Data Journalism Projects

Selected data journalism projects | Columbia Journalism School — Lede Program

8th August 2026

A Corporate Card the Brazilian Government Rarely Uses Has One Loyal Customer

While the Centralized Procurement Payment Card has largely fallen out of favor across the federal government, the Ministry of Education generated more than 70% of its spending and transactions over the past five years.

Skills & Methods
Data collection and analysis using Brazil’s Federal Transparency Portal API. I mainly used Python and Pandas clean and analyze government purchasing-card records, identify spending patterns and compare transactions across federal agencies.

Code: https://github.com/LaraCastelo...

8th August 2026

Flávio Bolsonaro Mentions Lula and the Workers’ Party More Than His Own Father on Instagram

An analysis of social media captions from Brazil's two leading presidential contenders, two months before the elections, reveals what each candidate talks about most — and who gets more engagement.

Skills & Methods
Social media data collection and text analysis. I scrapped Instagram posts from Brazil’s two leading presidential contenders, processed and classified captions, and analyzed the frequency and distribution of topics to compare their messaging.

Code: https://github.com/LaraCastelo...

8th August 2026

99% of U.S. Deportees Over Four Years Came From Latin America

More than half a million people were deported between 2020 and 2024 — most without criminal convictions. Mexico alone accounted for 44 percent.

Skills & Methods
Data collection, cleaning and analysis of public immigration records. I used Python to process deportation data, examine trends over time and break down the figures by country and other relevant characteristics.

Code: https://github.com/LaraCastelo...