Molly Peterson

Molly Peterson is the environment and health editor at CalMatters, based in Los Angeles. Over more than two decades she has worked for nonprofit news, including the California Newsroom, NPR and its local public media outlets, and Public Health Watch. Most recently, she has investigated the intersection of health with climate change, specifically wildfires, wildfire smoke, and extreme heat. She served as editorial project manager for the California Reporting Project, now the Police Records Access Project, collaborating on and editing stories about police misconduct investigations. Prior to that, her work focused on water policy, air pollution, hazardous waste and environmental justice. She has won national and local Edward R. Murrow Awards, SPJ’s Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Journalism, and she was an IRE Award finalist for an investigation after Hurricane Katrina. Molly is also an inactive lawyer, having passed the state bar; she has a degree from University of California College of the Law in San Francisco, and her undergraduate work was at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. Her grandfather, Raymond L. Sullivan, was on the California Supreme Court. Other languages: French (advanced); Spanish (conversational); Mandarin (beginner)