COLLEGE PARK — Deborah Nelson, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, has been named the recipient of UMD’s 2025 Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize.
The award recognizes a faculty member for a highly significant work of research, scholarship or artistic creativity completed within the recent past, and provides a $5,000 stipend to the winner. Nelson is the first Merrill College faculty member to earn the Kirwan Prize.
“The Kirwan Prize for 2025 recognizes your nationally acclaimed, high-impact journalistic scholarship that tackles some of the world's most pressing challenges, including climate change, pandemics and food insecurity,” UMD President Darryll Pines wrote in his announcement letter. “The committee highlighted the real-world impact of your work, widely used by NGOs and policymakers, and commended your interdisciplinary, data-driven approach, describing you as a transformational leader in investigative journalism.”
Nelson, who won one Pulitzer as a reporter and was an editor on two Pulitzer-winning projects, joined the Merrill College faculty in 2006 after five years as the Washington investigations editor for the Los Angeles Times. Before that, she reported for The Washington Post, The Seattle Times and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Since joining Merrill College, she has co-authored investigations for Reuters that examined income inequality, climate change, hunger hotspots, antibiotic resistance and military housing conditions. The articles won national awards, including from the National Academies of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, White House Correspondents' Association, National Press Club, Online News Association and Society of Professional Journalists.
Most recently, Nelson was part of teams behind two award-winning Reuters investigations — “The Bat Lands” (2023) and “The Starving World” (2024). “The Bat Lands” explores how destruction of wildlife habitats worldwide could lead to future global health crises. “The Starving World” investigates global hunger crises and the failures of the response to famine.
Her critically acclaimed book, “The War Behind Me,” documents the coverup of U.S. war crimes in Vietnam and profiles the soldiers who tried to stop the atrocities.
Under her guidance, students in her investigative reporting course have produced their own award-winning work for Capital News Service and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. Recent projects on deaths by police using supposedly “non-lethal” force, rail safety, congressional travel spending, the pandemic, housing insecurity, jail suicides and plea-bargaining abuses appeared on news sites nationwide.
The Howard Centers’ investigation into police tactics, “Lethal Restraint” — done in collaboration with The Associated Press and FRONTLINE (PBS) — was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting and won the Edward R. Murrow Award for news series.
"The Kirwan Prize is an incredible honor," Nelson said. "The body of work being recognized involved international teams of reporters, computational journalists, photojournalists, graphic designers and editors at Reuters as well as scientists from a wide range of disciplines. It’s also the kind of data-driven, multidisciplinary journalism that our students are learning and doing so they can take on the increasingly complex grand challenges facing the world. I’m so grateful to be at a university that values this work."
Nelson is the first non-Ph.D. to win the Kirwan Prize.
“Done right, journalism practice is research, and Deborah Nelson only knows how to do journalism the right way,” Merrill College Dean Rafael Lorente said. “We are lucky to have her educating our students and showing them what it takes to produce investigative journalism that makes a difference. It is impressive that she pairs her work at the college with internationally renowned journalism worthy of the industry’s highest honors. She deserves the Kirwan Prize — to be recognized among the University of Maryland’s most accomplished researchers.”
For more information, contact:
Josh Land, Communications Manager
joshland@umd.edu