I’m an adjunct journalism professor at Quinnipiac University, where I’m also the university’s director of community programming, managing the university’s network of 40-plus podcasts. As a journalist with 15-plus years of experience reporting for NPR, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Sundance Institute, and other outlets, I’ve reported extensively on artificial intelligence, algorithmic decision-making, disability rights, and social justice movements. I’ve twice been named New England’s “Reporter of the Year” and was included in Connecticut Magazine’s “40 Under 40” list in 2015. I’m also a vice president for the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government, a board member of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information, a member of the Weaver Journalism & Media Pathway Advisory Board, and a frequent contributor to panels and discussions on journalism, technology and disabilities.

Prior to academia, I spent a decade as a journalist, covering disability-related topics, education, environmental issues, and the fight for social and racial justice. I started my career at The Central Virginian newspaper, covering my hometown of Goochland (yes, that’s a real place). I later worked at The Darien Times newspaper in Connecticut, before moving on to WNPR public radio in Hartford. My work has appeared on NPR, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, and in numerous newspapers. I’m a two-time “New England Reporter of the Year,” and in 2015, someone must have bribed Connecticut Magazine because somehow I ended up on their “40 Under 40” list. I’ll take it! And, as the legendary John Dankosky has said, I also “play a mean lead guitar.”

A native of central Virginia, my special education reporting in Darien, Connecticut, has been cited as one of the most comprehensive explorations of disability rights among children in the Unites States. Special education attorney Pete Wright said: “Since passage of the law in 1975, there has been no other reporter or journalist who has written so extensively about special education issues with such a positive impact as David DesRoches.”

I’ve also co-founded and co-managed a PR-based NGO in Ethiopia, where we traveled the country, telling people’s stories. In past lives I’ve tossed pizzas, taught journalism to high schoolers, built things out of wood, shucked oysters, tended bars, cleared trees felled from hurricanes, parked fancy cars, opened doors for country clubbers, and taught songwriting to people who use wheelchairs. I also make a mean Manhattan, with one part rye and one part bourbon. Yum.