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Kaitlin Washburn is a general assignment reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times where she often covers health. She previously freelanced for the newsroom. She also does part-time work for the Association of Health Care Journalists. She was a gun violence reporter for two years in Missouri for The Kansas City Star, where she also received statewide awards for reporting. Previously, Washburn was an agriculture reporter covering the omnipresent industry in California’s Central Valley for The Sun-Gazette. In 2019, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She also earned a minor in Spanish. At MU, her emphasis was in investigative reporting, and she spent three years as a researcher for Investigative Reporters and Editors.
Washburn’s Fellowship project aims to determine how many people are chronically sick or dying in Illinois detention facilities, who they are, and how the state manages their care. Incarcerated people deal with chronic, debilitating and terminal illnesses in the state’s jails and prisons, yet their conditions are often under-diagnosed, poorly managed or outright neglected.