Hi! I'm Tejal. (she/her)

what I do

I'm a data and newsroom product manager at The Baltimore Banner and a graduate of the Lede Program at Columbia, focusing on data and graphics journalism. My work at The Banner earned us the MDDC General Website Excellence Award in 2023. Most recently, I served on the judging panel for the 2024 IRE Awards and presented The Banner's voter guide for the Maryland primary elections at NICAR.

I'm always open to feedback or collaboration! I owe my winding career to folks in the industry who were kind enough to answer my (naïve) questions when I needed them most, and I'm happy to pass it along. Please get in touch.

how I do it

I use a cross-functional approach to journalism by:
👾 reporting data stories
👾 creating visuals and interactives
👾 building newsroom products

how I got here

I researched news visualization and got involved in design for social impact at MIT (here's an interview on my experience). I majored in computer science at BITS Pilani in India, where I served as Editor for the university's magazine.

Before I got into data journalism, I built trading platforms at Goldman Sachs, where I was a finalist in their 2020 COVID-19 Visualization Datathon. However, I found my interest shifting towards using data to empower impactful storytelling—at the intersection of journalism, design, and technology.

When I'm not building random stuff, I: