When Chris Hamby asks questions, everyone should pay attention to what he discovers.

Hamby, ’08, an investigative reporter at BuzzFeed News, earned the organization its first Pulitzer citation Monday.

The Pulitzer finalist citation recognized Hamby’s reporting as an “exposé of a dispute-settlement process used by multinational corporations to undermine domestic regulations and gut environmental laws at the expense of poorer nations.”

If that sounds like a tall order, you should hear what he had to do to produce this award-worthy coverage. His editor, Mark Schoofs, shared with the Poynter Institute about the globe-trotting nature of Hamby’s reporting:

"Chris travelled to three continents, interviewed more than 200 people, and navigated unprecedented legal complexity to uncover a story of vast global import," Schoofs said. “We're honored to see it recognized today, and we're so grateful to BuzzFeed for supporting investigative journalism on this scale."

Hamby isn't our only connection to this year's Pulitzers. Former writer-in-residence Colson Whitehead won the prize fiction with his novel The Underground Railroad, and Matthew Desmond's book Evicted won for non-fiction. Desmond, author of this year's One Book, One Richmond selection, visted campus to talk about Evicted in February.

For those of you keeping tabs on Hamby, the 2008 journalism alum is no stranger to the pursuit of excellence in reporting. In 2014, he won the Pulitzer for his investigative reporting at the Center for Public Integrity on how doctors and lawyers representing the coal industry withheld evidence of black lung and denied miners’ benefits. He spoke about his reporting on campus in 2015.

Way to go, Chris!