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 Government, governments, law enforcement, business, and Intelligence agency, intellig ...

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. newspa ...

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 ...

''. She won a

Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting The Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting has been awarded since 1953, under one name or another, for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series in a U.S. news publica ...

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 St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School (SSSAS) is an independent Episcopal coed private college preparatory school in Alexandria, Virginia. The school was created from the 1991 merger of St. Agnes School (a girls' school founded in 1924) with St. Ste ...

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 Pen ...

. While there, she wrote for '' The Villanovan'', the school newspaper, and interned at a magazine in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. She graduated in 1999 with honors.

Career

Sullivan started her career 1997 working for the ''

Courier-Post The ''Courier-Post'' is a morning daily newspaper that serves South Jersey in the Delaware Valley. It is based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and serves most of Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester counties. The paper has 30,313 daily paid subscr ...

'' in

Cherry Hill, New Jersey Cherry Hill is a township within Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the township had a population of 74,553, which reflected an increase of 3,508 (+4.94%) from the 71,045 counted in the 2010 census. ...

. 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 ''Federal Times'' is a source of information for senior U.S. government managers on trends and issues facing them in their job performance and career. The magazine is published six times per year. ''Federal Times'' is part of Sightline Media Grou ...

'' 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-te ...

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. n ...

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, 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), Nig ...

, wrote a series of investigative reports on the

New York Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

'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

, 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 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 New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, 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 Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...

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