Lena Groeger is an American investigative journalist, graphic designer and news application developer at ProPublica. She creates data visualizations and interactive databases on a variety of subjects, including education, politics and healthcare. She also writes about design's role in society in a series called Visual Evidence. In addition to her work at ProPublica, her science writing has appeared in Scientific American, Wired, Forbes, and Slate.[2][3][4]
Groeger ran cross-country throughout high school and college. She ranked the 31st at the USATF New England Cross Country Championships during the 2006-2007 season.[1]
The then-science writer turned her reporting focus to social trends, electoral politics, and foreign policy when she joined ProPublica for an internship, which also initiated her lasting ProPublica career that allows her to shift gears between a data journalist, a news app developer, and a designer.[7] Groeger now lives in San Francisco and produces graphic-aided and data-oriented investigations on topics including immigration, elections, and drones.[2] Utilizing her proficiency in data, her literacy in political and social issues, and her background in design, Groeger also authors Visual Evidence, an essay series that zooms in on the social implications of biased default settings involved in technological and civic designs. Her writings and visualizations have been cited in many major news outlets such as The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Slate magazine, and The New Yorker.[10][11][12][13]
Groeger's data-related work, however, is not limited to data journalism. She is also credited with multiple projects that aggregate, update, analyze, and communicate large datasets from public sources in a way that guarantees the accessibility, readability, and timeliness of the data presented. The projects to which she has made development contributions vary in topics, but the recurring themes are business, elections, and health information: the New York State Subsidy Tracker and the "Tax Avoidance Has a Heartbeat" program tracks corporate behavior; the "Election DataBot" performs near-real-time scraps from sources including Google search trends, news articles, and press releases by and about Congress members; the "Treatment Tracker" and "Prescriber Checkup" allows users to access information on Medicare health providers by searching for providers, zip codes, or cities.