Team
Julia Angwin
Founder, Executive Director
Julia Angwin is an award-winning investigative journalist, a bestselling author, a New York Times contributing Opinion writer, and director of the Independent Media + Audience Project at the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.
At the newsroom she founded, The Markup, she codified the practice of publishing rigorous methodologies and the code and data used in the newsroom’s analyses, so that anyone could check or refute the conclusions.
Her landmark investigations into privacy at The Wall Street Journal pioneered the use of engineers to forensically examine digital surveillances. At ProPublica, she forged a new field of algorithmic accountability with investigations that revealed racial bias in criminal risk assessment algorithms and prompted several discrimination lawsuits against Facebook for its biased ad placement algorithms.
She is a winner and two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. She is also the author of the New York Times bestseller “Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance” (Times Books, 2014) and “Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America” (Random House, March 2009). She is the co-author of "On Courage: How to be a Dissident in an Age of Fear" scheduled to be published by Mariner Books in 2026.
She earned a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University.
Annie Gilbertson
Managing Editor
Annie Gilbertson leads Proof's projects and investigations. Annie was part of a pair of reporters that uncovered the major tech companies using material from unwitting YouTube creators to train AI models. At the nonprofit news organization The Markup, she was part of a team that won a national Murrow Award for their work exposing racial bias in predictive policing software. Her reporting on banned items on Amazon.com led the company to change its policy. Her work has appeared in WIRED, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and WNYC's "On the Media," among other outlets. She spent nearly a decade in public radio, where she reported on local education and law enforcement. To contact Annie, email annie@proofnews.org.
Rina Palta
Editor-at-Large
Rina is a senior data scientist at the Independent Media + Audience Project at the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Rina works on data journalism and special projects for Proof News. She previously worked as news editor at The Markup. Rina spent the majority of her career covering prisons, crime, and homelessness as an investigative reporter for KPCC in Los Angeles and KALW in San Francisco. She has masters degrees in journalism and data science from UC-Berkeley. Her work has been honored with an Edward R. Murrow Award and a Gerald Loeb Award.
Lauren Feeney
Executive Producer
Lauren oversees video production for Proof’s key projects. She has devoted her career to experimenting with new forms and new platforms for serious documentary and investigative video journalism, including many years as a senior digital producer for PBS and more recently as director of video for The Intercept. Lauren’s work has been featured on-air and online at PBS, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Intercept, among other publications, and has been honored with four Edward R. Murrow awards and an Emmy nomination among other distinctions. To contact Lauren, email lauren@proofnews.org.
Rebecca Plevin
Reporter
Rebecca Plevin reports on labor and artificial intelligence for Proof News. She brings nearly two decades of experience reporting on labor, power and equality, most recently as a reporter with the Los Angeles Times. She previously worked as an editor for the Fresno Bee, where she led the bilingual Central Valley News Collaborative. As an immigration reporter for the Desert Sun in Palm Springs, California, she and a colleague were recognized by the Overseas Press Club for their in-depth reporting on asylum seekers fleeing cartel violence in Mexico. She was a finalist for a Gerald Loeb Award for her audio reporting on the challenges of navigating the opaque world of health care costs for KPCC in Los Angeles. Rebecca graduated with a journalism degree from Northwestern University and reports in English and Spanish. To contact Rebecca, email rebecca@proofnews.org
Varsha Bansal
Reporter
Varsha Bansal reports on how technology is reshaping workers, communities, and society for Proof News. With over a decade of experience writing about tech, her work regularly appears in WIRED, The Guardian, Tech Policy Press, and more. Prior to going freelance, she worked with top Indian business dailies The Economic Times and Mint. Varsha was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University (2024-25) and has received multiple awards, including Freelance Journalist of the Year by One World Media and Outstanding Business Reporting by South Asian Journalists Association for her reporting on technology’s impact on Indian gig workers. She was also an inaugural AI Accountability Fellow with the Pulitzer Center in 2022. To contact Varsha, email Varsha@proofnews.org.
Advisory Board
Evelyn Larrubia
Member, Advisory Board
Evelyn Larrubia is an investigative editor and newsroom leader with more than two decades of experience producing and guiding high-impact accountability journalism. She most recently served as the Business and Tech Investigations Editor at The Washington Post, where she led complex investigations into corporate power, technology, and regulatory failure. Previously, she helped launch The Markup as Managing Editor, overseeing groundbreaking reporting on algorithmic bias, digital redlining, and self-dealing by major tech companies that led to regulatory action and congressional scrutiny. She has held leadership roles in nonprofit, public media, and legacy newsrooms and was a reporter for The Los Angeles Times earlier in her career. She was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University and has received numerous national journalism awards. As an advisory board member, she brings deep experience in investigative strategy, newsroom building and mission-driven journalism.
Aaron Sankin
Member, Advisory Board
Aaron Sankin is the Data Editor at The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the criminal justice system. He was previously an investigative reporter at The Markup, The Center for Investigative Reporting, and The Huffington Post, where he primarily covered the intersection of technology and public policy. His journalism has won numerous awards, including the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Investigative Reporters & Editors Philip Meyer Award, and the Sigma Award. He is based in New York.
Angela Caputo
Member, Advisory Board
Angela Caputo is an award-winning investigative journalist, educator, executive director and co-founder of the Investigative Project on Race and Equity. Her work has prompted legislative reform on voting rights in Georgia; exposed a series of racially-biased policing practices that informed Department of Justice oversight of Chicago’s police department; spurred juvenile justice reforms in Illinois’ legislature and Cook County’s courts; and touched off the indictments and firings of public officials. She got her start as an intern for The Chicago Reporter and subsequently worked at American Public Media, the Chicago Tribune and Daily Southtown.