center would not have developed into the investigative powerhouse it is today,” Lorente said. “Sean is exactly who we need to take the center forward and I’m ecstatic he will be leading our students to produce difference-making, data-fueled journalism into the future.”
The Howard Center is Merrill College’s student-powered, data-driven investigative reporting unit — funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation — that has won many of the nation’s top professional journalism awards and was named a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting.
Mussenden, a 2000 Merrill College master’s alum, was previously the center’s founding data editor and has been instrumental in positioning the center as a national leader in experiential journalism education and journalism innovation.
For nearly two decades, Mussenden has worked with early career journalism students, faculty colleagues and professional news organization partners to produce data-driven investigations that affect change. To complement this work, he does research into the design and development of innovative software tools that use artificial intelligence to help reporters find and make sense of information.
"Thanks to Kathy's leadership and the Scripps Howard Foundation's support, the Howard Center has a remarkable foundation from which to grow," Mussenden said. "Working closely with our amazing students, faculty and staff, the center will continue to innovate new investigative reporting methods, expand our ability to reach new audiences and position our students for successful careers as the leading journalists of tomorrow."
Mussenden specializes in the use of data science methods, computational techniques and AI as part of the investigative reporting process. Under the direction of Mussenden and his colleagues, student journalists have produced more than a dozen in-depth reporting projects with journalists from The Associated Press, NPR, The Washington Post, FRONTLINE (PBS), PBS NewsHour, USA Today, Kaiser Health News and others.
Mussenden’s investigative data work with students, faculty colleagues and professional partners has consistently led to positive change in important areas of public policy. These include deaths in police custody, climate change, homelessness, inequities in state lotteries, worker safety, food safety, human trafficking, health inequity, nursing homes, the criminal justice system, lynchings, evictions and juvenile justice.
Working alongside the AP global investigations team and FRONTLINE documentary producers to investigate deaths in police custody, he led a dozen Howard Center student data journalists in a computational analysis of 200,000 pages of digital documents — obtained through nearly 7,000 distinct public records requests — that produced key investigative findings for multiple stories. His student team also built custom software tools to allow reporters from AP, FRONTLINE and the Howard Center to more easily surface relevant facts from the repository of digital documents.
The project — "Lethal Restraint" — was honored as a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting, won three other major national journalism awards and earned two news/documentary Emmy nominations.
As a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland’s College of Information, he conducts research at the intersection of data science, AI and journalism. That research feeds into his work with local news organizations to build AI-powered technological tools that help reporters identify newsworthy civic information more efficiently.
“Sean Mussenden is the right person at the right time to lead the Howard Center to new heights,” Best said. “He will teach students to use cutting-edge skills like open-source intelligence and AI in their investigations, layering those techniques on top of data acquisition and analysis to identify important national stories others have missed.
“Students lucky enough to work with Sean will leave the Howard Center prepared to produce investigations that make a difference. I couldn’t be more thrilled by this decision.”
Mussenden joined the Merrill College faculty in 2009. He ran the Capital News Service data and graphics bureau until 2019, when he helped found the Howard Center. He has taught courses in data journalism, computational journalism, investigative reporting and AI.
Prior to joining Merrill College, he worked as a local government reporter, state government reporter and Washington correspondent for the Orlando Sentinel and Media General News Service, specializing in the use of data analysis as part of the investigative reporting process. He started his journalism career at The (Annapolis) Capital, his hometown newspaper.
He has a bachelor’s degree in history and public policy from St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a master’s degree in journalism from Merrill College, and a master’s degree in information science from the University of Maryland's College of Information.
He lives in University Park, Maryland, with his wife and twin toddlers.
For more information, contact:
Josh Land, Communications Manager
joshland@umd.edu