WASHINGTON DC – The Atlantic Council announced today that digital journalism pioneer Andy Carvin has joined the council as Senior Fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab.  

“We’re very excited to have Andy join the team at DFRLab,” said Graham Brookie, Director of the lab. “He brings an unparalleled level of online journalism experience to our mission of forging a new kind of digital resilience that matches the speed of information.” 

As Senior Fellow, Carvin will oversee DFRLab’s training and capacity building efforts to create standards of excellence for open source investigations. He will also advise a growing international team of #DigitalSherlocks at the DFRLab and partner organizations.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the DFRLab team here in DC,” Carvin said, who joined the Council staff this week. “DFRLab is at the head of the pack when it comes to using open-source tools to investigate disinformation campaigns around the world. I can’t imagine a better place to collaborate with people as passionate about debunking disinformation as I am.”  

From 2006 to 2013, Carvin led NPR’s journalism innovation efforts, founding its social media desk in 2008. Through Carvin’s groundbreaking use of social media to forge closer relationships with the online public, NPR successfully strengthened the quality and diversity of its reporting, both internationally and in the United States. As part of the Peabody Award-winning team at NPR.org, Carvin’s reporting during the Arab Spring allowed him to become virtually embedded with protesters and rebel groups across North Africa and the Middle East, breaking news and conducting investigative reports that otherwise would have fallen through the cracks of more traditional reporting. His 2013 book, Distant Witness: Social Media, the Arab Spring and a Journalism Revolution (CUNY Journalism Press) is used as a teaching tool in journalism classrooms around the world. He was also the 2012 recipient of the Knight-Batten Award in journalism innovation, as well as the 2013 Shorty Award for best journalist on Twitter.  

After departing NPR, Carvin launched Reported.ly, a social reporting initiative focused on covering human rights and social justice issues around the world. Under Carvin’s leadership, Reported.ly received the prestigious 2015 Online Journalism Award for breaking news, for its real-time coverage of the terrorist attack at Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris. Later, Carvin served as senior editor-at-large at NowThis, where he led the social news startup’s breaking news efforts. Most recently, he served as Asper Visiting Professor at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism in Vancouver, where he taught visual storytelling and digital forensic techniques to journalism students. He lives with his family in Silver Spring, MD. 

For more information or any inquiries, please contact DFRLab@AtlanticCouncil.org.

Related Experts: Andy Carvin and Graham Brookie