13 Facts About Michelle Shephard

Michelle Shephard was born on 1972 and is an independent investigative reporter, author and filmmaker.

Michelle Shephard has been awarded the Michener Award for public service journalism and won Canada's top newspaper prize, the National Newspaper Award, three times.

Michelle Shephard produced the National Film Board documentary, Prisoners of the Absurd, which premiered at Amsterdam's film festival in 2014.

Michelle Shephard was the 2015 recipient of the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy.

Michelle Shephard grew up in Thornhill, Ontario and attended Thornhill Secondary School.

Michelle Shephard began working at the Star in 1995 as a summer student, when she met her future husband Jim Rankin.

Michelle Shephard left the Toronto Star in July 2018 when the paper closed its foreign news department.

Michelle Shephard was thanked in the foreword of the 2006 book Betrayed: The Assassination of Digna Ochoa by fellow Star reporter Linda Diebel, as well as Marina Nemat's 2008 book Prisoner of Tehran.

On September 11,2001, the day al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Michelle Shephard described going to the airport to fly to New York City, only to find all flights in North America had been ordered to land and no new flights were being allowed to take off.

Michelle Shephard's foreign reporting from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia has included Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Djibouti, Kenya, Syria and Dubai.

In 2019, Michelle Shephard hosted Uncover: Sharmini, the fifth season of CBC's crime podcast Uncover.

Michelle Shephard co-hosted a 2006 round table event with the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies with other Canadian journalists including Stewart Bell and Colin Freeze entitled "The Media and the Secret World".

In June 2015, Michelle Shephard was awarded the prestigious year-long Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy.