Sarah Cohen joined Arizona State University after a 25-year journalism career, most recently leading a data reporting team at The New York Times. As a database editor for The Washington Post, she shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a report that exposed the failures of the District of Columbia’s government to prevent child deaths. She also was a Pulitzer finalist for Public Service in 2007 for a series that uncovered waste and duplication in federal farm subsidy programs. Other honors include the Goldsmith Prize in Investigative Reporting, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal and the Selden Ring Award.

Cohen was the Knight Chair in Computational Journalism at Duke University from 2009 through 2012, where her research concentrated on new technologies that could help lower the cost of investigative reporting by reducing the most repetitive and least creative parts of the job.

Cohen is the past president of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a 5,000-member journalism educational and training organization. She has served as a board member and adviser to the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the Center for Investigative Reporting.