Rob Reid is the Tribune's education data developer. He started in 2024 after completing Columbia University’s Lede Program for Data Journalism. He previously supported the investigative reporting program at Northwestern University's Medill School as a data consultant and contributing reporter and also completed a data journalism internship at the Jacksonville Tributary in Florida. A strong believer in the importance of community, he developed case management databases with Healthy Families America for over two decades before entering the journalism field. Rob grew up in southeastern Massachusetts, raised by parents who grumbled about the declining quality of local papers but read them anyway. First attending an otherwise-excellent public school that slashed its school newspaper, he then completed an undergraduate engineering degree at Cornell University. He is based in Austin.