About On Assignment and the duPont-Columbia Awards
The On Assignment podcast brings you some of the best conversations from the Columbia Journalism School, produced and hosted by the school's Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards.
The duPont-Columbia Awards honor the best in audio-visual reporting across platforms including broadcast, documentary, local investigative, radio and interactive journalism. We started the On Assignment Podcast to go behind the scenes and bring you the conversations we were having with the leading journalists in the field, many of whom are also past duPont Award winners.
Reach us on Twitter, or email us at team@onassignmentpodcast.org. Remember to subscribe on iTunes!
The Team
Abi Wright, Host
Abi Wright is the Executive Director of Columbia Journalism School’s professional prizes department. Follow her on Twitter.
Lisa R. Cohen, Host
Lisa R. Cohen is the Director of Prizes administering the duPont-Columbia Awards, and an adjunct professor teaching broadcast and video journalism. Follow her on Twitter.
Through a competitive annual process, Columbia Journalism School graduate students are selected to work for the duPont-Columbia Center. From September through May, the research fellows are an integral part of the duPont Awards, liaising with their classmates and visiting journalists, assisting with duPont-Columbia Center public events and carrying out special projects.
Sebastian Wright, 2026-27 duPont-Columbia Award Fellow
Sebastian Wright is a British documentary filmmaker and video journalist currently in the Documentary cohort at Columbia Journalism School. His work focuses on human stories within wider social and geopolitical issues, taking him from documenting Indigenous communities in Peru; to reporting on Ukrainian refugees in Poland; to witnessing climate change in Mongolia. He is building a career in long-form documentary journalism, telling ambitious, character-driven stories about people navigating conflict, adversity and the extremes of human experience.
Sophie McDougall, 2026-27 duPont-Columbia Award Fellow
Sophie McDougall, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is a full-time M.S. student at Columbia Journalism School. She spent the past four years studying Media, Culture, Communications, and Journalism at New York University, where she served as the Managing Editor of the undergraduate journalism publication, reported audio stories for WNYU radio, and wrote long-form print pieces surrounding history, culture, and family – from Oahu, Hawaii to Little Rock, Arkansas. She hopes to continue writing and producing human-centered print, audio, and video stories about New York City and beyond.