David Heath, 43, has worked as an investigative reporter for The Seattle Times since 1999. He was previously the director of computer-assisted reporting at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a reporter at the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky. In addition, Heath has been a reporter at the News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne and started his career at his hometown newspaper, the Enid (Okla.) News & Eagle.

His awards for the Hutch series include Harvard University's Goldsmith prize for investigating reporting, the George Polk award for medical reporting, the Scripps Howard Foundation's public service award, the Associated Press Managing Editors' public service award, the Newspaper Guild's Heywood Broun award and the National Headliners award for investigative reporting. Previously, he had won the John Hancock award for financial reporting. He is a frequent speaker at national conferences of the Investigative Reporters & Editors and the National Institute of Computer-Assisted Reporting.

Heath is a 1981 graduate of Grinnell College, where he majored in English. He lives near Seattle with his wife, Kyung Song, who is also a reporter at the Seattle Times.