When you teach a student to read the world: Caitlin Dickerson’s CSULB-to-Pulitzer journey | California State University Long Be
Archived: 2026-04-23 17:25
When you teach a student to read the world: Caitlin Dickerson’s CSULB-to-Pulitzer journey | California State University Long Beach
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When you teach a student to read the world: Caitlin Dickerson’s CSULB-to-Pulitzer journey
Published March 20, 2026
By
Wendy Thomas Russell
Celebrated Reputation
Image
Caitlin Dickerson ‘11 did not arrive at Cal State Long Beach intending to be a journalist — much less a Pulitzer Prize-winning one.
She loved to read and was relentlessly curious, but her high school in Merced had been so large she often felt invisible. “I just kind of needed somebody to take an interest in me and notice the potential that I had,” she said. When that didn’t happen, “I floundered.”
Fifteen years later, Dickerson is one of the country’s most respected investigative journalists whose groundbreaking reports on U.S. immigration policy, including family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, have helped define the national record.
The shift came through sustained exposure — to rigorous ideas, to faculty who paid attention and to an academic culture that valued exploration over ambition.
“I remember feeling like college was a four-year long riddle that I had to solve to figure out what I was meant to do with my life,” Dickerson said. “What happened when I got to college was that I was just so deeply interested in what I was studying.”
I have a lot of pride about being a Cal State Long Beach grad. It feels good to work alongside colleagues from Harvard and Yale and realize I’m totally able to keep up with them.
That interest deepened in her chosen major, International Studies.
“One of the best things about [CSULB’s] International Studies curriculum was that it was really critical for us to read the news,” she said. “My professors always pushed us to connect whatever concepts that we were learning about, even if it was history from hundreds of years ago, to what was happening in the present day.”
Image
Caitlin Dickerson speaks to college students about her career. (Photo courtesy of the University of Rhode Island)
Image
Dickerson in conversation about the crisis at he U.S.-Mexico border. (Photo courtesy of Jason Crowley, BFA.com)
Image
Dickerson gets a view from a helicopter while on assignment in Puerto Rico. (Photo courtesy of Dennis M. Rivera-Pichardo)
A professor who paid attention
One of those professors was
Richard Marcus
, who still teaches in the
Global Studies Department
. He recalls Dickerson fondly, having exchanged more than 200 emails with her as a student — mostly because precision was one of her hallmarks.
“Caitlin was exacting as a student,” Marcus said. “She knew her faculty well, and they already knew how special she was.”
For a time, Dickerson set her sights on law school. But while reading all those new stories in Marcus' classes, she began paying increasing attention to the news itself and how it was made.
“I found myself asking, you know, how did this journalist get this person to agree to an interview . . . or how did this journalist get all of this data? How did they analyze it, and then how did they put the story together?”
I tend to work on stories that nobody else is working on . . . that nobody else thinks is important in the moment.
Those questions became a turning point.
“Journalism was sparking my interest in things that I . . . never thought I would be curious about, and that felt really powerful to me,” she said. “Could I get people interested in things that I know are really important but that aren’t widely understood?
That’s kind of become my entire career.”
Learning the craft
After graduation, Dickerson applied for “a ton” of internships, eventually landing on NPR’s Washington desk, where much of her time was spent transcribing interviews. While “incredibly tedious,” she said, it was also transformative.
“I was listening to the techniques of the most decorated and well-established journalists at NPR,” she said. “I got to spend months just listening to them and really studying.”
From there, she moved through some of the nation’s most competitive newsrooms — The New York Times, CNN and ultimately The Atlantic — building a reputation for investigations take years and involve hundreds of interviews.
“I tend to work on stories that nobody else is working on . . . that nobody else thinks is important in the moment.”
Pursue work that, even at its most daunting, doesn’t feel all that much like work.
In 2023, following her reporting on U.S. government’s
family-separation policy,
that approach earned her the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Earlier, she and her NPR colleagues received a George Foster Peabody Award for uncovering race-based secret mustard gas testing on American troops during World War II. More recently,
she traveled to the Darién Gap
to report on the perilous journey migrants undertake through Panama.
The awards helped quiet occasional self-doubt.
“Both felt like the universe almost telling me to keep going, and that I was on the right track,” she said.
