Maggie Mulvihill

Maggie Mulvihill

Associate Professor of the Practice of Computational Journalism

About Maggie Mulvihill

Maggie Mulvihill is a veteran reporter, data journalism trainer, news entrepreneur, First Amendment advocate and attorney. She has been a member of the BU Journalism faculty since 2009, where she developed the Journalism Department’s first data journalism course and teaches the Law and Ethics of Media and reporting classes. Among other news outlets, her work has appeared in the Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Maine Monitor, The New Bedford Light, The Cape Cod Times, The Worcester Telegram, The American Bar Association Journal, NBC Digital, New England Living, The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, The Berkshire Eagle, The Middlesex Daily News, The Patriot LedgerThe Contrarian Boston, The TAB newspapers, The Boston Herald, the Crime Report, Massachusetts’ Lawyer’s Weekly, The Center for Public Integrity, National Public Radio (NPR), WGBH and WBUR.

Mulvihill’s students have earned more than a dozen regional or national journalism awards for stories ranging from juvenile killers to the criminalization of the homeless, to uncovering serious deficiencies in workplace safety during COVID-19 and state lottery systems. Mulvihill and her students collaborate regularly with other local and national journalists and in 2023, her students were part of a collaboration that won first place for small newsrooms in the Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award from the Online News Association. Also, in 2023, Mulvihill’s students shared in the Shaufler Prize for Journalism for their reporting on flaws and discrimination within state lottery systems. In 2022, her students were part of the team honored as a finalist in the student category in the 2022 Investigative Reporters and Editors awards. Among other honors, Mulvihill’s students have won first place for in-depth reporting in the Society of Professional Journalist’s Region 1 Mark of Excellence Awards, were named finalists for the prestigious Livingston Award for Young Journalists, were honored with a first-place reporting prize by the National Federation of Press Women and won the collegiate David S. Barr Award from the Newspaper Guild. Her students also worked on a national government ethics series, led by the Center for Public Integrity, which was a finalist for the Goldsmith Investigative Reporting Prize in 2013. 

Mulvihill is the co-founder of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting and while at BU, was named a Faculty Fellow at the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering. She serves on the Finance Subcommittee for the non-profit journalism organization, Investigative Reporters and Editors, was a longtime member of the Steering Committee of the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, where she now serves on the Leadership Council, and is a member of the board of the New England First Amendment Coalition. She was a 2004–2005 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and in 2014 was named to the Federal Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee. While at BU, Mulvihill has served in numerous capacities in additional to instructing students, including as a member of faculty search committees and the Academic Misconduct, Curriculum and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committees. She mentors scores of young journalists, has served as a judge for national journalism contests and regularly trains reporters in data journalism, investigative reporting, and public records access techniques.