Nausheen Husain

writing

The FBI Says This Man Is A Terrorist — But He Says They Set Him Up

[June 2023]

Adel Daoud was sentenced to 16 years in prison over a faked 2012 bomb plot, despite questions of entrapment and mental competence. Now an appeals court wants to hit him harder.

Exit Interview

[Aug 2021]

“You cannot truthfully cover a community that you instinctually find ‘spooky.’”

Many industries call the Southwest Side home. McKinley Park — where a controversial asphalt plant built four years ago has sparked complaints about noxious odors — is pushing back.

[May 2021]

Cumulative impact means that one community is disproportionately dealing with several overlapping environmental and socioeconomic factors at once, said Yukyan Lam, who worked on the 2018 defense council analysis as a postdoctoral fellow. “From an environmental justice point of view, there are certain communities that bear the brunt of environmental pollution. They live in areas where they get more than their fair share of hazardous exposures,” said Lam.

User’s guide to the 2020 census: What’s done, what’s next and what it means to you

[May 2021]

A new phase of census data releases started last month as the U.S. Census Bureau completed its process of counting the population of the country. The bureau released state-by-state population data in April, after more than a year of some unique data collection challenges, and more will be released this summer.

Symbolic City Council resolution addressing tensions in India voted down, after months of negotiation and pushback

[March 2021]

A proposed resolution expressing the City Council’s solidarity with Chicago’s South Asian community “regardless of religion and caste” failed Wednesday amid intense lobbying from local Indian organizations and the country’s consul general. The resolution, which passed in several other U.S. cities, failed despite having been scaled back to remove specific language that sought to compare Modi to former President Donald Trump. The resolution also no longer made mention of mob lynchings of Muslims and other minorities, or quotes by a high-ranking official comparing undocumented people in India to termites, among other things.

Despite federal and state guidance to reduce jail populations, few inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes have been released early

[Feb 2021]

In March and April, former Attorney General William Barr recommended that federal inmates who were convicted of nonviolent crimes, are immunocompromised and don’t pose a risk to society should be prioritized for home confinement. But less than 14% of the more than 150,000 federal inmates, the majority of whom were convicted of nonviolent crimes have been released to home confinement since last spring.

2 dead at Marion federal prison during COVID-19 surge despite restrictive conditions, say inmates and family members

[Aug 2020]

A second coronavirus-related death following a weekend surge of positive COVID-19 cases at the Marion federal prison has inmates with medical conditions worried about their health in a prison that is not allowing them to distance, family members and inmates told the Tribune. For this story, I communicated with inmates living inside the prison, as well as a mother who learned about the death of her son, who was one of the inmates.

Chicago’s Arab American store owners face reckoning in wake of George Floyd killing

[June 2020]

After Mahmoud Abumayyaleh, the owner of the Minneapolis store outside of which George Floyd was killed by police, spoke out against police brutality on Facebook and in news media, Arab American business owners have been encouraged to reflect on their relationships with their communities. That’s especially the case when their businesses are in majority-black neighborhoods.

Before data showed Chicago blacks dying at higher rates, communities of color knew recovery from COVID-19 would be slow

[Apr 2020]

A team of reporters and data/graphics journalists investigated an aspect of COVID-19 that communities of color already knew -- they'd be hit harder. We used Census data and data from the medical examiner to focus in on areas of Chicago that were hardest-hit, and we spoke to a national Black Muslim coalition that had started to educate its constituency about the real dangers of the virus.

A suburban filmmaker sued to find out why the FBI was watching her Muslim community: ‘It’s weird to read how they wrote about us’

[Jan 2020]

Even before 9/11, the federal government decided to expand its surveillance of certain neighborhoods, particularly those with high Muslim populations. Even today, the reasons for these actions haven’t been fully explained. I wrote about Assia Boundaoui, a Chicagoan and filmmaker from an Arab-American neighborhood who is demanding more information on the surveillance of her community.

‘Guantanamo North’ prison units in the Midwest are under fire for their harsh conditions. After 10 years, one man is still fighting his case.

[Dec 2019]

I investigated communication management units, sometimes the last step in a law enforcement strategy, escalated after 9/11, to target and prosecute individuals or organizations, often Muslim, whose beliefs, ideology or religious affiliations raise security concerns for the government.

