Brandi Kellam

Brandi Kellam is a two-time Emmy Award, two-time Telly Award, and Gracie Award–winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker whose reporting has sparked public action and informed conversations about historical accountability and repair.

Through her series Uprooted, Kellam examined how university expansion displaced Black communities, connecting historical injustices to their present-day consequences. The reporting, along with its Emmy Award–winning documentary adaptation, helped inspire the creation of a Virginia state legislative commission examining Black communities uprooted by public institutions of higher education.

Kellam’s work combines investigative reporting, storytelling, archival research, and oral history to preserve overlooked histories. A recipient of multiple fellowships and grants, she has been recognized by Columbia University Journalism School, the Spencer Foundation, the Education Writers Association, and as the inaugural Marvel Cooke Media Fellow with the Smart Cities Research Lab.

 Her reporting has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, CBS News, NBC News, ESSENCE, The Virginia Mercury, WHRO and other outlets. She also serves as an adjunct professor of journalism at Norfolk State University.