Wendy Wei
Independent journalist tying global stories to the American Midwest
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Hello! I'm a Chicagoan and reporter covering migration, racial equity, and gender for publications including the Chicago Reader, Chicago Sun-Times, Borderless, Truthout, and more.

​My work is informed by my first career evaluating refugee response programs in the West Bank, Libya, Chad, and Ethiopia. I am especially interested in exploring how migrants are pitted against other marginalized groups to compete over scarce resources – whether that be in Darfur or the US – and documenting movements rooted in interracial solidarity. 

I also run the Investigative Project on Race and Equity's data journalism training program and previously served as the immigration editor at South Side Weekly. 

My work has been supported by the International Center for Journalists, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, the European Research Council, Peace Research Institute Oslo, the Pivot Fund, and the Blue Shield of California Foundation. I was a 2x 2025 IWMF Ukraine Reporting Fellow, a 2024 IWMF Gwen Ifill and Lauren Brown Fellow, and a 2024 Renaissance Journalism Fellow. Since 2021, I have served as Programming Committee Co-Chair at ARTWORKS Projects.

I am HEFAT-certified, speak French and Mandarin Chinese, and available for freelance assignments in the Midwest. 

Photo by Shannon Marks