Tom Torok

Tom Torok

Tom Torok is the chief database editor for The New York Times, where he is responsible for obtaining, managing, analyzing and interpreting electronic information for news projects and newsroom resources. He performed the data analyses for the paper’s investigation of safety practices at railroad grade crossings, which won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2005; and for an investigation of occupational safety, which won the Pulitzer Public Service Award in 2004. He also developed numerous data sets and applications that were used for the paper’s coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, which won the Pulitzer Public Service Award in 2002.

He has taught computer-assisted reporting and advanced computer-assisted reporting here since 2001.

Before joining The Times, Torok was at The Philadelphia Inquirer for 18 years, where he participated in three computer-reliant projects that were finalists for the Pulitzer Public Service Award in 2000, 1999 and 1995. During his tenure there, he was a member of the computer-assisted reporting team, a humor columnist, a rewrite person, a business news reporter and a police reporter.

Earlier, he was a reporter and/or editor for The Bulletin of Philadelphia; the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill, N.J.; The Post-Star of Glens Falls, N.Y.; the Leader-Herald in Gloversville, N.Y.; and the South Dade News-Leader in Homestead, Fl.

He did graduate work in social psychology at the University of Colorado, where he attended as a Danforth Fellow; and graduated summa cum laude with honors from Florida State University (BA), where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa; Phi Kappa Phi and Psi Chi, the national honor society in psychology. He also attended Miami-Dade Community College (South Campus), where he was a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society of the two-year college.

In addition to writing more than 2,000 news stories or columns, Torok also has published incredibly bad poetry and research in a social science journal.

He’s a native of Carteret, N.J., and currently lives in South Jersey, a long, long train ride away.