Investigative journalist | Feature writer | Software engineer

Aneela Mirchandani is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work has been cited in the New York Times. Her work often centers on internet investigations (OSINT), public records (FOIA), and tax/court filings. She has taken on politically contentious topics with nuance and precison. An empathic listener, people from blue-collar workers to scientists find that she is able to get to the heart of their concerns.

Aneela started her career as a software engineer from India, but she was interested in too many things to remain satisfied with a single career. While working as a programmer, she wrote for her own websites, chasing obsessions: essays on food, the science of genetically-modified crops, and the knotty issues around social meda, free speech, and disinformation.

On the way she developed expertise in OSINT techniques and uncovered secretive owners of scam websites. One of her investigations uncovering a Romanian company that sold gold-plated Trump coins was quoted in the New York Times.

She got a Masters in Journalism from New York University in 2024. Her work has appeared in Salon, Daily Dot, AsAmNews, Quilette, Community Sentinel, and Mother Jones.

Aneela also writes on issues affecting the Indian diaspora and the local Asian American community. Her story for AsAmNews on a caste discrimination lawsuit won the first runner-up award in the Politics Category for the 2025 American Community Media Awards.

A dogged researcher and avid reader, Aneela lives in San Francisco where she occasionally imagines she is in a Dashiell Hammett novel.