Adam Matthews
GRANTEE
Adam Matthews is an award-winning investigative journalist and a researcher-in-residence at The New York Public Library's Wertheim Study. Between 2009 and 2011, he was based in Delhi, where re-launched The Caravan, India's first narrative journalism magazine, earning the magazine several awards for longform stories he edited.
Adam has spent extensive time in China and India reporting on supply chains and the environmental and social impact of consumerism and globalization. His work combines narrative journalism with data-driven investigative reporting to confront the real cost of America's addiction to consumption. Toxic Fashion, his groundbreaking 2015 cover story on the environmental degradation caused by garment dyeing in India, recently won the Pratt Institute's Sustainable Reporting Award, and has sparked a conversation about the environmental footprint of our clothing.
Born in Cape Town, Matthews grew up in Toronto, attended college in Boston and earned his MSJ from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism in Chicago. He has lived in Brooklyn for most of last 15 years, covering everything from hip-hop to scam stories to immigration. His work has been featured in Newsweek, Mother Jones, The Globe and Mail, GOOD, Al Jazeera America, Details and Quartz. He has lectured at the Northwestern University, The University of Wisconsin, NYU and the New York Public Library. He frequently appears on panels and has been featured on the BBC, France24 and Hot 97. In addition to the Pratt Institute Award, he has also won the 2004 Press Club of Long Island's Feature Award, been anthologized in De Capo Press' Best Music Writing of 2007 and contributed a story to a 2009 issue of Mother Jones that won a National Magazine Award. Matthews is also a frequent grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
In his spare time, Matthews cooks South Indian food and plays table tennis.