Before joining Report for America, Debaditra Sur graduated with a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, where she reported on housing and homelessness, and co-produced a short documentary on food insecurity in the South Bronx. After graduating, she joined The Buffalo News as a general assignment reporter, covering daily breaking news and long-term enterprise stories on pedestrian safety, homelessness in Erie County, and Jewish and Arab families in Western New York reacting to the Middle East conflict. She later joined Reach PLC in New York City, where she worked on tight deadlines to cover the Trump administration. She grew up in Kolkata, India, and completed her undergraduate degree in English literature from Presidency University, while also working for a London-based cultural magazine, Far Out, on the side. When she’s not reporting, Sur makes adventure bucket lists or plays with her cat, Mountain Dew.
Beat: Housing and infrastructure in Syracuse, NY
Central Current's housing and infrastructure reporter provides coverage of the teardown of Syracuse's I-81 highway viaduct and complete redesign of public housing in the neighborhoods bordering this overpass. When the last infrastructure projects of this scale were performed in the 1950s, it decimated Black neighborhoods and caused multi-generational harm. The projects are happening just steps apart from each other. The reporter investigates the ongoing negotiations around land use, housing affordability, and transportation systems.