Melissa Dai is Investigate Midwest’s 2025 summer reporting intern. She’s a rising senior at Northwestern University, where she’s pursuing a career in investigative journalism.
In the past, Dai worked as an investigative intern at NBC Chicago, where she exposed scams and fought for consumer resolutions. She’s published two long-form investigations with MindSite News — republished by The Appeal and Capital B News — about flawed police responses to mental health crises. She also produces feature stories for her university’s paper, The Daily Northwestern.
Dai brings a passion for human-centered, data-driven storytelling to her work at Investigate Midwest.
