Maria Karagianis

Maria Karagianis ’70 is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. Coming of age in the 1960s and ‘70s, she witnessed tumultuous protests. After studying Journalism at Simmons, Karagianis became one of the first full-time female staff writers for The Boston Globe. As she explained in an interview with Simmons News, The Globe wanted her to write "The Woman's Page," a section of the newspaper that featured dainty, apolitical stories about flower arrangements, debutante cotillions, and recipes. "But I had been a rebel and protestor, and I did not want to cover these issues," she said. Instead, Karagianis covered major breaking news stories, including desegregation in Boston, apartheid in South Africa, and Syrian refugees in the Greek islands. Karagianis is a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow and founder of Discovering Justice (a non-profit organization that teaches youth about civic duty and democracy.

As Karagianis informed Simmons News, one of her most memorable experiences as a reporter was covering apartheid in South Africa. "This was an amazing experience for me," she says. "Being in that kind of environment makes you appreciate democracy, however flawed it may be. I also learned how to talk to people with different points of view... It is important to understand how people arrive at certain conclusions, even if you disagree with them. These situations are always more complex than they seem."