Image
Dickerson, center, celebrates her Pulitzer Prize win with her colleagues at The Atlantic. (Photo courtesy of Ariel Zambelich)
No shortcuts — just the work
What stands out to now, looking back, is how improbable her path once seemed. Dickerson entered elite national newsrooms without inherited networks or Ivy League shortcuts.
“I showed up in the industry with not one contact — not one single connection — to give me a leg up,” she said. “I have a lot of pride about being a Cal State Long Beach grad. It feels good to work alongside colleagues from Harvard and Yale and realize I’m totally able to keep up with them.”
These days Dickerson is living in Brooklyn with her husband and working on her first book. Above all, she urges students to enjoy the process and trust their instincts.
“Pursue work that, even at its most daunting, doesn’t feel all that much like work.”
About this series
Dreams in college are rarely discovered fully formed. They take shape through exposure, mentorship, constraint and chance. At Cal State Long Beach, students aren’t expected to arrive with a dream and chase it; they are given the tools and opportunity to let their aspirations emerge. This story is part of an ongoing series,
Dreams Made Here
, which spotlights a select group of alumni who have achieved national distinction in their fields and whose trajectories were set in motion at The Beach.
Also in the series:
Beyond words: Roger Fouts ’64 found meaning in the eyes of a chimp named Washoe
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Skip to main content
Open
Menu
Image
When you teach a student to read the world: Caitlin Dickerson’s CSULB-to-Pulitzer journey
Published March 20, 2026
By
Wendy Thomas Russell
Celebrated Reputation
Image
Caitlin Dickerson ‘11 did not arrive at Cal State Long Beach intending to be a journalist — much less a Pulitzer Prize-winning one.
She loved to read and was relentlessly curious, but her high school in Merced had been so large she often felt invisible. “I just kind of needed somebody to take an interest in me and notice the potential that I had,” she said. When that didn’t happen, “I floundered.”
Fifteen years later, Dickerson is one of the country’s most respected investigative journalists whose groundbreaking reports on U.S. immigration policy, including family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, have helped define the national record.
The shift came through sustained exposure — to rigorous ideas, to faculty who paid attention and to an academic culture that valued exploration over ambition.
“I remember feeling like college was a four-year long riddle that I had to solve to figure out what I was meant to do with my life,” Dickerson said. “What happened when I got to college was that I was just so deeply interested in what I was studying.”
I have a lot of pride about being a Cal State Long Beach grad. It feels good to work alongside colleagues from Harvard and Yale and realize I’m totally able to keep up with them.
That interest deepened in her chosen major, International Studies.
“One of the best things about [CSULB’s] International Studies curriculum was that it was really critical for us to read the news,” she said. “My professors always pushed us to connect whatever concepts that we were learning about, even if it was history from hundreds of years ago, to what was happening in the present day.”
Image
Caitlin Dickerson speaks to college students about her career. (Photo courtesy of the University of Rhode Island)
Image
Dickerson in conversation about the crisis at he U.S.-Mexico border. (Photo courtesy of Jason Crowley, BFA.com)
Image
Dickerson gets a view from a helicopter while on assignment in Puerto Rico. (Photo courtesy of Dennis M. Rivera-Pichardo)
A professor who paid attention
One of those professors was
Richard Marcus
, who still teaches in the
Global Studies Department
. He recalls Dickerson fondly, having exchanged more than 200 emails with her as a student — mostly because precision was one of her hallmarks.
“Caitlin was exacting as a student,” Marcus said. “She knew her faculty well, and they already knew how special she was.”
For a time, Dickerson set her sights on law school. But while reading all those new stories in Marcus' classes, she began paying increasing attention to the news itself and how it was made.
“I found myself asking, you know, how did this journalist get this person to agree to an interview . . . or how did this journalist get all of this data? How did they analyze it, and then how did they put the story together?”
I tend to work on stories that nobody else is working on . . . that nobody else thinks is important in the moment.
Those questions became a turning point.
“Journalism was sparking my interest in things that I . . . never thought I would be curious about, and that felt really powerful to me,” she said. “Could I get people interested in things that I know are really important but that aren’t widely understood?
That’s kind of become my entire career.”
Learning the craft
After graduation, Dickerson applied for “a ton” of internships, eventually landing on NPR’s Washington desk, where much of her time was spent transcribing interviews. While “incredibly tedious,” she said, it was also transformative.
