COLLEGE PARK — Sean Mussenden, principal lecturer at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism and data editor at the award-winning UMD Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, has been named the Howard Center’s interim director, Dean Rafael Lorente announced Wednesday.
The Howard Center is Merrill College’s student-powered, data-driven investigative reporting unit — funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation — that has won some 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, succeeds founding director Kathy Best, who retires in January. As the Howard Center’s founding data editor, Mussenden was 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.
“Sean Mussenden is an innovative, difference-making editor who teamed with Kathy Best and Deb Nelson to help Merrill College set a new national standard for student-produced investigative journalism,” Lorente said. “Sean’s unique skill set, experience and vision for journalism make him the ideal candidate to continue the Howard Center’s momentum and take it to the next level.”
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.
“Under Kathy Best’s leadership, the Howard Center demonstrated that, with the right guidance, students are capable of producing Pulitzer-quality, data-driven investigations in partnership with leading news organizations,” Mussenden said. “As interim director, I hope to build on the strong foundation that Kathy, with the support of the Scripps Howard Foundation, led us in establishing over the past six years, while continuing to challenge students to thoughtfully apply AI and other frontier technologies to the investigative reporting process.”
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.
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.
“Sean Mussenden will be great in this role,” Best said. “He is a master at finding stories that others haven't told that powerfully illustrate the country's economic and racial disparities. His ideas, data work and editing were responsible for Howard Center projects that have had lasting impact, including projects on the disproportionate economic impact of state lotteries and climate change on the poor.
“I know I am leaving the Howard Center in incredibly capable hands.”
For more information, contact:
Josh Land, Communications Manager
joshland@umd.edu