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Sophia Jones

Human Rights Watch
Researcher
Sophia Jones is an award-winning investigative journalist and researcher with a focus on war crimes and human rights violations. She is currently a researcher with Human Rights Watch's Digital Investigations Lab, where she conducts deep-dive open-source investigations. Prior to joining HRW, she spent a decade carrying out impactful journalism investigations and reporting from nearly two dozen countries. She has been published by outlets including The New York Times, National Geographic, TIME, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Politico, and Rolling Stone Magazine. Sophia is an Emmy-nominated journalist, and has been honored with and shortlisted for multiple other awards, including from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Military Reporters and Editors Association, the Overseas Press Club, the American Association for Cancer Research, and the South Asian Journalists Association. Sophia previously served as executive editor at Starling Lab, a research center at Stanford and USC. There, she carried out an award-winning investigation into Bosnian War crimes, and also explored new tools to capture, store, and verify digital records. She was The Fuller Project’s global editor from 2017 to 2021, leading accountability reporting with newsrooms around the world. Before joining The Fuller Project, she reported for a variety of outlets from the Middle East and North Africa. Sophia holds a BA in international affairs, specializing in conflict and security from The George Washington University. She frequently serves as a mentor, speaker, and advisor on issues of journalism and human rights research.