ICCTA Distinguished Alumnus Award

2012 Recipient
Deborah Nelson
Senior lecturer and director, Carnegie Seminar
Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland
College of Lake County(1973)


Deborah Nelson is an attorney whose passion for seeking the truth is combined with a drive to broaden students' understanding of contemporary society.

During her 30-year career, she has reported or edited more than two dozen investigative projects on government waste, scientific misconduct, and war crimes. In 1997, she won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a Seattle Times series on abuses in the federal government's tribal housing program.



Deborah Nelson accepts ICCTA's 2012 Distinguished Alumnus Award from former ICCTA president Rich Anderson.

Deborah Nelson accepts ICCTA's 2012 Distinguished Alumnus Award from former ICCTA president (and high school classmate) Rich Anderson.

In 2006, Nelson was featured in a PBS documentary on journalists who conduct groundbreaking investigations into government fraud..... not bad for a woman whose first newspaper editor tried to steer her toward fashion writing.

Nelson now teaches and inspires tomorrow's journalists as the founding director of the Carnegie Seminar at the University of Maryland.

"I encountered some of the most talented teachers in my college experience at the College of Lake County," she says. "As I began mulling over what sort of teacher I wanted to be, my experience at CLC was the first thing that came to mind."

For additional information on ICCTA's Distinguished Alumnus Award, please contact Kim Villanueva at 217-528-2858, ext. 1.