Mark Schleifstein

Mark Schleifstein, co-author with John McQuaid of “Path of Destruction”, has worked at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans since 1984. His reporting during and after Hurricane Katrina was among the newspaper’s stories honored with 2006 Pulitzer Prizes for Public Service and Breaking News Reporting and the George Polk Award for Metropolitan Reporting. Stories by Schleifstein and McQuaid prior to Katrina on hurricanes and coastal science issues were honored in 2006 with a special award from the American Geophysical Union. The 2002 series co-authored by Schleifstein and McQuaid,”Washing Away: How south Louisiana is growing more vulnerable to a catastrophic hurricane,” won the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2003 Excellence in Media award and the 2003 National Hurricane Conference media award. It also was a finalist for the 2003 Edward J. Meeman Award for Environmental Reporting for newspapers with over 100,000 circulation. Schleifstein and McQuaid also were co-authors of the 1996 series, “Oceans of Trouble: Are the World’s Fisheries Doomed?” which won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service from the Society of Professional Journalists.