MEET david conrad-pÉrez

David Conrad-Pérez is a historian and narrative nonfiction writer. His book, Fire in the Heart of the City: The Triangle Shirtwaist Tragedy and the Origins of Modern Charity, traces how a single New York catastrophe reshaped American ideas about labor, journalism, and civic responsibility.

​

Before turning full-time to historical writing, he spent a decade in journalism, with bylines in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Columbia Journalism Review, and as a producer for Public Radio International’s The World and WNYC’s On the Media. He earned a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied the origins of modern news institutions.

​

He is Research Director at the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University.​