I've won numerous awards both as a reporter at daily newspapers and for producing magazine-length investigative pieces. As a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times I was part of a team that earned the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

My work, including dispatches during stints in Mexico, has appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines. I also taught journalism at Santa Monica College for seven years.

I'm a former John M. Olin Fellow at the Center for International Journalism at the University of Southern California. I earned a master's degree in international journalism from what is now the USC Annenberg School of Communication & Journalism. I'm a magna cum laude graduate of UCLA, where I earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Latin American Studies.

I live in Portland, Oregon and when not traveling I also spend part of each year in what I consider to be my second home of Cuenca, Ecuador.