BA - History, Amherst College
MJ - UC-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

Alissa Figueroa is a lecturer at the School of Global Journalism and Communication. Her background is in longform television and documentary and investigative reporting.

She’s a 2020-21 Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow and 2022 Film Independent Fellow. From 2018 through 2021, Figueroa directed the Ida B. Wells Fellowship for investigative journalists of color at Type Investigations, where she provided intensive mentorship and editing to reporters taking on their first investigations.

Prior, she was a founding producer of the investigative unit at Fusion, which launched in 2013. There, she co-directed two documentaries: “Rigged,” about gerrymandering, which was recognized with a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 2017; and “Prison Kids,” which won an NABJ Salute to Excellence Award among others, and was nominated for an Emmy in 2016.

Figueroa began her television news career at NBC News, where she was an associate producer for the (now defunct) newsmagazine show “Rock Center with Brian Williams.”

She loves making pottery, movies, novels, and traveling. She goes back to Guatemala, where she was born and spent a good part of her childhood, at least once a year. She lives in Baltimore with her partner Joe and their cat Sasha.