O'Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism
Backed by Marquette University, the O'Brien Fellowship program helps news professionals dig deep while mentoring student journalists.
The program honors Marquette alumni Alicia and Perry O'Brien. Their daughter, Patricia Frechette, and her husband, Peter, donated $8.3 million in 2012, to create the fellowship. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a co-founder and partner.
The O’Brien Fellowship accepts applications from journalists using print, digital, or visual mediums. Applicants may also produce news or opinion content. Journalists producing opinion content, however, including editorial writers and columnists, should inform, and support, their views and commentary with independent, in-depth investigative reporting.
Learn more
A Unique Journalism Fellowship
- Report and produce an in-depth public service journalism project on a regional, national or international topic.
- Receive a $75,000 salary stipend and additional support.
- Fellows traditionally are in residence, but we are now taking remote or partial remote applications along with full-residency arrangements. The O’Brien newsroom is housed at Marquette University’s Diederich College of Communication near downtown Milwaukee and the Lake Michigan shore.
- Publish or broadcast the project through your home news organization or, in the case of independent journalists, another outlet.
- Integrate Marquette’s best journalism students into your projects as reporters and researchers.
- Help identify a journalism student for a university-funded summer internship at your news organization or other publisher.
Marquette University challenges students and staff to Be The Difference by working with the community for the greater good. Marquette, as a Catholic, Jesuit institution, has educated journalists for more than 100 years with this mission.
Learn more
O'Brien selects five journalists for 2026–27 Fellowships
The O'Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism awarded investigative reporting fellowships to five U.S. journalists: Matt Stroud of Pittsburgh, Devi Shastri of Milwaukee, PrincessSafiya Byers of Milwaukee, Kelly Meyerhofer of Milwaukee, and Anna Baydakova of New York.
“This talented group of journalists was selected from the largest applicant pool in O’Brien’s 14-year history,” Jeffery Gerritt, director of the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism, said. “The diversity of their projects reflects both the future of journalism and O’Brien’s traditional mission of advancing justice and equity.”
O'Brien Fellows receive $75,000 — with additional stipends for research, travel, and housing — to complete nine-month investigative projects running from August 2026 through May 2027. Independent journalists Stroud, Shastri, and Baydakova will examine, respectively, defense spending and surveillance technology, children's public health, and surveillance through artificial intelligence in schools. Meyerhofer, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter, will uncover how grassroots people in Wisconsin are fixing problems in their communities, state, and nation. Byers, a reporter for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, will investigate youth homelessness.
The Latest O'Brien-Backed Journalism
-
Breaking the Cycle of Youth Homelessness
-
Wrongful Convictions, Doubt, and Reform in Detroit
-
Milwaukee's Lead Crisis
-
The NYPD's Mental Health Response
O'Brien Fellow PrincessSafiya Byers researched the factors that push young people into housing instability and often trap them in cycles that extend into adulthood. Through reporting on Milwaukee residents, service providers, and community organizations, her work examines the challenges facing vulnerable youth while highlighting efforts to provide long-term support, stability, and pathways to success. Her reporting focuses on how housing, mentorship, and basic needs services can help young people build secure futures.
Works published to date:
October 7, 2026
‘When you take a step, we take a step’: Milwaukee woman uses own experiences to help struggling youth
O’Brien Fellow, Eddie Allen researched a series of high-profile Detroit cases that raise questions about wrongful convictions, unreliable testimony, and systemic failures within the criminal legal system. Through court records, expert analysis, and firsthand accounts from incarcerated individuals and their supporters, their reporting highlights the human toll of disputed convictions and the long fight for exoneration. The series also examines the role of conviction integrity units and legal reforms, exploring whether meaningful change is possible for those seeking justice.
Marquette Students Reyna Galvez, Sofie Hanarahan, and Mia Thurow collaborated with Eddie on the series.
