About the Howard Center

Our Mission

The Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University is a ground-breaking, hands-on experience in which students learn how to produce deeply researched watchdog journalism that professional partners want to share with their audiences. The Howard Center is based at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and is supported by a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. Through the training and education it provides and the projects it produces, the Howard Center is developing the next generation of investigative reporters.

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Howard Center Leadership

Mark Greenblatt

Executive Editor, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism and Professor of Practice

Greenblatt is a three-time Peabody award-winner who teaches how to report and collaborate on high-impact multimedia investigations. Prior to joining the Cronkite School he worked as senior national investigative correspondent in Washington D.C. for Scripps News, where for more than a decade he led investigations and mentored early-career journalists.  Greenblatt’s reports have earned the duPont-Columbia Award, the I.R.E. Medal, the Livingston Award, multiple national Edward R. Murrow Awards, two Sigma Delta Chi Awards, the national Emmy for investigative reporting and he has twice been named a finalist for Harvard’s Goldsmith Prize (and has served on its five-member jury).  He currently serves as the elected Treasurer and member of the Board of Directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), the world’s leading investigative journalism training organization.

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Lauren Mucciolo

Executive Producer, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism and Professor of Practice

Mucciolo is the executive producer of the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, where she oversees multimedia production and edits investigations. She has been teaching visual storytelling and investigative reporting at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2019. She has made more than a dozen broadcast and digital documentary films for PBS Frontline, many of which are co-productions with British broadcasters that have aired on Channel 4 and BBC’s Panorama and Storyville series. Mucciolo is a seven-time Emmy nominee whose work has won two Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, an ONA award for storytelling innovation, a SXSW Jury Prize and a Best Director prize from the Royal Television Society, among other honors.

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Additional Howard Center Faculty and Advisors

Leonard Downie, Jr.

Weil Family Professor of Journalism

Downie is the former executive editor of The Washington Post. Downie led the newspaper to more Pulitzer Prizes than any other editor in history. A founding member of Investigative Reporters & Editors, he specialized in investigative reporting throughout his career and teaches Cronkite courses on accountability journalism.

Angela Hill

Ida B. Wells Professor of Journalism

Hill joined the Cronkite School in 2024. Her work for ABC News Network, Scripps News Washington Bureau and the Washington Post led to groundbreaking stories and recognition. Hill has received numerous awards for her work, including multiple Emmys and Peabodys, a George Polk, an Edward R. Murrow and the Robert F. Kennedy Grand Prize. In May 2024, she part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for the Washington Post investigative series “American Icon.”

Shelby Grossman

Professor of Practice

Shelby joined the Howard Center at ASU in 2025. Previously she was a Research Scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory and Stanford Cyber Policy Center and co-editor of the Journal of Online Trust and Safety. Her primary research interests are in AI and trust and safety, online child safety, and online political disinformation.

Steve Doig

Professor in Data Journalism

Doig was the founding Knight Chair in Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication. His research focuses on print and online journalism, diversity in newsrooms, demographics, and the use of social science methods in journalism. Before joining ASU in 1996, Doig was an associate editor of the Miami Herald. Projects on which he worked at The Herald and at ASU have won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, the IRE Award, the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the George Polk Award for Medical Reporting, and other awards.

Maud Beelman

Collaborations Editor and Founding Director, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Beelman was the founding executive editor of the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism from January 2019 to mid 2023. She is the former U.S. Investigations Editor for The Associated Press and was the founding director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Beelman also directed investigations at The Dallas Morning News for 10 years and served as a domestic, foreign and war correspondent for AP. She has received numerous awards over a nearly four-decade career, including the George Polk, Investigative Reporters & Editors, Society of Professional Journalists and Online Journalism Awards.

Evan Wyloge

Professor of Practice and Data Editor

Wyloge earned his master’s degree at Cronkite and previously served as an instructor and data editor for the News21 national investigative reporting initiative. He brings deep data reporting experience in Arizona, including at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. Wyloge is drawn to experimentation and civic innovation and has developed public-facing news tools such as the Arizona Dark Money Bot and QuizTheVote. His reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Center for Public Integrity, and The Guardian US, where his work revealed how Arizona’s 2021 redistricting diluted Native American voting power.

Gregg Leslie

Executive Director, First Amendment Clinic, ASU College of Law, and Professor of Practice, Cronkite School of Journalism

Leslie was previously a staff attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit association that provides legal assistance to journalists, and served as the organization’s legal defense director for 17 years. Leslie serves on the governing committee of the Communications Law Forum of the American Bar Association.

Battinto Batts Jr.

Dean, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Battinto L. Batts Jr. is the dean, a professor and an award-winning journalist and educator with deep experience in philanthropy and nonprofit administration. He previously served as director of journalism strategies for the Scripps Howard Foundation in Cincinnati, Ohio, where his support for investigative reporting’s future helped lead to the creation of the Howard Center.

Howard Center for Investigative Journalism ASU Advisory Board

Board Members

Mark Greenblatt

Executive Editor, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Lauren Mucciolo

Executive Producer, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Talia Buford

Assistant Managing Editor, ProPublica

Mike Canan

Director of Journalism Strategies, Scripps Howard Fund

Meredith Delaney

President and CEO, Scripps Howard Fund

Leonard Downie Jr.

Weil Family Professor in Journalism and Former Executive Editor of The Washington Post

Brian Lawlor

President, Scripps Sports

Gregg Leslie

Executive Director, First Amendment Clinic, ASU College of Law

Ron Nixon

Director, Associated Press Local Investigative Reporting Program

Kate O'Brian

President of News, The E.W. Scripps Company

Roy Perkins

Communications and Public Affairs Specialist

Ex Officio Members

Battinto Batts

Dean, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Maud Beelman

Collaborations Editor, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Rebecca Blatt

Senior Associate Dean, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Jake Howard-Potter

Artist

Pam Howard

Emeritus Board Member, Scripps Howard Fund

The Scripps Howard Foundation supports philanthropic causes important to The E.W. Scripps Company and the communities it serves, with a special emphasis on excellence in journalism. The Foundation has granted millions of dollars to Arizona State University and the University of Maryland to establish the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism at their respective journalism schools.

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