Our Staff

Susan Smith Richardson
CEO
@susaneudora
ssmithrichardson@publicintegrity.org

Susan Smith Richardson is the Chief Executive Officer for the Center for Public Integrity. She was previously the editorial director of Newsroom Practice Change at Solutions Journalism Network, a New York-based nonprofit that seeks to increase civic engagement and strengthen democracy. Read More

Jim Morris
Executive Editor
@JimGMorris
jmorris@publicintegrity.org

Jim Morris is the executive editor of  the Center for Public Integrity. A journalist since 1978 and former managing editor for the Center’s environment and workers’ rights team, Morris has won more than 80 awards for his work, including the George Polk award, the Sidney Hillman award, three National Association of Science Writers awards, two Edward R. Murrow awards and five Texas Headliners awards. Read More

Mei Fong
Director of Communications and Strategy
@mfongwriter
mfong@publicintegrity.org

Mei Fong joined the Center in 2019. As a Wall Street Journal China correspondent, she won multiple awards, including a shared Pulitzer for international reporting. Her first book, on China’s one-child policy, was critically acclaimed and winner of a non-fiction award by the American Society of Journalists and Authors. When tightening censorship led to a scrapping of a Chinese edition of her book, Fong released a free digital version in Chinese, paying for it through an innovative crowd-funding initiative. Her efforts led to her being named a Top 50 influencer on U.S.-China relations by Foreign Policy magazine. Read More

Dorothy Betts
Executive Assistant
dbetts@publicintegrity.org

With 35 years of administrative experience, calm demeanor and excellent judgment, Betts is an integral part of the Center’s operations. Her previous role at the Management Assistance Group included overseeing MAG’s day-to-day financial operations, managing payroll and accounts payable, maintaining consulting files and liaising with clients. Read More

Jared Bennett
Business Reporter
@jaredtbennett
jbennett@publicintegrity.org

Jared Bennett is the Center’s business reporter. Previously at the Center he worked as digital editor and reporter. Read More

Susan Ferriss
Immigration Project Manager
@susanferriss
sferriss@publicintegrity.org

Susan Ferriss is a prize-winning former foreign correspondent who has been investigating treatment of children by the U.S. justice and immigration system, law enforcement and the school-discipline process. Read More

Zachary Fryer-Biggs
National Security Reporter
@zachFB
zbiggs@publicintegrity.org

Zach joined the Center for Public Integrity in 2018 as a national security reporter. Since 2011, Zach has covered national security and intelligence, reporting from the Pentagon and internationally most recently for Newsweek where he wrote for both the publication’s print magazine and website. Read More

Kristian Hernández
State Politics Reporter
@kristianreports
khernandez@publicintegrity.org

Kristian Hernández joined the Center in 2017 as the American University Fellow working with the Consider the Source state politics team. Before joining the Center, he worked for The Monitor newspaper in McAllen, Texas, where he covered crime and immigration. Read More

Allan Holmes
Business of Politics Project Manager
@ATHolmes
aholmes@publicintegrity.org

Allan Holmes heads up business and finance reporting at the Center and is currently working on a project about the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. He previously reported on broadband and internet governance. Read More

Jamie Smith Hopkins
Environment Editor and Senior Reporter
@jsmithhopkins
jhopkins@publicintegrity.org

Jamie Smith Hopkins heads up and reports for the Center for Public Integrity’s environment team. Her work includes “America’s Super Polluters” — which revealed that facilities pumping out the largest amounts of toxic air pollution are frequently also the biggest emitters of climate-warming greenhouse gases — and an investigation of government inaction that allowed a decades-long string of deaths from widely available paint removers to continue unabated. Read More

Sameea Kamal
Digital Editor
@sameeakamal
skamal@publicintegrity.org

Sameea Kamal is the digital editor at the Center for Public Integrity. She joined the Center in November 2017. She previously worked on the digital team at the Los Angeles Times, serving as the politics bureau liaison.  Read More

Rui Kaneya
State Politics Reporter
@ruikaneya
rkaneya@publicintegrity.org

Rui Kaneya is a reporter on the Center for Public Integrity’s state politics team. Before joining the Center in 2018, he was an investigative reporter for Honolulu Civil Beat, covering criminal justice, immigration and other social justice issues. Read More

Sarah Kleiner
Federal Politics Reporter
@sarahkleiner9 
skleiner@publicintegrity.org

Sarah Kleiner joined the Center for Public Integrity’s federal politics team in 2017. During her 13-year journalism career, Kleiner has reported on a range of topics: state politics, city government, education, mental health, criminal justice, real estate and financial services. Read More 

Rachel Leven
Environment Reporter
@rachelpleven
rleven@publicintegrity.org

Rachel Leven joined the Center for Public Integrity in 2017 to report for its environment and labor team. Before that, she worked for Bloomberg BNA’s environment desk covering issues from pipeline safety to environmental justice. Read More

Carrie Levine
Deputy Federal Politics Editor and Senior Reporter
@levinecarrie
clevine@publicintegrity.org

Carrie Levine joined the Center for Public Integrity in October 2014 as a federal politics reporter investigating the influence of money in politics. For four years before joining the Center, she worked as research director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, where she managed a five-person staff that exposed the activities of politically active “dark money” nonprofits and uncovered instances of congressional self-dealing. Read More

