Indian American data journalist Shradha Dinesh has won a 2026 Gerald Loeb Award as part of the Miami Herald and WLRN team behind “Killer Train,” an investigation into fatalities and safety failures along Florida’s Brightline passenger rail corridor.

The G. and R. Loeb Foundation and UCLA Anderson School of Management announced the winners Oct. 9 after an awards ceremony in New York City. “Killer Train” received the honor in the Local category. The Loeb Awards, established in 1957, recognize business, financial and economic journalism that informs and protects the public.

Dinesh worked on the reporting while serving as a data fellow at the Miami Herald. She is now a news associate at The Wall Street Journal, where she covers markets. Her contribution reflects a reporting approach built around public records, original datasets and statistical analysis.

The Miami Herald-WLRN team spent more than a year documenting deaths involving Brightline trains. Reporters reviewed federal rail data, local medical examiner records, police reports and autopsy records. Their investigation found 182 deaths connected to Brightline at the time of publication, substantially more than had been publicly known.

The project also found that Brightline was the nation’s deadliest major passenger railroad by far, with a fatality occurring about once every 13 days of operation. While the company had said most deaths were suicides, the reporting found that many were accidents or cases in which the cause remained undetermined. The series was presented through articles, data analysis, multimedia graphics and a podcast.

Dinesh’s fellow Loeb recipients on the project were Brittany Wallman, Aaron Leibowitz, Daniel Rivero, Joshua Ceballos, Susan Merriam and Allison Beck. The same investigation was previously named a finalist for the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting.

Dinesh, who is from Ashburn, Virginia, studied data science and political journalism at William & Mary. Earlier in her career, she was a ProPublica Emerging Reporter and received a National Press Club scholarship. The Loeb Award marks another milestone in a young career focused on accountability reporting and shows how data journalism can turn fragmented records into public-interest findings.

Key Takeaways About Shradha Dinesh

• She won a 2026 Gerald Loeb Award.
• “Killer Train” prevailed in the Local category.
• She reported the project for the Miami Herald.
• She is now a news associate at The Wall Street Journal.
• The investigation was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist.