About

Sandra Guy is an award-winning journalist, editor and freelance writer and blogger who has written for the past 20 years for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Throughout her 36-year career as a reporter, Guy has covered issues as diverse as a scandal that denied Appalachian coal miners their black-lung benefits to Chicago, suburban, state and federal politics, crime victims’ and their families’ stories, behind-the-scenes issues on college campuses and significant business, scientific, technological and medical breakthroughs.

Guy also served for three years (2001-2003) as president of the Chicago chapter of the Association for Women Journalists (AWJ).

While reporting in the field, Guy honed her expertise in taking photos and video, as well as live tweeting, blogging and updating online stories in real time.

As a freelance writer for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) magazine for the past 10 years, she has won several awards for coverage of issues involving African-American women technology professionals and their unique struggles and achievements, whether in the military or in high-tech, industrial, academic or entrepreneurial careers. The recognition included the 2018 Grand Award from the Awards for Publication Excellence for a package of stories in the Society of Women Engineers magazine’s research issue; the 2013 Grand Award for a cover feature on diversity’s advantages in engineering education; and the Feature Writing Award of Excellence at APEX 2010, the 22nd annual Awards for Publication Excellence, for a cover story on how historically black colleges and universities are maintaining their niche in furthering the engineering careers of African-American women.

Guy also reported from technology events in Singapore and Geneva, Switzerland, during the height of the dot-com frenzy in the late 1990s as the news editor at Telephony magazine.

Guy’s passion throughout her career centers on breaking exclusive, meaningful and in-depth news, leading social-media and strategy-setting projects that are intellectually stimulating, and contributing to a hungry yet responsible and engaging news organization.

A native of Appalachia, Guy started her career at The Coalfield Progress newspaper in southwestern Virginia after she was graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in English and communication from Emory & Henry College in 1983. She has started work toward a master’s degree in public policy studies at the University of Chicago.

She has taught as an adjunct instructor at DePaul University in the College of Communication since 2011. In this role, Guy has been nominated for an Excellence in Teaching Award and has led groundbreaking initiatives, such as creating a video archive of interviews with leading women in Chicago media and partnering with a Chicago Tribune-owned bilingual newsmagazine to publish her students’ community news stories.

See Guy’s webpages at https://chicago.suntimes.com/authors/sandra-guy, Chicago Sun-Times and https://chicago.suntimes.com/authors/sandra-guy-for-the-sun-times/archives/3.