With female and LGBTQ prayer leaders, Chicago mosque works to broaden norms in Muslim spaces

[Aug 2019]

I covered the expansion of Chicago-based Masjid al-Rabia, one of the few public, women- and queer-centered mosques in the world.

As more Muslims run for office, community urged ‘to take center stage’ in an era of immigration raids and racist tweets

[July 2019]

2018 saw a sharp increase in Muslims winning seats in public office -- one of these Muslims was Skokie's Bushra Amiwala, one of the youngest Muslims elected to public office in the country. I covered the encouragement Muslim leadership is sending to public-minded people to run for office.

Laquan McDonald timeline: The shooting, the video and the fallout

[Jan 2019]

I updated this timeline, from the 2014 fatal shooting of LaQuan McDonald by a Chicago police officer to the sentencing of said officer, Jason Van Dyke, as the fallout from this particular incident drew out over years.

Legal fight over Trump's 'Muslim ban' and the Supreme Court ruling

[June 2018]

I tried to demystify the back-and-forth of President Trump's "Muslim ban" with a timeline of all the different versions and shutdowns.

Eyeing sustainability, Chicago hires first resilience officer

[May 2016]

I wrote an explanatory piece on the idea of resilience in city planning, and used some data and analysis from an urban planner who created a formula for determining resilience in a city.

Syrian refugee arrivals temporarily suspended

[Nov 2015]

Upon Governor Rauner's announcement that Syrian refugee arrivals would be suspended after the Paris terror attacks in 2015, I took a look at how many Syrian refugees have actually been accepted by the U.S. and Illinois in particular.

Awaiting a charter appeal, AIMS community finishes school year, uncertain of the future

[May 2013]

This is the last in a series of stories I did on the American Indian Model Schools in Oakland, CA, which consisted of three schools that had their charters revoked after allegations of improper business contracts with the founder.

Redefining Muslim roles on film

[Oct 2010]

As an intern for Newsweek International, I reviewed the film "Mooz-lum," starring Danny Glover and Nia Long, and the struggle for more honest portrayals of Muslims on screen.

data and design

Trump's Travel Ban Forever Changed The Lives Of Muslims Around The World

[Jan 2022]

I worked for more than a year with Rowaida Abdelaziz to help organize and analyze the dataset that she collected of Muslims who were still being affected by the 2017 Muslim Ban and its iterations, despite its repeal by the Biden administration. I eventually brought Newhouse students onto this investigative team to work on the data visualizations for this piece.

Disinvestment in Black and Latino Chicago neighborhoods is rooted in policy

[July 2020]

Though I reported and wrote about half of this piece, connecting redlining history to contemporary issues, my role on this team started as the person who compiled data on the outcomes of Black and Latino communities in Chicago. I mostly pulled data from the Census, but I also wrote a Python script that calculated the rate of enrollment increase in majority-white, majority-Black and majority-Latino schools, using demographic data from Chicago Public Schools.

Chicago Tribune/ProPublica collaboration on seclusion and physical restraint use in schools

[Nov 2019, Dec 2019]

I was on the team of graphics reporters that mapped Illiniois public schools' documentation of seclusion and physical restraint instances. The graphics work on these stories later won a Lisagor award for best graphics.

Refugee agencies unders siege

[June 2019]

I used refugee arrival numbers from the Department of State to look at how much the U.S. has cut the number of refugees admitted -- hitting new lows. Another reporter and I spoke to Chicago-based refugee agencies and refugees to understand how they are restructuring their programming to deal with the cut resources.

'Pharmacy deserts' a growing health concern in Chicago, experts, residents say

[Jan 2018]

We obtained preliminary research data for the maps in this story about a lack of pharmacies particularly in black neighborhoods of Chicago.

Inside Illinois' $16 billion backlog: What does the state owe your town?

[Oct 2017]

A FOIA and some analysis resulted in this explanatory piece and charting.

Lake Michigan shoreline erosion could be getting worse, research shows

[May 2017]

We tried to bring climate change and city planning coverage home to the lake with this story; I contributed data analysis, as well as chart design and building.

