Geeta Anand

Notable work and positions

UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism - Dean (2020-2025); Professor
The New York Times - Foreign correspondent, India
The Wall Street Journal - Reporter and senior writer (17 years)

Biography

Geeta Anand is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who served as dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, from 2020 to 2025, and continues as a professor there. Born and raised in Mumbai to an American mother and Indian father, she graduated from Dartmouth College in 1989 and began her career at a free weekly newspaper, Cape Cod News, before covering local government and courts for the Rutland Herald in Vermont from 1990 to 1994. She then spent four years at The Boston Globe, serving as City Hall bureau chief and covering the Massachusetts State House, before joining The Wall Street Journal in 1998, first writing for its New England regional edition and later covering biotechnology and business from New York. In 2003, Anand shared the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting with other Wall Street Journal staff for a series of articles on corporate corruption, and in 2004 she was a Pulitzer finalist for a series on how U.S. hospitals ration health care. In 2008 she returned to India as a foreign correspondent, first for the Journal and later for The New York Times, covering health care, education and environmental issues over roughly a decade. Her book The Cure, about a father's fight to save his children from a rare disease by founding a biotechnology company, was adapted into the 2010 film Extraordinary Measures starring Harrison Ford. She began teaching at Berkeley in 2018, became interim dean in 2020 and permanent dean shortly after, the school's first woman and first woman of color to hold the role. During her tenure the school raised more than $50 million in gifts and public funding, including a $10 million pledge, the largest in its history, and she helped create the California Local News Fellowship Program, the largest state-funded local news fellowship program in the country. She stepped down as dean at the end of her five-year term on June 30, 2025, returning to full-time teaching; Michael Bolden was named her successor, effective August 1, 2026. In 2023 she was honored by the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists with the Distinguished Service to Journalism Award for her role in the California Local News Fellowship program.

Career highlights

• Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting 2003 · Shared with Wall Street Journal colleagues for a series on corporate corruption, including coverage of ImClone's Sam Waksal.
• The Cure · Nonfiction book adapted into the 2010 film Extraordinary Measures starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser.
• California Local News Fellowship Program · Co-created the largest state-funded local news fellowship program in the country with California State Senator Steve Glazer.