Kari Lydersen is a Chicago-based reporter, author and journalism instructor. She is a lecturer in the graduate program at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, where she leads the Social Justice & Investigative Specialization and is co-director of the Social Justice News Nexus, a fellowship program that brings together graduate students and professional reporters. Kari is also a staff writer for Midwest Energy News and writes for publications including The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Chicago Reader and In These Times, with a focus on environment and energy; housing; the opioid crisis; and labor. From 2013-2014, she was a research associate at the Medill Watchdog Project at Northwestern. Through 2009 she was a staff writer in the Midwest bureau of the Washington Post; after that she wrote for the Chicago edition of the New York Times through the Chicago News Cooperative. Her work has also appeared in publications including Discover Magazine, Crain's Chicago Business, The Economist, Newsmax, People Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor and High Country News.