Amy Ellis Nutt has been a staff writer at The Star-Ledger for 13 years.

She is a graduate of Smith College and has Masters degrees from M.I.T.(Philosophy) and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she is a part-time adjunct instructor, In 2004-2005 she was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Her 2008 series "The Accidental Artist" won a Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing,