William Wan
William Wan is an investigative reporter who writes accountability and narrative stories for The Washington Post, often about health and those suffering on the margins of society.
His recent story exposing how online predators prey on suicidal teens led U.S. senators to introduce bipartisan legislation. His investigation with two colleagues into the Trump’s administration’s deliberate attempts to traumatize federal workers was recognized with the 2026 Toner Prize for political reporting. His revelation last year that Trump officials mistakenly released social security numbers of more than 400 U.S. officials (including Trump’s own campaign lawyer) sent the White House scrambling to contain the damage. In 2022, Wan’s exposé that Yale was exiling students with mental health problems led to a class-action lawsuit, U.S. Senate calls for investigation and — ultimately — sweeping changes at that university and others.
Wan’s narrative-driven stories have similarly sparked real-world change: Readers raised $80,000 for a covid widow and her kids losing their home. After he wrote about a family stranded in Afghanistan during the U.S. withdrawal, the U.S. military safely evacuated them. A story he wrote — after walking 16 miles in the dark with a woman grappling with her twin’s suicide — led to new deliberations on suicide research by grant-making agencies. In 2022, Wan’s account of a teenager’s 76-day wait in an emergency room — combined with his data analysis of hundreds of thousands of medical records — forced immediate action by Maryland’s health secretary to reduce wait times.
Wan has been a staff writer for the Post since 2005. In that time, he has reported from more than 20 countries, delivered agenda-setting stories as a health reporter, uncovered human rights abuses in China, chronicled post-revolutionary Egypt and flown across Asia with then-President Obama.
He was key member of the Post’s 2010 Pulitzer finalist team covering the Fort Hood shootings. In 2010 and 2011, Wan was named Religion Writer of the Year. In 2011, the American Society of News Editors recognized him with its diversity writing award for a profile revealing religious discrimation against a Muslim soldier in the U.S. Army. During a two-year stint covering national security and U.S. foreign policy, he chronicled the diplomacy of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
He began writing about China in 2010 and served for three years as the Post’s foreign correspondent in Beijing. For his work examining the unintended consequences of Communist Party policies on Chinese families, Boston University presented Wan with the 2014 Hugo Shong Award. His subsequent coverage of government abuses won human rights awards and the Award for Excellence from the Asian American Journalists Association. His reporting on corruption and secrecy among China’s cops and courts won the National Headliners Award and was a finalist for the Livingston Award.
In 2018, Wan began covering covering health & science for the Post. His stories on mental health during the pandemic contributed to government action and an unprecedented increase in federal funding. His coronavirus stories won several of health journalism’s top prizes — including the NIHCM Award, the Association of Health Care Journalists’ features award and the Public Service Award from the American Association of Suicidology.
Wan grew up living on several continents, with much of his childhood in the Canadian prairies and the Mississippi delta. He previously worked as a metro reporter for the Los Angeles Times and as the Baltimore Sun’s rewrite reporter.