Dave Levinthal
Federal Politics Editor and Senior Reporter
@davelevinthal
dlevinthal@publicintegrity.org

Dave Levinthal joined the Center for Public Integrity in 2013 and leads its federal politics reporting team. Under Dave’s direction, the Center’spolitical coverage has earned numerous honors, including two 2018 Edward R. Murrow Awards, a 2018 Editor & Publisher EPPY Award and two 2017 National Headliner Awards.  Read More

Patrick Malone
National Security Reporter
@pmalonedc
pmalone@publicintegrity.org

Patrick Malone joined the Center for Public Integrity in May 2015 to cover national security. He spent 20 years reporting on justice, politics and deep investigations for newspapers in Colorado and New Mexico, most recently at The Santa Fe New Mexican. Read More 

Marcia Maziarz
Chief Development Officer
mmaziarz@publicintegrity.org

Marcia joined the Center in May 2016 as Director of Foundations and oversees its foundation portfolio, including prospect research and management, proposal writing, and grant reporting.  An editor and writer, she has more than 20 years of development and fundraising experience. Read More

Kristen Holmes
Grants Accountant

Kristen Holmes joined the Center in 2019 as the grants accountant on the development team. Holmes brings a wealth of accounting experience from her 14 years at The Washington Post Company, where she oversaw budgets for several Post-targeted products, including, the Washington Post Magazine and El Tiempo Latino, previously the Post’s Spanish language weekly publication.

Abeo Venzor
Senior Manager, Membership/Development Operations
@AbeoEncouraged
avenzor@publicintegrity.org

Abeo joined the Center in September 2015 as the Development Database Administrator, and was soon promoted to the position of Senior Manager, Membership/Development Operations. Read More

Pratheek Rebala
News Developer
@pratheekrebala
prebala@publicintegrity.org

News developer Pratheek Rebala spent three and a half years as an interactive graphics intern in the D.C. bureau of Time magazine while simultaneously completing a degree in international affairs at George Washington University. Read More

Peter Newbatt Smith
Research Editor
psmith@publicintegrity.org

Before coming to the Center, Peter Smith was employed as a law clerk at the firm of Gaffney & Schember, P.C., in Washington, D.C. He received his bachelor’s degree in medieval European history from Harvard University and his law degree from American University. Read More

R. Jeffrey Smith
Managing Editor, National Security
@rjsmithcpi
jsmith@publicintegrity.org

Smith worked for 25 years in a series of key reporting and editorial roles at The Washington Post, including national investigative editor, national security correspondent, national investigative correspondent, and a foreign staff bureau chief based in Rome. In 2006, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, along with two colleagues at the Post, for articles on House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Read More

Kristine Villanueva
Audience Engagement Editor

Kristine Villanueva is the Center’s audience engagement editor. Before that, she was an audience engagement fellow at POLITICO, where she launched a crowdsourced project on marijuana policy. She holds a B.A from Rutgers University-Newark, and an M.A in social journalism from the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism. Read More

Joe Wertz
Environment and Labor reporter
@jwertz 
jwertz@publicintegrity.org

Joe Wertz joined the Center for Public Integrity’s environment and labor team in 2019. He previously worked as a managing editor and senior reporter at StateImpact Oklahoma, a journalism collaboration of public radio stations in Oklahoma, where he covered environment and energy for NPR audiences and other national outlets. Read More

Liz Essley Whyte
State Politics Reporter
@l_e_whyte 
lwhyte@publicintegrity.org

Liz Essley Whyte is a reporter for the Consider the Source state politics team, where her investigative work has won awards from the National Press Club, Editor & Publisher, the Association of Health Care Journalists and more. Read More

Joe Yerardi
Data Reporter
@JoeYerardi
jyerardi@publicintegrity.org

Joe Yerardi is a data reporter at the Center for Public Integrity, reporting on a broad range of topics. In this role, he combines traditional reporting techniques with data analysis, visualization and programming to tell investigative stories. Read More

Jie Jenny Zou
Environment Reporter
@jiejennyzou
jzou@publicintegrity.org

Jie Jenny Zou has been an investigative reporter with the Center’s award-winning environment and workers’ rights team since 2015. Her work includes deep dives on the influence of the fossil-fuel industry, as well as scientific integrity and conflicts of interest. Read More

Chris Zubak-Skees
Data Editor
@zubakskees
czubakskees@publicintegrity.org

Data editor Chris Zubak-Skees is a computational journalist who works at the intersection of media, technology and design. Projects he contributed to have won Loeb, Goldsmith and Philip Meyer awards, as well as a bronze at Malofiej. Read More

American University Fellow

Mark Olalde
@markolalde
molalde@publicintegrity.org

Mark Olalde is the 2018 American University Fellow and is working with the state politics team. He spent the past several years as a freelance journalist, most recently reporting on the underfunding of coal mine cleanup across the U.S. on a McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism. Read More

James R. Soles Fellow

Alex Eichenstein
aeichenstein@publicintegrity.org

Alex Eichenstein is the 2019 James R. Soles Fellow and is working with the communications team. She graduated from the University of Delaware in June with an Honors degree in English, women and gender studies, and political science. Read More