Kunle Falayi

Kunle Falayi is a data journalist with a strong focus on data analysis, visualization, and visual storytelling. Over the past decade, he has held diverse roles in journalism—including business reporting, investigative reporting, and radio production—with a reporting career that spans Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

He currently works as a data journalist at the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO Public Media, where he leverages data to uncover and report in-depth stories that serve and inform local communities. He also previously taught data journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, where he trained graduate students in data reporting, analysis, and visualization.

Before moving to the U.S., Kunle was a business reporter with the BBC, covering Anglophone West Africa from its Lagos bureau. He began his journalism career at Punch Newspapers in Nigeria and has since held positions as a visiting journalist at The Telegraph in London and a reporter at The Arizona Republic.

His work has earned several prestigious journalism awards in Nigeria, including Journalist of the Year at the Promasidor Quill Awards in 2014 and a Diamond Award for Media Excellence in 2018. In 2017, he was also one of nine African journalists honored at the Zimeo Excellence in Journalism Awards. Among his notable works is a documentary exploring Nigeria’s fight against kidnapping.

Kunle holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.