New Drug Lowers Cortisol in Cushing's Disease Patients

Journal of Young Investigators, July 2020
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This article discusses the physiology of Cushing's disease and the FDA approval of Isturisa, a drug designed to treat it.

The death of Danny Lee Winstead: a Duke public safety shooting and its aftermath

The Chronicle at Duke University, Jan. 25, 2021
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In summer 2020, the Duke Black Coalition Against Policing issued a list of demands regarding the Duke University Police Department. This sparked The Chronicle to review previous incidents in which DUPD used lethal force, including the 1982 shooting death of Danny Winstead. I reviewed The Chronicle's previous coverage of the incident, coverage in other Durham news outlets, and records from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. I also reached out to Winstead's family members.

This story received an honorable mention in the Feature Story category in the spring 2021 Associated Collegiate Press Clips & Clicks awards, which honored work published in that semester. The full DUPD series (consisting of this story and other stories by Chris Kuo, Mona Tong, and Matthew Griffin) received the 2022 Frank Barrows Student Excellence in Journalism award from the North Carolina Open Government Coalition for our use of public records.

One year after $40 million Juul settlement, how much has North Carolina spent?

The Charlotte Observer, July 6, 2022
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In 2021, the state of North Carolina entered a settlement with Juul Labs, Inc. following a lawsuit over its impact on minors. That settlement involved years of scheduled payments to the state to be used for vaping cessation efforts. For this story, I followed up on whether the state had been receiving its payments, how that money was being used, and whether other provisions of the settlement were being met. Reporting primarily relied on interviews, the state's biennial budget, state finance data, and settlement documents.

This article was also published in The News & Observer and the Herald-Sun.

Health insurers publish provider directories for patient use. But are they accurate?

The Charlotte Observer, Aug. 4, 2022
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I learned about ghost networks through my health policy studies, and as an investigative intern with McClatchy I sought to understand the extent of the problem in North Carolina. For this story, I manually verified about 50 listings in Blue Cross and Blue Shield's directory; spoke with the insurance company, researchers, providers and residents; and reviewed complaints from the N.C. Department of Insurance.

A follow-up story highlighting a resident's efforts to locate an urgent care facility that accepted his insurance was published Aug. 15, 2022. See my research page to see the poster I presented at the 2022 Duke-Margolis retreat on this story's findings.

This article was also published in The News & Observer and the Herald-Sun. A portion of the article was included in the NC Insider newsletter. I presented the findings from this story at the 2022 Duke-Margolis fall student and staff retreat.

Shootings can have lasting effects on youth. What's being done to help in Mecklenburg?

The Charlotte Observer, March 31, 2023
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This story was part of a ReImagine series on the impact of gun violence on Charlotte youth. I interviewed psychologists on the emotional toll of violence, as well as people involved with the Mecklenburg County Child Development-Community Policing program, a partnership between social workers and law enforcement that aims to intervene when children witness a traumatic event.

Charlotte’s gun violence toll since 2021: At least 73 kids, teens shot; 33 were killed

The Charlotte Observer, March 31, 2023
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In the early stages of The Observer's ReImagine series on the impact of gun violence on Charlotte youth, I began compiling a spreadsheet of incidents in which minors were shot using news reports, the national Gun Violence Archive, and Charlotte open data. What was intended to be an internal resource for the reporting team eventually became its own story, especially because of the challenges in identifying non-fatal shootings.

A journey through four years worth of food points

The Chronicle at Duke University, March 30, 2023
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In my first year at Duke, I began scraping transaction data from my student account to analyze patterns in how I spent my food points (Duke's dining dollars). By senior spring, I had enough data to write a narrative on how my spending habits changed over the years.

This story received an honorable mention in the Multimedia Story of the Year category in the 2023 Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker Awards.

Building an interactive graphic for teacher salaries

Chalkbeat, Aug. 14, 2023
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In this contribution to the Chalkbeat Data Team blog, I explain how I developed a graphic that accepted user input and queried a Google Sheet containing updated salary bands for Memphis teachers.

The Many Lives of Alexandria Forbes

BioSpace, Oct. 12, 2023
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I profiled Alexandria "Zandy" Forbes, the CEO of MeiraGTx. This profile highlights where her interest in science began and how she went from academia to finance to heading a gene therapy company.

J&J’s Christopher Whelan on How—and Why—13 Companies Teamed up to Tackle Proteomics

BioSpace, Oct. 18, 2023
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This article describes the Pharma Proteomics Project - a partnership between pharmaceutical companies and the UK BioBank - which aims to build out researchers' knowledge of the human proteome, or all protein configurations. Christopher Whelan of Johnson & Johnson was one of the project leaders.

Navigating My Care in a Pandemic

Duke Center for Global Women's Health Technologies Blog, Oct. 21, 2020
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In May 2020, I had an excisional biopsy for a five-centimeter breast tumor. Although the tumor ended up being benign, the experience was an eye-opener; both for my knowledge about breast health and how care delivery can easily be disrupted. This essay describes that experience.

This essay was featured in GWHT's Summer of Storytelling Exhibit.

We Need More Awareness and Research on Benign Breast Conditions

Ms. Magazine, July 11, 2023
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A follow-up to Navigating My Care in a Pandemic, this essay describes what I've come to learn about benign breast disease in the years since my first tumor - and what researchers still don't know. This piece features interviews and data from the U.S. Medical Expenditures Panel Survey.