Robin McDowell

Reporter / Associated Press

United States

Robin McDowell spent most of her career working in Southeast Asia, covering everything from bloody coups and al-Qaida-linked terrorist attacks to plane crashes, tsunamis and the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims. Now based in Minnesota, she continues to focus on the world’s most vulnerable, including those persecuted because of their race, religion, gender or social status. She was on a team of reporters that won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories that led to the freedom of 2,000 enslaved fishermen in Asia, arrests, convictions and revisions to US law. In 2020, she and colleague, Margie Mason, also publishded an award-winning package on trafficking and forced labor in the palm oil industry.