Tricia Ahmed-Hoque, a former student of Dr. Gingrich’s and a 2014 Alpharetta High School graduate, presented research methods in journalism to IA Honors Research classes. Ms. Ahmed-Hoque has a BA from Johns Hopkins and an MA in journalism from the University of Maryland. Ms. Ahmed-Hoque currently covers the state legislature in Minnesota for the Associated Press. She has written articles which have been published in USA Today and the Washington Post on issues such as the impact of Covid on migrant seafood workers, inflation’s disrupting Indigenous people’s food supplies, and the influx of out-of-staters coming to Minnesota reproductive clinics due to changes in laws nationally. Ms. Ahmed-Hoque’s stepfather and mother were also journalists and science authors of Bangladeshi decent who wrote and spoke out against human rights violations in their native country. They were attacked with machetes by Al-Qaedi at a book fair where her stepfather was killed. This incident gained international attention and Ms. Ahmed-Hoque was interviewed by many news organizations while a first-year student studying neuroscience at Johns Hopkins. The incident motivated her to switch to journalism because she felt she would be a more empathetic interviewer than many of the journalists who interviewed her. She wrote about her experiences in an editorial for the Baltimore Sun. Ms. Ahmed-Hoque shared methods for critiquing sources, fact checking, gaining access to interviewees, and conducting interviews with the IA Honors Research classes. Students learned a lot from her:
“Getting to meet with journalist Trisha Ahmed was a very exciting experience. The meeting was informative and valuable. She spoke and answered many questions about how she conducts research, which helped me understand methods in which to approach my own research for class.”
Daniella (Dani) Stephens, 11th Grader, Honors Research
“Trisha Ahmed gave our IA Scientific Research great perspective on what it is like to gather qualitative and quantitative research. She gave us insight into her daily tasks working in Associated Press and her best tips for collecting data.”
Audra Duncan, 11th grade, IA Honors Research
“We had a former student of Dr. Gingrich, Trish Ahmed spoke to our class before we started our research project. It was incredibly useful since she is a journalist, and she has a wealth of experience conducting interviews with people. It was helpful to hear some of the strategies she used since we were about to start the interviewing phase of the project.”
Andrew Lampert, 11th Grader, Honors Research
