“Oliver Whang’s writing masterfully portrays the complexities of people experiencing poverty, racism, and addiction in parts of the country that rarely get in-depth coverage. Oliver’s years-long exploration of the complicated dynamics that emerge when an addiction rehabilitation company essentially takes over a community paints a particularly vivid and devastating picture. His is a rare talent.”

2026 Judges

Oliver Whang is a Boston-based journalist and writer who has reported on addiction and recovery, economic issues, and public health, often from Appalachia. Whang worked for the New York Times’ Science desk, where he was a reporting fellow, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The London Review of Books, The New Yorker, and National Geographic Magazine.  

In 2019, he interned for National Public Radio’s “Invisibilia,” a radio program and podcast about human behavior. His first article for The New York Times, about two bird medics working in New Delhi, was featured in the 2022 film “All That Breathes.” He has also written about cockfighting in Oklahoma, online labor movements, and artificial intelligence. 

Raised in New Jersey, Whang obtained a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Princeton University, and is currently a Ph.D. student in philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is working on a novel.

“Lots of us make sense of the world in a narrative way, but narratives can be distorting: people aren’t just characters in stories or examples to help get your point across. I think that’s been a central tension in my work and career so far. Being a journalist can sometimes feel voyeuristic, and difficult to justify. But I’d like to think my reporting develops a record of what happened that people can look at and feel something about. Some pieces of this record can come from people directly, but my role is to be an outside observer, or witness, who provides a different kind of perspective. And I think that’s important to have.”

Oliver Whang