BIOGRAPHY

Sanjana Bhambhani is a New York-based award-winning multimedia journalist and documentarian. Her work appears on outlets like the BBC, New York Focus, The Rachel Maddow Show, Velshi on MSNBC, Columbia News Service (CNS). Her debut short documentary, Mr.Blanks: A life on parole was recognized at film festivals around the world. She hosts a Spotify podcast and video-series about women from history whose stories went untold (@womenofhistory), featured on Washington Square News and Passionfruit.

She is an Associate Producer, Investigative and Archival Researcher and Additional Camera on the upcoming feature documentary Dear Lara, the Multimedia Lead on the Behind The Badge, a police accountability project with MuckRock and is the Researcher on Pulitzer-winning journalist Sally Jacobs' next book.

For Behind The Badge, funded by grants from the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the Data-Driven Reporting Project, she and her colleagues obtained and are analyzing never-before-seen New York State Police disciplinary files. The team's first article, published in April 2024, looked into the suspension process for officers in a little-known law enforcement agency within the New York Department of Homeless Shelters. Sanjana is pursuing a second, longer-term FIJ-funded investigation based on these files.

Previously, she pitched, scripted, edited and presented feature space, science, history and technology videos for the BBC. Her coverage included everything from the science of the near-death experience to the iron lung (an early device used by polio patients). Her work has appeared in BBC television newscasts and newsletters and one of her videos was translated into 15 languages for BBC audiences across five continents.

Sanjana directed and edited a short documentary as a Master's student at Columbia Journalism School called Mr.Blanks: A life on parole. About a 70-year-old out after 46 years in prison, the film follows Anthony Blanks who is re-learning to live a normal life without living family, money or the technical skills needed to earn a living today. Mr.Blanks won Best Short Documentary at the Frankly Film Fest, Best Non-Fiction at the Short Film Factory and Best Indie Documentary at Carpe Diem. Sanjana was also a finalist for Best 1st Time Director - Short at the New York International Film Awards and a nominee at several other festivals.

Sanjana also filmed and photographed labor, criminal justice and state politics stories, getting published in CNS for her video on the NY State prison package ban and article on the legal loopholes in New York City's salary range law. Columbia awarded her honors for her work in Reporting, Investigative Techniques, Video and the History of Journalism. Sanjana also served as the President of Columbia's Chapter of Women in Media, organizing speaker and networking events for woman-identifying student journalists.

During her time at The Rachel Maddow Show, Sanjana designed and coordinated graphic elements, wrote cut-ins, transcribed hearings and curated the morning note with the most important news of the day for the anchor and producers. Previously, she interned for Velshi on MSNBC, writing summary guests biographies, practicing segment-writing, and pitching segment ideas.

Sanjana graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Politics from New York University having been elected to Phi Kappa Beta National Honors Society and the Pi Sigma Alpha National Politics Honors Society. At NYU Madrid, she co-directed a bilingual documentary about the stigma around graffiti in Madrid. Sanjana was also the executive editor of IR Insider and wrote for their Eastern and Central Europe desk, also working as the organization's social media director from August 2020 to May 2021. She was briefly a staff writer for WSN's Opinion desk.