Together, they represent the best minds in the data journalism industry. We do our best to gather a representative group of people who can help us grasp how the world of data journalism is doing, and assess fairly who's been outstanding, by understanding the context in each region of the world.
The Jury is responsible for going through all the entries, assessing them and at the end release a shortlist. The Prize Committee then takes over, looks at all the shortlisted entries and decides who should win this year.
The Sigmas 2026 Jury
It will be led by Pinar Dağ (GIJN), jury chairperson, and Kuek Ser Kuang Keng (Pulitzer Center), competition officer. Simon Rogers (Google), who has been leading the jury since the first Sigmas, will now serve as advisor.
We’ve gathered a group of international experts in data journalism to help us review all the entries submitted this year:
- Eva Constantaras, Lighthouse Reports (Thailand)
- Mohammed Haddad, Al Jazeera (Qatar)
- Monia Ben Hamadi, journalist and trainer (Tunisia)
- E'thar AlAzem, ARIJ (Jordan)
- Sam Joiner, The Financial Times (UK)
- Dada Lyndell, The Insider (Poland)
- Yan Naung Oak, Thibi (Thailand)
- Agustin Armendariz, ICIJ (USA)
- Jennifer LaFleur, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism (USA)
- Yevheniia Drozdova, Texty.org.ua (Ukraine)
- Weiyi Cai, New York Times (South Korea)
- David Frenkel, Mediazona (Czech Republic)
- Jamile Santana, Transparency and Open Data at the City of Mogi das Cruzes (Brazil)
- Jacopo Ottaviani, Code for Africa (Italy)
- Florencia Coelho, La Nación (Argentina)
- Tai Nalon, Aos Fatos (Brazil)
- Rigoberto Carvajal, Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP) (Costa Rica)
- Justin Yarga, Independent data journalist (Sweden)
- Meng Wei, Visualization developer and designer (China)
The Prize Committee
The Prize Committee will be led by Gina Chua (Semafor), prize committee chair of The Sigma Awards.
The Prize Committee this year that will review the shortlist and decide who should win this year's competition includes:
- Alberto Cairo, University of Miami (USA)
- Sarah Cohen, Stanford University (USA)
- Cheryl Phillips, Stanford University (USA)
- Paul Radu, OCCRP (Romania)
- Yue Qiu, Bloomberg (USA/China)
- Soph Warnes, CNN (USA)
- Katia Brembatti, Universidade Positivo (Brazil)
- Silva Shih, CommonWealth Magazine (Taiwan)
- Roman Kulchynskyi, Texty.org.ua (Ukraine)
- Mohammed Al Komani, ARIJ (Jordan)
- Minami Funakoshi, Reuters (USA)
- Brant Houston, University of Illinois (USA)
- Sandra Crucianelli, Infobae (Argentina)
- Malek Khadhraoui, Inkyfada (Tunisia)
- Catherine Gicheru, Africa Women Journalism Project (AWJP) (Kenya)
- Laura Grant, The Outlier (South Africa)
