Molly O’Toole is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, working on “The Route,” a nonfiction book on global migration through the Americas to the United States. Currently a scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., O’Toole most recently was an immigration and security reporter for The Los Angeles Times. She has taught and lectured at Cornell University, the Poynter Institute, George Washington University, Georgetown University, the University of Chicago, and others. Previously, she was a senior reporter at Foreign Policy and The Atlantic’s Defense One. From Latin America to South Asia, O’Toole has written for outlets such as The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Republic, the Associated Press, Reuters, and more. She was awarded the first ever Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting in 2020 with “This American Life,” and she also served as a juror for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. Her work has been recognized by the Whiting Foundation, the Silvers Foundation, the Livingston Awards, the National Press Club, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Council on Foreign Relations, among others. Crown Publishing, a Penguin Random House imprint, will publish “The Route” in 2026.
Student
Cristal Sanchez
Cristal Sanchez is a bilingual reporter at the University of Missouri focused on solutions journalism and covering marginalized communities.
