Zoe Sullivan is an award-winning audio producer and investigative journalist who has divided her time between Wisconsin and Brazil since 2013.
Zoe is currently working on both narrative and branded audio productions for companies such as Audible and Slate Studios as well as pursuing independent projects in both English and Portuguese. Her newsletter offers reported and personal essays, and her reporting has been featured by the BBC World Service, The Washington Post, Mongabay, and Next City, among others.
Previously, Zoe covered mining and deforestation in Brazil for Mongabay. Her stories on Brazil’s 2018 presidential elections, the Zika crisis, and the Olympics appeared in outlets ranging from DW, and US News and World Report to NBC News, and she has also reported from the Brazil/Venezuela border on the refugee crisis there.
Zoe has produced two audio documentaries for the BBC World Service about feminist organizing in South America. This reflects one of her primary reporting foci: women’s rights. The stories followed a young woman, Aymara Val, organizing for economic justice in the outskirts of Buenos Aires and a group of Brazilian Evangelical Christian women challenging the misogyny in their churches. These projects followed Zoe’s reporting on the discrimination facing women soccer players in Brazil and Argentina.
From Wisconsin, she has delivered investigations into sex trafficking for the Guardian along with reports on the economic challenges facing farmers – and the creative ways some are addressing those hurdles. After following the murder of Tony Robinson, Jr., Zoe worked with Robinson’s mother to create an audio diary about her experience.
Zoe’s insights into Brazil have been featured on The Takeaway and 1A, and Next City published her solutions stories weekly between 2018 and 2020.
Whether it is covering the challenges facing Wisconsin dairy farmers or the “dark ships” dodging U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil, Zoe tells complex, nuanced stories to help readers draw their own conclusions.
Zoe is available to coach journalists and producers on projects they want to develop and for consultations on podcast and story development. She is also available for reporting projects focused on Brazil, Argentina, and Wisconsin. She is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.