PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — David Rohde, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, will join the Brown University faculty as an adjunct professor of English for the 2012 spring semester. Rohde will teach a course titled “Advanced Journalism: Investigative and Online Reporting.”

A 1990 graduate of Brown, Rohde covered the conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel-Palestine, and the Balkans. He won his first Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1996 for his coverage of the Srebrenica massacre for The Christian Science Monitor. He joined The New York Times in 1996 and served as the newspaper’s South Asia Bureau co-chief from 2002 to 2005. His work for the Times ranged widely, from coverage of the American military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq to articles about the devastating earthquake in northern Pakistan to reports on Pakistan's failure to confront militancy inside its borders. Rohde shared a second Pulitzer Prize in 2009 as part of The New York Times team covering Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is currently a columnist for Reuters, focusing on foreign affairs.

In November 2008, while in Afghanistan conducting research for a book about the history of American involvement there, Rohde and two Afghan colleagues were abducted by a Taliban commander who invited them to an interview. After more than seven months of captivity in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Rohde and one of his Afghan colleagues escaped on the night of June 19, 2009, and made their way to freedom. Five weeks later, his second Afghan colleague safely returned home as well. Rohde and his wife, Kristen Mulvihill, a 1991 Brown graduate, recently published a book about his kidnapping titled A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping From Two Sides (Viking, 2010). A five-part series about his experiences, published  in the Times, was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and won George Polk, Michael Kelly, ASNE, and Medill awards.

Rohde returned to Brown to deliver a lecture in November 2009 and again for Commencement in May 2010 to deliver the baccalaureate address and receive an honorary degree. During those visits, he expressed interest in teaching a class in the Nonfiction Writing Program.

“We think having David Rohde teach a course in nonfiction writing will be an excellent way to continue to bring visible, influential, working journalists to Brown with a strong desire to teach undergraduates,” said Kevin McLaughlin, dean of the faculty and former chair of the Department of English. “His course will help students explore the promise and perils of journalism and the developing field of electronic media. It represents an exciting new addition to our curriculum.”