Sophia Jones is an award-winning investigative journalist & researcher.

Sophia’s work has influenced policy and led to real-world change. She is currently a researcher with Human Rights Watch’s Digital Investigations Lab, where she conducts open-source investigations to document and expose human rights abuses around the world.

Over the past decade, she has worked as a journalist covering conflict, human rights, and security in nearly two dozen countries. Her reporting has taken her inside ISIS tunnels in Iraq, gold mines in Ghana, HIV clinics in Russia, prisons in Afghanistan, refugee camps in Greece, revolutionary protests in Egypt, and beyond.

She has written for The New York Times, TIME, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Politico, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, NPR, Reuters, and Marie Claire Magazine.

Sophia previously served as executive editor at Starling Lab, a research center at Stanford and USC. There, she explored new tools to capture, store, and verify digital records. In December 2022, Rolling Stone Magazine published her groundbreaking year-long investigation into war crimes committed by an infamous Serb death squad, and the lack of accountability that followed. News outlets and journalists around the world reported on the investigation in a dozen languages. Sophia’s reporting was honored with an award from the American Society of Magazine Editors, a “Citation of Excellence” from the Overseas Press Club, a News and Documentary Emmy Award nomination, and a Scripps Howard Award nomination.

She was The Fuller Project’s global editor from 2017 to 2021. There, her reporting from Afghanistan for The New York Times Magazine won an award from the Military Reporters and Editors Association. Her reporting was also shortlisted for the Biedler Prize for Cancer Journalism and the South Asian Journalists Association Daniel Pearl Award. Sophia served as HuffPost's Middle East correspondent from 2013-2016.

Sophia is certified in battlefield medical aid and trained to safely and responsibly conduct research and reporting in dynamic environments.

Selected Work

THE DJ AND THE WAR CRIMES

Rolling Stone Magazine

The war raging in Europe feels familiar. Invaders descend onto foreign soil. Their leaders claim they are there to “liberate” the people. But the uniformed men are looting homes and raping women. They are torturing and executing civilians, whose bodies lay cold in shallow graves. They are committing war crimes, observers say, and there are photographs and testimony to prove it. This has happened before. Thirty years ago, in Bosnia, Belgrade-backed death squads carried out some of the worst violence on European soil since World War II. Even now, many of the killers walk free, some on the same streets as their victims’ families.

A THOUSAND EXPLOSIONS IN MY EARS

Human Rights Watch’s Digital Investigations Lab

An investigation into a Russian attack that killed dozens of civilians in an Izium residential building.

CLIMATE CHANGES COMPLICATES AFGHAN PROSPECTS FOR PEACE

National Geographic

Experts say warming will further fuel natural disasters, mass displacement, child marriage, and conflict.

IN AFGHANISTAN, WHERE BREAST CANCER IS A DEATH SENTENCE, WOMEN FIGHT TO SAVE LIVES

ELLE

There is no radiation or readily available chemotherapy for women who have breast cancer in Afghanistan.

WEDDED TO ISIS

Marie Claire Magazine

Now that the Islamic State has lost its grip on Iraq, what will become of the women being punished for their husbands’ crimes?

A THOUSAND MILES IN THEIR SHOES

HuffPost

Follow these Syrian refugees as they risk everything for a new life in Europe.

THE MANY DANGERS OF BEING AN AFGHAN WOMAN IN UNIFORM

The New York Times Magazine

Inside the expensive & controversial US-led NATO mission to recruit, support, and protect Afghan women in uniform.

A PANDEMIC AND A SPARK OF LIFE

The Atlantic

I’ve reported from war zones, but nothing prepared me for navigating the joys and fears of early pregnancy under lockdown in Barcelona.

HOW SOCIAL CONSERVATISM FUELED RUSSIA’S HIV EPIDEMIC

POLITICO

Putin turned to the church to help consolidate his rule. The Church cracked down on sensible approaches to STDs. Now, Russia has a crisis.

FOOL’S GOLD

SIERRA Magazine

In Ghana’s breadbasket, women battle a Colorado mining giant for land and livelihood.

WOMEN ARE DYING IN TURKEY

Foreign Affairs

Under the increasingly authoritarian rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the government is squashing dissent and pushing policies that are detrimental to women.

A TEST WITH NO ANSWER

Marie Claire

A global investigation: No procedure exists that can prove virginity, yet unscientific virginity tests occur regularly—even in the U.S.

ISOLATED IN RURAL NIGERIA — AND WAITING ON AMERICA TO VOTE

Foreign Policy

Across much of the world—including one remote Nigerian village—the availability of family planning will largely depend on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

THEY CAME TO KILL THE MOTHERS

TIME

After a devastating attack on a Kabul maternity ward, health advocates struggle to support women when health efforts are under threat by both militants and a deadly, invisible virus.

WHEN RUSSIAN TROLLS ATTACK

WIRED

Russian women are fighting back against fighting back against Russia’s Kremlin-influenced trolling machine.

IN IRAQ, DEATH COMES FOR A TECHNICIAN DEFUSING BOMBS BY HAND

HuffPost

America's allies don't have proper demining equipment or protective gear. That's costing them their lives.

Email Sophia: sophia.marie.jones@gmail.com or sophia.marie.jones@protonmail.com

Follow Sophia on Twitter @sophia_mjones