Kristen Jordan Shamus is a journalist covering health for the Detroit Free Press. She led coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on Michiganders and was a finalist for three consecutive years – 2023, 2022 and 2021 – for the Richard Milliman Michigan Journalist of the Year award sponsored by the Michigan Press Association Foundation. Her work has taken her across the Mitten State, the U.S. and to Europe. There, she covered the stories of children who were evacuated from war-torn Ukraine to eastern Poland, where a team of U.S. doctors treated them for severe burn injuries. A graduate of Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Shamus has worked more than two decades in journalism – not only as a reporter at the Free Press, but also as an editor and columnist. She previously worked at the Oakland Press and the News-Herald Newspapers. Shamus was among 20 journalists selected in 2019 for a National Press Foundation fellowship, “Understanding Vaccines and Health.” And in 2018, she was one of 16 journalists chosen for the Mayo Clinic-Cronkite Medical Journalism Fellowship.