Mónica Cordero Sancho is an investigative and data journalist for the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, a news site based in Champaign, Illinois. Cordero’s work has been published by Univision, Bloomberg Businessweek, La Noticia, Radio Ambulante, NPR, openDemocracy and The New York Times. Born in Costa Rica, she is a graduate of the University of Costa Rica and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Cordero was the lead reporter, involving newsrooms from 12 Latin American countries, on the investigation into the evangelical movement’s political power in Latin America. Published in multiple outlets in the United States and in Latin America, this reporting won the 2020 Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award, the most prestigious journalism prize in the Spanish-speaking world, for best investigative reporting. Cordero is a member of a pub-run group in Brooklyn, New York and loves pastrami sandwiches and chocolate cake.
Beat: Envirionmental impact of Iowa fertilizer (Mississippi River Basin Project)
Iowa is a top agricultural state but roughly half of the fertilizer that farmers apply trickles into streams and rivers, with massive loads of nitrate winding up in the Mississippi River and into the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in a dead zone.This bilingual reporter, based in the IowaWatch newsroom, covers environmental and agricultural issues in communities around the river, and works on the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk. This initiative of Report for America, in partnership with the Missouri School of Journalism and the Society of Environmental Journalists, offers a network of collaborative reporting covering water, agriculture and environmental issues across the Mississippi River Basin.