Eileen Sullivan is an American journalist who has covered

counter-terrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or ...

and national security for

The Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newsp ...

and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2012.

Early life

Sullivan was born in

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of downtown Washington, D.C. In 2020, the population was 159,467. ...

. Growing up, she was inspired to pursue journalism by her parents' longtime friend, award-winning journalist and author

Robin Wright Robin Gayle Wright (born April 8, 1966) is an American actress. She has won a Golden Globe Award and a Satellite Award, and has received eleven Emmy Award nominations for her work in television. Wright first gained attention for her role in t ...

. She was fascinated by Wright's stories about her job and travels. Sullivan attended St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School in Alexandria, where she participated in the French Club and Students Against Driving Drunk. Her school sports activities included lacrosse, track, and basketball, and she was the co-captain of the varsity field hockey team. She was elected to the Honor Council her junior and senior years, and graduated in 1995. Sullivan studied English at

Villanova University Villanova University is a private Roman Catholic research university in Villanova, Pennsylvania. It was founded by the Augustinians in 1842 and named after Saint Thomas of Villanova. The university is the oldest Catholic university in Penns ...

. While there, she wrote for ''

The Villanovan ''The Villanovan'' has been the officially recognized and accredited student newspaper of Villanova University since its founding in 1916. The tabloid-style, weekly paper publishes every Thursday during the semester and maintains a circulation ...

'', the school newspaper, and interned at a magazine in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. She graduated in 1999 with honors.

Career

Sullivan started her career 1997 working for the '' Courier-Post'' in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Her first big assignment was covering an "ugliest couch contest" and interviewing the winner. In 2001, Sullivan, Angela Rucker, and Jason Laughlin earned an award from the New Jersey Press Association for their article on teenage alcohol use, "Many equate booze with fun". Sullivan moved to the '' Federal Times'' in 2003, and then to ''

Congressional Quarterly Congressional Quarterly, Inc., or CQ, is part of a privately owned publishing company called CQ Roll Call that produces a number of publications reporting primarily on the United States Congress. CQ was acquired by the Economist Group and combined ...

'' in 2005 where she covered the creation of the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

and Hurricane Katrina. Sullivan joined the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

in 2007 to work in their Washington bureau. She became an expert on homegrown terrorism and domestic radicalization while covering

. Sullivan, together with

Matt Apuzzo Matt Apuzzo (born October 20, 1978) is an American journalist. Early life Apuzzo was born in Cumberland, Maine and attended Colby College, where he edited the school newspaper, the Colby Echo. Career He wrote for the Waterville ''Morning S ...

, Adam Goldman, and

Chris Hawley Chris is a short form of various names including Christopher, Christian, Christina, Christine, and Christos. Chris is also used as a name in its own right, however it is not as common. People with the given name *Chris Abani (born 1966), Nige ...

, wrote a series of investigative reports on the New York Police Department's (NYPD) work under the guidance of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

to spy on the daily life of Muslims in the New York metropolitan area for years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The series earned them the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, the 2012

Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting The Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting is an award for journalists administered by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The program was launched in 1991, with the goal of exposing examples of ...

from the Shorenstein Center at the Kennedy School of Government, the 2012 Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, the 2011

George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

for Metropolitan Reporting, and the

Edgar A. Poe Award The Edgar A. Poe Memorial Award is a prize for journalistic excellence that is awarded by the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA). The prize, which paid $2500 in 2011, is funded by the ''New Orleans Times-Picayune'' in honor of its distin ...

from the White House Correspondents' Association. The fallout from the series led to an unsuccessful lawsuit against the NYPD brought by the State of New Jersey, and the disbanding of the surveillance program in 2014. Sullivan joined ''The New York Times'' in 2017 as an early-morning breaking news reporter in their Washington, D.C., bureau.

Personal life

Sullivan and her husband James live with their daughter Celia in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Washington.

References

External links

"Many equate booze with fun"
2001 award winner for Freshest Treatment of a Tired Topic
2012 Pulitzer Prize winning articles
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sullivan, Eileen 1977 births American newspaper writers Living people People from Alexandria, Virginia Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting winners Villanova University alumni American women journalists George Polk Award recipients 21st-century American women