Lalini Pedris

Lalini Pedris is a journalist and avid backpacker, photographer, and wildlife enthusiast who recently graduated from American University's School of Communication with a master's in international journalism. She also holds master's degrees in international affairs and in natural resources and sustainable development from American University's School of International Service and the Universidad para la Paz in Costa Rica. Lalini most recently worked with The Washington Post’s Investigative Unit as part of a graduate investigative journalism practicum and is most passionate about humanitarian and environmental issues. She is currently working as a freelance researcher with Al Jazeera in Washington, D.C. for the weekly foreign affairs show UpFront.

Prior to working in the field of journalism, Lalini conducted fieldwork in human-wildlife conflict and environmental change Botswana, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, and Australia. In 2022, she was one of two students from American University to travel to Belgium for the 2022 U.S. Press Visit to the European Union Headquarters in Brussels, which was hosted by the Delegation of the European Union to the United States. In her most recent travels abroad, Lalini spent a month backpacking through Mongolia, from the Gobi Desert to the northern taiga, where she had the opportunity to travel and photograph the country.

Through the international reporting fellowship with the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, Lalini will be reporting on the Rohingya crisis in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh and on human-wildlife conflict in the region.