I am a multi-award-winning investigative reporter, correspondent and occasional researcher, professor of journalism and media strategist. My work focuses on conflict, geopolitics, labour, humanitarian emergencies, migration, multinationals and US foreign policy.

My high impact work has prompted changes to military policy, open Congressional letters signed by leading House members and shifted narratives on state-building and U.S. operations in East Africa. Since I started reporting on U.S. airstrikes in Somalia, the military admitted its first civilian casualties since it began carrying out strikes in 2007 and instituted a civilian casualty reporting protocol. My investigation on Uber’s operations in Kenya was picked up by press world wide.

As the James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professor of Journalism at SUNY New Paltz, I developed a syllabus teaching International Reporting through the lens of colonialism and geo-politics.

As a Senior Investigative Fellow with Code for Africa and researcher, I conceive and execute projects independently and with teams, helping flesh out the narrative based on findings. I’ve also worked with organisations including the Danish Refugee Council, the International Peace Institute, PAX and the Stimson Center.

As a media strategist, I’ve landed placements for grassroots organisations with the BBC, CNN, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, PBS and with leading international press.

I’ve snuck over borders in cars covered in mud to avoid aerial bombardment and embedded with rebel militias many times, taken a World War I-era German warship down Lake Tanganyika from Tanzania to Zambia, reported on how European scientists use earth analogues, like Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression to inform their research on Mars and lived in a shipping container in Mogadishu.

I won the Kurt Schork Memorial Award (Freelancer Category) for my investigations in Somalia. I won the One World Media Award (Popular Features Category) for my coverage of sexualized violence in South Sudan’s civil war. My work has also been recognised by the Frontline Club, the True Story Awards and the Amnesty International Media Awards.

Get in touch: amanda.sperber[a]gmail.com