Photo by Robyn Ussery/ DETROIT METRO TIMES
Works published to date:
September 30, 2025
Do conviction integrity units really work? - Detroit Metro Times
October 30, 2025
From a life sentence to a life of purpose - Detroit Metro Times
December 1, 2025
A Detroit man’s wrongful conviction became the blueprint for sweeping criminal justice reform
December 9, 2025
Witness admits to being ‘pathological liar’ about Detroit firefighter’s death
December 12, 2025
Expert testimony casts doubt on 2008 arson case that sent Detroit man to prison
January 9, 2026
Detroit fire official undermines 2008 murder case in surfaced video
February 3, 2026
After two-month hearing, Detroit judge weighs chance at freedom for Mario Willis
February 24, 2026
Supporters believe Temujin Kensu is a ‘political prisoner’ - Detroit Metro Times
For nearly 40 years, Temujin Kensu said he is innocent. Will he ever be free? - Detroit Metro Times
April 20, 2026
He blew the whistle on a toxic dump — and says he paid for it with his freedom
O’Brien Fellow Abigail Kramer researched New York City’s approach to mental health emergencies, examining how crisis calls are handled and why police continue to respond to most incidents despite efforts to expand community-based alternatives. Drawing on data, policy analysis, and the experiences of families affected by mental health crises, her reporting explores the challenges facing proposed reforms under Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the broader debate over public safety and behavioral health response systems.
If you're creating fellow profile entries, this synopsis is very similar in tone and length to the Alison Dirr and Eddie Allen descriptions you've been compiling.
Photo by Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY REPORTER
Works published to date:
July 7, 2026:
The Long Battle to Keep the NYPD Out of Mental Health Emergencies
Winners of Dori J. Maynard Justice Award to deliver Burleigh Lecture at Marquette University Oct. 15
ProPublica reporters Ginger Thompson and Doris Burke, winners of the 2026 Dori J. Maynard Justice Award sponsored by the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism, will deliver this year’s Burleigh Lecture in Media Ethics at Marquette University. The annual public event, attended by nearly 100 Marquette students and staff, will take place on Thursday, Oct. 15, from 3:30-4:45 p.m., in the Lunda Room on the second floor of the Alumni Memorial Union.
Thompson and Burke won the prestigious national award, one of 12 journalism prizes under the Poynter Institute, for a searing five-part video, multi-media, and podcast series, “Sick in a Hospital Town,” that exposed, with rigorous reporting and research, how a health care system in Albany, Georgia, preyed on thousands of unsuspecting African Americans, while enriching itself.
“Sick in a Hospital Town reflects the driving mission of the O’Brien Fellowship: Advancing justice and exposing inequities through exceptional journalism,” O’Brien Fellowship Director Jeffery Gerritt said. “The ProPublica series shows U.S. journalists, despite significant industry-wide challenges, continue to produce groundbreaking and impactful accountability journalism.”
Albany suffered severe, long-standing health disparities and was hit hard by COVID-19, but Thompson and Burke exposed the underlying issues of race, poverty, and health care monopoly power.
“Beautifully written, deeply reported, and compelling from start to finish,” the judges wrote. “Impressive reporting coupled with effective narratives laid out a strong expose on the devastation and lack of accountability one institution caused when choosing profits over people.”
Thompson, a managing editor at ProPublica, previously spent 15 years at The New York Times as the Mexico City bureau chief and an investigative reporter. Her work has examined the impact of U.S. policies in Latin America, particularly on immigration, political upheaval, and drug cartels.
Thompson also served as a Latin America correspondent at The Baltimore Sun, where she co-wrote a series of stories about U.S. support for a secret Honduran military unit that kidnapped, tortured, and murdered hundreds of suspected leftists. The series was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won numerous other awards, including the Maria Moors Cabot Prize, the Selden Ring Award for investigative reporting, an InterAmerican Press Association Award, and an Overseas Press Club Award.
Doris Burke, a senior research reporter at ProPublica, covers corporate wrongdoing. Burke previously worked at The New York Times and Fortune Magazine and has reported on some of the nation’s most consequential companies, including Pfizer, Cargill, Google, Uber, Facebook, and Microsoft. Burke has received the Selden Ring Award and IRE Award, among others, for her work.
Burke will speak in person at the Burleigh Lecture. Thompson, who could not be here on Oct. 15, will participate remotely. The Dori Maynard award comes with a $2,500 cash prize.
The Dori J. Maynard Justice Award honors the memory of Dori J. Maynard, an ASNE Board member and advocate for newsroom and news diversity, as well as journalism that advances justice.
Sponsored by the Diederich College of Communication, the annual Burleigh Media Ethics Lecture honors William R. Burleigh, a 1957 Marquette journalism graduate who retired in 2000 as president and CEO of the E.W. Scripps Company.
