Over her rich, 24-year career at The Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Bernstein, BA’87, has reported on higher education, philanthropy, psychology, and religion, all areas in which personal relationships loom large.
As a columnist for the WSJ, Bernstein writes about social psychology and the manifold aspects of human interactions. She focuses on how people can best relate to others and themselves.
In her work, Bernstein has ranged far and wide, from exposing the backlash against excessive emailing of baby photos to a detailed narrative reconstruction of a matricide. She has done investigative reporting, most recently helping to uncover the alleged sexual abuse and harassment perpetrated by casino mogul Steve Wynn.
Bernstein has written long-form profiles of people who are in delicate situations where the outcome is high-stakes, such as the family of Evan Gershkovich, the WSJ's reporter who was wrongfully jailed in Russia.
She also wrote a profile on Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was held hostage and killed by Hamas.
Bernstein earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English from Indiana University and a master’s degree in journalism with honors from Columbia University. She also completed a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focusing on brain science, and a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism.
Bernstein’s work has been recognized by many organizations, including the New York Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists' Deadline Club, the Education Writers Association, Mental Health America, and the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Her work also contributed to the Pulitzer Prize the staff of the Journal won for the paper published on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center, in which the Wall Street Journal’s offices were destroyed.
In 2009, she and a colleague won first-place awards from the New York News Publishers Association and Mental Health America for their story, “A Death in the Family.” She also received a Distinguished Column Writing Award of Excellence in 2010.
Bernstein currently lives in Miami with her partner and her dog, Scout, and is an avid sailor and scuba diver.