Meet the Team

We are journalists and investigators with decades of accountability experience.

Our driving force is the preservation of democracy and informed civil discourse through accountability.

Founder

Jim has spent his life conducting investigations and training investigators.
He began as an investigative reporter. For more than 15 years, he has been an adjunct professor of investigative reporting at the Columbia Journalism School.
He is retired from Mintz Group, a global investigation company he founded in 1994.
Jim is based in New York City.

Executive Director

Brandi is a veteran investigative journalist.
She spent nearly two decades reporting and editing stories about issues ranging from politics and immigration to criminal justice and the environment.
She has worked for publications including The Texas Tribune, where she was a founding staffer, The Los Angeles Times, The Dallas Morning News and USA Today.
Brandi is based in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Director of Research

Elizabeth is an investigative researcher.
She has conducted research on various topics, including gender-based violence in areas of conflict, data privacy in Colorado, and Russian disinformation in American public health systems.
She has worked for the Department of Defense, a US Ambassador to Oman and Campaign for Accountability.
Elizabeth is based in Boulder, Colorado.

Expert Research Trainer

Barbara Gray is an associate professor and chief librarian at Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she runs the research instruction program.
She is the former director of news research at the New York Times and an expert in investigative research.

Expert Research Trainer

Misty Harris is a former news researcher at the San Antonio Express-News.
She earned a Bachelor’s of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master’s in Library Science from the University of North Texas.
She is currently working as a freelance journalist and researcher based in San Antonio, Texas.

Expert Research Trainer

Lecia is a licensed private investigator and certified fraud examiner with 25 years of investigation and training experience.
She specializes in teaching how to find obscure and historical facts with public records and web research.
She was also the co-founder of FactBox, a fact-management tool for lawyers, and ReportWriter, a fact-management tool for investigators, before its sale in 2020.
Lecia is based in San Francisco, California.

Senior Advisor

Marc is an investigator, attorney, and photojournalist.
He has served in legal and advisory roles for nonprofits such as The Commons Project, DigLab, Sunlight Search, and Accountable.US.
Marc was a partner and associate general counsel at the Mintz Group, an international investigations firm, where he led large, complex investigations.
Marc began his career as a staff photographer at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He was also a photographer and photo editor for nonprofit news outlets City Limits and The Solutions Journal.
His photojournalism has appeared in print and online news sources around the world.

Let's Strengthen Democracy Together.