ABOUT

Hi! My name is Fiona Kelliher, and I’m an award-winning independent investigative journalist based in London. I also work as a digital producer for Al Jazeera.

My work covers a wide range of international news and themes, but I’m especially interested in the human impacts of technology, global development and capitalism.

Recently, I’ve investigated how money launderers are using illicit technology to bypass banking and crypto safeguards, the TikTok job scams targeting Kenyans, the human trafficking pipeline from East Africa to Myanmar scam centers and the Cambodian Red Cross’s financial links to alleged transnational criminals.

I completed a master’s degree with distinction at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2025, where I wrote my dissertation on Southeast Asia’s cyberscamming industry.

Before that, I was based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I edited at VOD English—the hardest-hitting of Cambodia’s few independent newsrooms—until the government shut it down over our coverage. I then co-founded a data journalism and OSINT project collating public records in Cambodia that also went on to be blocked.

My freelance Southeast Asia reporting has appeared regularly in The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Nikkei Asia, Al Jazeera, Radio Free Asia, Rest of World and Coda Story, among others.

I started my career at The Mercury News, a daily California newspaper, where I co-produced an award-winning series into how California's Covid-19 policies failed Latino communities.

I graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in sociology and Phi Beta Kappa academic honors, earning the school’s most outstanding undergraduate sociology student award.

Awards:

  • Overseas Press Club Foundation Scholar Award for emerging international journalists (2026)

  • Victor K. McElheny Award (Finalist), MIT Knight Science Journalism Program (2022)

  • Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California, Awards: Breaking News Award (2022) and Explanatory Journalism Award (2021)

  • California News Publishers Association Award, First Place: Coverage of Local Government (2022) and Fifth Place: In-Depth Reporting (2018)

  • National Association of Real Estate Editors: Bronze Award (2020)

I’m no longer on Twitter, but please contact me at fi.kelliher@proton.me.