Biography

Jeff Kelly Lowenstein is an investigative journalist, author and an assistant professor of Journalism at Grand Valley State University. He was previously the David Laventhol/Newsday Visiting Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, the Taco Kuiper Fellow at Wits University, and the database and investigative editor at Hoy Chicago, the Chicago Tribune company’s Spanish-language newspaper. His work has been published in The New Yorker and the the Center for Public Integrity, among many publications, and has earned awards from organizations like the Investigative Reporters and Editors, the National Press Club, the National Headliner Club, the Society for News Design and the National Association of Black Journalists. During the past three years he has led a global investigation into the international lottery industry that has preceded player arrests, store closures, state audits, policy change in the United States and South Africa. Jeff has participated in national and international fellowships about racial justice, the environment, health, business and trauma. A Fulbright Scholar, Specialist and Teacher, he has written or edited six books. In 2016 he was the Taco Kuiper Visiting Fellow at Wits University, and in 2017 he was a Fulbright Specialist there, too. He and his wife Dunreith, a writer and educational consultant, live in Grand Rapids. Their son Aidan lives in Oakland, California.