Shopping for a home? New data show it's slim pickings

[Apr 2017]

I was able to get to some more complex JavaScript charting with this story on Chicago housing prices.

Duckworth joins 2nd most diverse U.S. Senate class in two centuries

[Jan 2017]

This was a fun attempt at demonstrating exactly how small the numbers of non-white, non-male people in the Senate are.

How a Chicago foundation helped convict a war criminal in Timbuktu

[Sept 2016]

I used the Knight Lab's juxtapose.js for a quick before-and-after look at some destruction happening in Timbuktu.

10 ways to keep up attendance at a presidential library

[Aug 2015]

When news broke that Chicago would be home to the Obama Presidential Library, we used D3 to chart attendance levels at other presidential libraries, collected from the National Archives and Records Administration, and spoke to administrators at each of the libraries to understand how they dealt with attendance ups and downs.

presentations

ISSI Cornell: Storytelling With Data

[June 2023]

For Cornell’s International Summer Studies Institute, I ran a session on 'Storytelling With Data' in which we created our own data storybooks, inspired by Rahul Bhargava on DataBasic.

NICAR: Beyond 'skills-based': contextualizing data journalism for students

[Mar 2022, Mar 2023]

In 2023, I spoke on a panel with Meredith Broussard, Lam Thuy Vo and Mago Torres about how to move beyond just skills in data journalism courses at the college-level. I spoke about Teju Cole's idea of constellational thinking and how that applies to data journalism. In 2022, I fashioned a version of this panel with Lam Thuy Vo and Lisa Waananen Jones, and we focused on using nontraditional data to expand data journalism education beyond U.S.-centric narratives.

AEJMC: Expanding data journalism beyond state-centric narratives

[Aug 2022]

At my first AEJMC, I spoke on a panel about using nontraditional data to expand data journalism education beyond U.S.-centric narratives.

NICAR: Covering Undercovered Communities

[Mar 2019, Mar 2020]

I spoke on a panel about best practices for diving into coverage of communities that have traditionally been undercovered or miscovered in the U.S., like Muslim communities. I was a speaker/moderator on this panel during NICAR 2020 and NICAR 2019.

NICAR: Covering Immigration With Data

[Mar 2019]

I spoke on a panel about what migration data is available for reporters to use and what data I've used in the past for stories about migration. I was a speaker/moderator on this panel during NICAR 2019.

NICAR: Introduction To Python

[Mar 2018]

I co-taught the first part of a three-part Python class at NICAR 2018.

Let's play with csvkit!

[Apr 2015]

I did a presentation on how to work with data and csvkit for the Social Science Research Council's digital religion conference.

UC Berkeley commencement speech

[May 2014]

I was voted to be one of two student commencement speakers upon graduating from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. I performed a j-school parody version of Frozen's "Do You Want To Build A Snowman" within the speech.

projects

Election rigs

[2015-2021]

I helped maintain, update and document the Chicago Tribune's election app (built with Django) in 2015 and 2016. In 2018, I built my own rig using pygsheets and tarbell to get results on the Chicago Tribune website. In 2019, I was on the team that ran election scrapers for Tribune markets. Each of these rigs involved some back-end and AWS knowledge, Python programming, architecting systems and coordinating with teams who were often in different states. In 2020 and 2021, I wrote six Python scrapers to consistently pull local county election result data from county websites on election night.

Data infrastructure shell script

[2019]

As someone who has to frequently work quickly when parsing data, I struggled with being consistent with writing data dictionaries and data diaries to keep track of how I'm parsing data. I wrote this shell script to have an easier and more intuitive set-up that prioritizes organization in my data work.

Crime in Chicago

[2017]

I helped with the redesign and transition of the Tribune crime app (built with Django) and the building of our on-platform shootings and homicides pages.

Code Camp

[Summer 2016-2018]

I organized a Code Camp for primarily low-income Muslim youth in Chicago, and contributed to the lessons in this repo, along with three other teachers.

Islam For Reporters

[2014]

I built Islam For Reporters, which tracks data on anti-Muslim hate crimes, and provides resources on Islam-related terms and Islamophobia in the U.S. You can read my full scholar interviews here.