She started her journalism career at community newspapers in Oregon and California before going on to graduate school at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. From 2010 to 2016 she worked as a metro staff reporter with the Los Angeles Times, where she reported on local politics, nuclear power, and the intersection between the criminal justice and mental health systems and was part of the team that covered municipal corruption in Bell and the cities of southeast Los Angeles County, leading to the Times’ Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2011.