About

My academic training as a historian first taught me about the connection between stories and power. Since then I’ve held various roles in the non-profit and audio journalism sectors.

Starting in 2016, I was part of shaping the growth of podcasting in South Africa at the local independent podcast, Sound Africa, telling stories about the future of energy, the first human heart transplant and a people’s tribunal created to hear testimony about the human cost of corruption. I also ran audio storytelling workshops and listening events in collaboration with local bookshops, universities and film festivals in and around Cape Town.

From 2017 to 2018, I worked at the anti-corruption non-profit Open Secrets investigating and raising awareness about economic crimes and associated human rights abuses. There I was part of the small team that held the People’s Tribunal on Economic Crime - the first of its kind in the world to focus exclusively on corruption. I also helped forge a collaboration between Sound Africa and Open Secrets which resulted in the production of the They Killed Dulcie podcast series about the 1988 unsolved murder of an anti-apartheid activist in Paris.

In 2019 I had the privilege of diving deep into the best audio stories from around the world during my time at Third Coast International Audio Festival in Chicago. First as the Competition Intern and then as a Production Assistant working on the Pocket Conference podcast.

In 2020 I ventured into curation & criticism, partnering with The Daily Maverick to start South Africa’s first weekly podcast review column. I also wrote about the Pulitzer finalist, Somebody, and its search for narrative justice for the RadioDoc Review. In 2021 I co-authored an academic paper about the use of radio drama as a tool for activism in South Africa during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2022, a chapter I wrote about the possibilities of some true crime podcasts to make systemic colonial violence audible was published in the inaugural Routledge Companion to Radio and Podcast Studies.

I’ve produced audio stories for Reveal from The Centre for Investigative Reporting, The BBC and Radiotopia’s Ear Hustle among others. In 2021, ‘Revolutionary Greetings’ a story I originally produced for the BBC Radio 4’s Short Cuts about anti-apartheid political prisoners exchanging secret letters in jail was recognized as a finalist at both the HearSay Audio Arts Festival and the Third Coast International Audio Festival. In 2022, an audio documentary I produced with Kaiser Health News and Reveal ‘Into the COVID ICU’ won an award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. In 2023, another story I produced with Reveal, ‘My Neighbor the Suspected War Criminal’ was an Overseas Press Club of America award winner and a national Edward R. Murrow award winner for Best News Documentary from the Radio Television Digital News Association. It was also a finalist in the Impact category at Third Coast the same year.

I am a graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies at the Maine College of Art & Design and hold a Masters degree in History from the University of Cape Town.