About

Erin Siegal McIntyre is an investigative journalist and photographer. After spending around a decade living and reporting from Tijuana, Mexico, she joined the journalism faculty at UNC in 2020. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Latino USA, and various other media outlets. Siegal McIntyre’s book Finding Fernanda (Beacon Press 2012) exposed fraudulent, criminal, and corrupt practices in international adoption between Guatemala and the United States, and the book was honored by the Overseas Press Club of America with a Robert Spiers Benjamin Award citation for best reporting in any medium on Latin America. The title also earned an SPJ James Madison Award, a Gold IPPY Award, and an International Latino Book Award.  Finding Fernanda served as the basis for an hour-long CBS special investigation, “Perilous Journey,” that won a 2015 News Emmy. In 2021, Finding Fernanda was optioned by Lionsgate.

Over the last decade, Siegal McIntyre’s freelance work has been supported by a variety of foundations and organizations. They include the Fund for Investigative Journalism, the International Women’s Media Fund, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Harnisch Foundation, and more. From 2009 through 2019, she was a Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. Siegal McIntyre has also worked as an on-camera investigative reporter/producer for Univision Documentales and a border reporter covering Tijuana/San Diego for the Fronteras Desk, a public radio collaboration of NPR affiliates along the southwest border. Siegal McIntyre started her career as a photojournalist and stringer for various outlets, including Reuters, and served as a United Nations staff photographer covering the General Assembly in both 2006 and 2009.