Stephanie Clifford

Stephanie Clifford is an award-winning investigative journalist and bestselling author. She is at work on a biography of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. for Bloomsbury, for which she received a Platzman Fellowship, a Caro travel grant, and a Princeton Library Research Grant. Her first novel, Everybody Rise, was published in 2014 and was a New York Times bestseller and editors’ choice. Her most recent novel, The Farewell Tour, was published in 2023 to praise from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and others.

As a New York Times reporter for almost a decade, she covered law and business. She now writes long-form investigations about criminal justice and business for the Times, The New Yorker, The Economist, The Atlantic, Esquire, Elle, Wired, Bloomberg Businessweek, and other publications. Her awards include the Loeb Award in investigative reporting, the Deborah Howell Award for Writing Excellence from the News Leaders Association, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in explanatory reporting, the Eddie in investigative magazine journalism, the Deadline Club Award in magazine profiles, and others. She grew up in Seattle, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, and lives in Brooklyn.

This bio reflects the fellow’s work and affiliations as of their fellowship year.

• The Inside Story of MacKenzie Scott, the Mysterious 60-Billion-Dollar Woman; A Marker profile of MacKenzie Scott, the pioneering philanthropist whose unconventional approach to giving has reshaped the landscape of American philanthropy.
• The Journalist and the Pharma Bro: A feature for Elle examining the relationship between journalist Christie Smythe and pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli, and the personal and professional consequences that followed as their connection blurred the boundaries between reporter and subject.
• When the Misdiagnosis Is Child Abuse: A feature article for The Atlantic examining cases in which medical judgments about suspected child abuse separate families and raise difficult questions about diagnostic certainty, parental rights, and justice.