Mary Pat Flaherty

Mary Pat Flaherty (BSJ77) was inducted into the Medill Hall of Achievement in 2014.

Flaherty and fellow reporter Andrew Schneider won the 1986 Specialized Reporting Pulitzer Prize for an investigation into violations and failures in the U.S. organ transplantation system. Flaherty was a Pulitzer finalist in 1995 for a series about careless and rushed hiring programs by the D.C. police department.

Flaherty came to The Washington Post in 1993 after 15 years at The Pittsburgh Press. She joined The Post as an investigative projects editor for a team of reporters and returned to investigative reporting in 2000. Flaherty continues to work on investigative and long-range projects. In addition to the shared Pulitzer, Flaherty's work has received national awards including George Polk awards, SDX national awards and an Overseas Press Club award.

To the extent that there is a pattern to her work, it is this: pulling apart complicated subjects in a way that enables readers to understand how they are directly affected by decisions that haven't drawn attention but ought to have.