Jeevan Ravindran

Fulbright-Alistair Cooke Postgraduate Award in Journalism - Columbia University

Jeevan is a journalist, actor and documentary-maker whose work focuses on underreported stories and marginalised communities.

After graduating with a first-class degree in French and Spanish from the University of Oxford, she worked as a visuals producer at Reuters newsrooms across London, Paris and Madrid, and as a digital journalist at CNN. Jeevan was also part of the award-winning team behind the podcast ‘Less Than 2 Percent’, which investigates sexual violence in the UK.

Jeevan has reported extensively from Sri Lanka, contributing to Reuters’ coverage of the economic crisis and its impact on war-affected Tamil communities. Her investigation for The Guardian into tea plantations prompted probes from Fairtrade, the Rainforest Alliance, and several major tea companies. In 2024, she worked as the lead researcher for an Amnesty International report on forced labour, and she is currently working on a cross-border documentary on the India–Sri Lanka fishing conflict, supported by the Pulitzer Center.

She won Reporters d’Espoirs’ Prix du Jeune Reporter in 2021 for her French-language reporting on homelessness, and was named Outstanding Young Journalist at the Asian Media Awards. She is also a WEF Global Shaper, and in her spare time enjoys acting, making her feature film debut in the 2024 Tamil-language film ‘Oozhi’.
At Columbia, she will pursue an MA in Journalism (Politics). She is also excited to engage with the South Asian diaspora in New York and explore storytelling through the city’s vibrant theatre scene.