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Lindsay Markel

Lindsay Markel, is a 2008 graduate of Brandeis University, where she is currently the assistant director of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism. Markel’s work at the Schuster Institute focuses on criminal and social justice issues such as wrongful convictions and human trafficking. Through the Schuster Institute’s Justice Brandeis Innocence Project, Markel and other staff and student research assistants use journalistic methods to investigate likely wrongful convictions in which there is no DNA to test. Markel also provides supporting research for other major investigations, as well supervising student research assistants, and overseeing Freedom of Information Act public records requests.Awards and honors

Markel received a 2004 Quill & Scroll Award for Excellence in Journalism, an award given to high school journalists by the International Quill & Scroll Honor Society. At Brandeis University, she received the prestigious Dean’s Scholarship and Honors Scholarship, and was on the Dean’s List during every semester on campus. Markel is a member of the Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS). She was a Peter Jennings Project fellow for 2011. Markel graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in sociology, and with minors in social justice & social policy and in legal studies. As an undergraduate, she traveled to Washington, D.C. for a journalism internship through a partnership between Brandeis and American University. During this time, she did research for award-winning journalist and documentary film-maker Hedrick Smith and PBS Frontline. She also pursued research interests in education policy, authoring “Eliminating the Black/White Achievement Gap: How KIPP Schools Raise Achievement and Offer an Alternative to the Counterculture of the Streets.”

Selected articles

"Failing the Test," Michael Blanding and Lindsay Markel, November 20, 2011, The Boston Globe Magazine.

"Journalists: How you can localize the Troy Davis story," September 22, 2011, Huffington Post.

"Sex (Trafficking) and the Super Bowl," February 8, 2011, Huffington Post.

"Modern-Day Slavery on D.C.'s Embassy Row?" E. Benjamin Skinner, with Lindsay Markel, June 14, 2010, TIME.