Heather Ciras is the former Director for Audience Development. She works on growing the organization’s readership and connecting it with a more diverse audience, including those most affected by the criminal justice system. Ciras joined The Marshall Project in 2021 from The Boston Globe, where she worked as Director of Audience Experience, shepherding digital strategies for the newsroom’s most ambitious work. She oversaw engagement and digital storytelling for the Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Blind Spot” investigation, and the Spotlight Team’s Pulitzer-finalist work on racism in Boston. Ciras led projects that garnered several Online Journalism Awards and Edward R. Murrow awards, and is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.