A familiar face and specialist in data-driven journalism takes on a new faculty role.
Lam Thuy Vo, who has taught for more than seven years at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, is stepping into a new role as an associate professor of data journalism. She will continue to serve as the school’s data journalist in residence until she assumes her full-time faculty position in the Fall 2023 semester.
“We are delighted to welcome Lam Thuy Vo in a more permanent capacity at the Newmark J-School. In the few years she’s been teaching with us, she’s become a beloved professor and member of our faculty. She brings with her the excellence, the belief in journalism as public service, and the sensibility that our school is known for,” said Dean Graciela Mochkofsky.
Vo is also starting a new job on March 1 as a reporter for The Markup, a non-profit newsroom that specializes in data-driven investigations of technology and how it influences society.
A leading figure in journalism, she has won and been nominated for more than 30 accolades as a storyteller. Her substantial achievements in the field have been recognized by the Overseas Press Club, the Online News Association, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and the Poynter Institute.
Before she came to Newmark J-School to further develop the data journalism curriculum alongside department head Professor Sandeep Junnarkar, she reported for The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera America, and NPR’s Planet Money, telling economic and political stories across the U.S. and throughout Asia.
“The Newmark J-School was among the first journalism schools to offer ground-breaking and sophisticated data courses that tapped artificial intelligence and machine learning in the service of journalism,” said Junnarkar, director of the Data Journalism Program. “I’m excited to have Lam as a collaborator in helping to continue pushing our curriculum in innovative new directions – always with an eye toward uncovering racial disparity and inequality.”
As an educator, Vo has had widespread influence. She has brought her research about misinformation and the impact of algorithms on our political views to institutions like Harvard, Georgetown, MIT, Columbia, and Data and Society. She has also done long-form work as a Brown University Information Futures Lab Fellow, an Open Society Soros Justice Fellow, an AI Accountability Fellow for the Pulitzer Center, and as a Type Investigations Ida B. Wells Fellow.
Throughout her career, she has been a fierce advocate for diversifying the industry. Her commitment to inclusion and bringing new voices and perspectives to newsrooms has led her to create resources for journalists of color and co-administer a community where they can find support.
When asked about her top priorities in this new role, Vo said, “I cannot wait to wreak some havoc with my data students. I truly love working with my students, not just teaching them. Whether it’s unlocking important datasets through public records requests or whether it’s finding stories in New York that serve its diverse population — I’m so excited to see what we can tackle together.”
Vo graduated with honors from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism with a major in New Media and has a degree in German with Italian Studies from University College London. She is the author of “Mining Social Media,” a book about her empirical approach to finding stories in data from the Internet.