Hi! I'm Ava Mandoli.

I'm a recent graduate of Northwestern University, where I studied journalism, global history and data science.I care deeply about telling stories that are data-driven and people-centered. To bring them to life, I've built up skills in data analysis, visualization and front end web design, complementing my background in reporting and photography.Previously, I've done design and development work at the San Francisco Chronicle, written data-driven entrepreneurship stories for Inc. Magazine, reported on agribusiness for Investigate Midwest and consulted for Chicago-area news outlets at Medill's Local News Accelerator.
At Northwestern, I co-founded the Data Journalism Collective and established a new data visualization desk at The Daily Northwestern.Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, I'm a proud Midwesterner and care deeply about the health of our local news ecosystems.Things that bring me joy outside of work include fiber arts, reading, exploring new neighborhoods and biking.You can contact me at [email protected].

My writing & data journalism:

Zoom scrollyteller template – San Francisco Chronicle

  • At the SF Chronicle, I coded a non-developer-friendly “click to publish” template for storytelling with a single detail-rich image. As one scrolls down, it zooms into different designated parts of the image where the reporter can explain the significance of the featured subject.

  • Two examples of the template in use include this story about a group photo of famous Beat poets, and this story about the 1906 earthquake's effect on downtown San Francisco.

ArchieML Tag Generator – San Francisco Chronicle

  • Previously, creating a photo story layout outside the Chronicle’s CMS required photo team members to send screenshots and metadata to the design team, who then manually wrote ArchieML tags in a Google Doc.

  • To reduce this friction, I created an internal tag generator that automatically provided a form with the different fields required for each visual component (inline image, gallery, image slider, video, etc.)

  • The form returned inputs as a copiable tag with correct formatting (font colors, weights and spacing) that users could easily copy and paste into a Google Doc.

  • It also provided a sample page preview (above right) with the selected visual component and filler text.

Tim Tkachenko Has 60-Plus Co-Founders. Why He Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way – Inc. Magazine

  • For Inc. Magazine, I wrote this feature tracing the breakneck expansion of this running club for entrepreneurs across the world. The piece landed in Inc.'s Premium section, the magazine's prime location for inspiring and intriguing people-driven narratives.

  • Here's a PDF version of the story if you can't access it.

Austin Tops This List of Startup Hot Spots. Does Your City Rank? – Inc. Magazine

  • I analyzed 2024 Inc. 5000 data in R to create this list of up-and-coming entrepreneurial hubs in the U.S. I identified the top industry in each metro area, then interviewed the highest-ranked company in that industry to paint a picture of the entrepreneurial character of each area.

  • I also created an interactive map so people in other popular metro areas could explore how their region stacked up to the top 10.

  • Here's a PDF version of the story if you can't access it.

Employees Want Better--and Wider Ranging--Caregiver Policies – Inc. Magazine

  • At Inc., I wrote an average of three quick hits per week in addition to pursuing enterprise stories. My beat encompassed everything from the future of workplaces, to employee satisfaction, to the rapidly changing labor market.

  • In quick hits, I frequently included data visualizations to illustrate key points, as I did in this story about the caregiving responsibilities many employees have.

Iowa skipper butterfly 'canary in coal mine': A warning sign of prairie loss consequences for farmers, wildlife alike – Investigate Midwest

  • I interviewed over a dozen conservation experts, farmers and government employees to write this story about the intertwined plight of the Iowa skipper butterfly and our country's agricultural system.

  • To show the scope of prairie degradation in the Midwest, I analyzed data from the USDA and EPA and created an interactive map in Flourish.

  • I also took photos of Fults Hill Prairie (pictured above) to illustrate the rich biodiversity of this overlooked ecosystem.

GRAPHIC: More than 75% of egg-laying hens live in states with little-to-no welfare protections – Investigate Midwest

  • Farmed animal welfare legislation has long been lacking in the U.S. I combined two datasets – one on the number of egg-laying hens per state and another on what each state's battery cage regulations are – to develop this map in Flourish. The results highlighted the states where increased battery cage legislation would make a big difference.

  • This was a quick turnaround data vis and explainer for Investigate Midwest's "Graphic of the Week."

A Coalition’s Composition: Examining the "PI" in AAPI – nuAZN

  • I co-wrote this story for Northwestern's Asian American-interest magazine, nuAZN, to draw attention to the importance of using umbrella terms thoughtfully and meaningfully.

Here’s how Evanston has allocated $42 million of its ARPA funding over the last two years – The Daily Northwestern

  • I founded The Daily Northwestern's Data Visualization Desk in Winter 2023. One project I helped create and edit was this Tableau dashboard depicting Evanston's American Rescue Plan Act funding allocation. The interactive dashboard allows users to explore what city services and programs received the most and least funding.

My portfolio also includes photography, web design, video, and other multimedia-forward work:

Starting The Daily Northwestern's Data Vis Desk


In Winter 2023, I took on the challenge of starting a data visualization desk at The Daily Northwestern, my school's 140+ year-old student newspaper. My experience with data journalism at that point was limited to a single introductory statistics course, but I jumped at the opportunity to integrate the sort of coverage I admired in other publications into our own.I spent that quarter constantly communicating with the city and campus desk editors and brainstorming data-driven angles for their coverage areas. I reached out to every writer that signed up for a story on the budget and offered suggestions for data visualizations to include. And I recruited everyone I knew with a vauge interest in data science or graphics to pitch original content for our desk.My priority was making data journalism as accessible as possible to anyone who was interested, so I trained desk members in no-code platforms like Flourish, Datawrapper, ArcGIS and Knight Lab tools. And I developed a data visualization style guide to ensure stylistic consistency throughout our coverage.It was this quarter that made me realize how passionate I am about data journalism. Special thanks to assistant desk editor Zoey Soh and the rest of the Daily's staff for their help in creating this legacy for the paper.
Here are a few stories I'm proudest of making and/or guiding as an editor: