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Richard Brown

Guatemala Instructor

Master’s in Political Reporting – Columbia University, 2021

Diploma Superior, Migration Studies – Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO), 2020

Bachelor’s in Anthropology – Columbia University, 2010
Rich is a multimedia journalist based primarily in Guatemala since 2013. He’s now investigating the relationship between migration and land and water conflict in northern Guatemala for the Pulitzer Center and the Society for Environmental Journalists. He’s also producing a documentary series on grassroots Mayan defense-of-territory campaigns with Guatemalan filmmaker and fellow Dragons instructor Juan Galich with funding from the Davis Projects for Peace Foundation.
He’s worked primarily with Guatemalan media platforms like Plaza Pública, the country’s leading digital-native news outlet, and led the EntreMundos news magazine as editor-in-chief. His reporting focuses on migration, climate, US policy, and land and water conflict. He brings his reporting to U.S. classrooms in speaking tours about the causes of immigration from Central America. 
To build on this work, he founded the Dragons Forum on Migration, an interactive Immigration Studies program that connects U.S. classrooms to the people at the center of today’s immigration headlines, like migrating families, subject matter experts, and government officials.

He grew up (mostly) in northern Virginia and has lived in Belgium, France, Estonia, Egypt, and Guatemala, as well as Appalachia, VA; Taos, NM; Arcosanti, AZ; and New York City. His happy place is floating down a river admiring birds, tracks, and trees. He sees the present as the past in action.