“I was listening to the techniques of the most decorated and well-established journalists at NPR,” she said. “I got to spend months just listening to them and really studying.”
From there, she moved through some of the nation’s most competitive newsrooms — The New York Times, CNN and ultimately The Atlantic — building a reputation for investigations take years and involve hundreds of interviews.
“I tend to work on stories that nobody else is working on . . . that nobody else thinks is important in the moment.”
Pursue work that, even at its most daunting, doesn’t feel all that much like work.
In 2023, following her reporting on U.S. government’s
family-separation policy,
that approach earned her the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Earlier, she and her NPR colleagues received a George Foster Peabody Award for uncovering race-based secret mustard gas testing on American troops during World War II. More recently,
she traveled to the Darién Gap
to report on the perilous journey migrants undertake through Panama.
The awards helped quiet occasional self-doubt.
“Both felt like the universe almost telling me to keep going, and that I was on the right track,” she said.
Image
Dickerson, center, celebrates her Pulitzer Prize win with her colleagues at The Atlantic. (Photo courtesy of Ariel Zambelich)
No shortcuts — just the work
What stands out to now, looking back, is how improbable her path once seemed. Dickerson entered elite national newsrooms without inherited networks or Ivy League shortcuts.
“I showed up in the industry with not one contact — not one single connection — to give me a leg up,” she said. “I have a lot of pride about being a Cal State Long Beach grad. It feels good to work alongside colleagues from Harvard and Yale and realize I’m totally able to keep up with them.”
These days Dickerson is living in Brooklyn with her husband and working on her first book. Above all, she urges students to enjoy the process and trust their instincts.
“Pursue work that, even at its most daunting, doesn’t feel all that much like work.”
About this series
Dreams in college are rarely discovered fully formed. They take shape through exposure, mentorship, constraint and chance. At Cal State Long Beach, students aren’t expected to arrive with a dream and chase it; they are given the tools and opportunity to let their aspirations emerge. This story is part of an ongoing series,
Dreams Made Here
, which spotlights a select group of alumni who have achieved national distinction in their fields and whose trajectories were set in motion at The Beach.
Also in the series:
Beyond words: Roger Fouts ’64 found meaning in the eyes of a chimp named Washoe
Related Articles
This is a carousel. Use next and previous buttons to navigate.
April 20, 2026
Beyond words: Roger Fouts ’64 found meaning in the eyes of a chimp named Washoe
Image
Roger Fouts ’64 approached his time…
April 15, 2026
10 ways students are taking the spotlight this spring
Each spring, CSULB students present the projects that define their time on campus. This season…
April 2, 2026
A new major takes shape where AI meets tomorrow’s job market
First-year engineering student Steffy Jibikilay thought she knew exactly what she was signing up…
March 23, 2026
Alumni coaching part of Moot Court's winning 'secret sauce'
Whether Cal State Long Beach students are competing in an academic or athletic arena, the path to…
March 11, 2026
Hydrologist Laurie Huning on extreme climate and protecting California's water supply
Few issues shape California’s future more than water. Drought, floods and rising temperatures are…
March 5, 2026
Student Affairs honor highlights month of staff and student recognition
Making Waves is a monthly column that celebrates accomplishments of the CSULB community.
March 3, 2026
CSULB leads nationwide movement in green filmmaking
Kent Hayward, an associate film professor in Cinematic Arts, remembers working on a big franchise…
February 26, 2026
Africana Studies chair M. Keith Claybrook Jr. affirms Black culture while fostering human connections
For more than 20 years, M. Keith Claybrook Jr., chair of Cal State Long Beach’s Department of…
February 25, 2026
Hing and Doris Hung invest $30 million in the future of engineering at CSULB
In 1966, Hing Hung ‘85 was in the wrong class. Not the kind you skip or switch — but the kind…
February 13, 2026
New funding propels CSULB's storied archives toward wider access
On the third floor of the University Library at Cal State Long Beach, a secluded reading room sits…
February 4, 2026
Oscar buzz, Olympic momentum mark recent Beach achievements
Making Waves is a monthly column that celebrates accomplishments of the CSULB community.
January 28, 2026
Loren J. Blanchard to serve as president of Cal State Long Beach
The California State University (CSU) Board of Trustees has appointed Loren J. Blanchard as the…