
Michelle Levander
Editor and Founding Director
Editor and Founding Director
Michelle Levander is the founding director of the Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism. Since she launched the Center in 2004, the professional journalists who have participated in its journalism fellowships have published more than 4,200 major investigative and explanatory articles in partnership with the Center as well as multi-outlet collaborations. Those journalism projects have won top journalism honors, changed laws, reinvigorated policy discussions, and provoked new community discussions across the nation. Under her leadership, the Center has launched initiatives that nurture collaborative reporting and engagement, building an interdisciplinary community of practice. Among the Center programs she founded, its Data Fellowship, launched in 2015, equips reporters to do their own data analysis to report investigative and explanatory stories on health and health disparities. Its engagement initiative helps reporters to build their reporting around community perspectives by relying on creative strategies to connect their voices to policy action. Levander launched the Center after more than 15 years as a staff reporter and editor in New York, California, Hong Kong, and Mexico, working for Time Magazine Asia, the Asian Wall Street Journal and the San Jose Mercury News. She has received journalism awards from the Overseas Press Club of America (Best Reporting in Latin America), the Inter American Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists L.A. (Distinguished Work in New Media) as well as a Northern California Co-Producer Emmy Award (Spanish-language Outstanding Achievement Health Journalism). A former Inter American Press Association fellow, she spent a year in Mexico, at El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City and Michoacán, researching migrant culture from rural Mexico. She has a bachelor’s degree in history and literature from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
The USC Center for Health Journalism welcomes 24 journalists from around the nation to its National Fellowships and awards them reporting grants of $2,000 to $10,000.
At The Center for Health Journalism, we believe in the power of engagement to advance journalism. In fact, we could be accused of being evangelists on the topic.
The Center for Health Journalism will soon welcome 23 talented reporters from across the nation for our 2016 National Fellowship. Here's a look at this year's focus and the reporters who will be joining us.
Peggy Girshman, a visionary journalist beloved by many and a longtime friend of our center, died Monday. She was a gifted leader, generous mentor, and a funny, endearing presence to those lucky enough to work with her.
Next week, the Center for Health Journalism will host 21 reporters for our 2016 California Fellowship. Fellows and their newsrooms partner with our Center to produce ambitious projects on health topics. Here's a look at the talented crew that will be joining us.
This week, we announce the 11 Fellows who join us for our new California Data Fellowship, which will provide intensive mentoring on adding data reporting to journalists' toolkits.
We're happy to announce today that we have a new name and a new look. Our program is now known as the Center for Health Journalism, which better reflects our expanded range of programs and goals.
Twenty-one journalists from around the nation will receive reporting grants from the new Fund for Journalism on Child Well-Being, the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism and the National Health Journalism Fellowship.
Tomorrow evening, the Los Angeles Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists will be celebrating its distinguished journalists of the year, and we're honored to be receiving a nod from SPJ for Reporting on Health.
"Sure, I knew hundreds of residents died in homicides or were hurt and even disabled during assaults,” said McDaniels. "But I wondered if there was something deeper going on that needed to be explored.”