Lissandra Villa de Petrzelka

Lissandra Villa de Petrzelka is a Washington-based reporter at The Boston Globe. She has reported on national politics full time since 2016, covering everything from abortion after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision to Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign to House Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Prior to joining The Boston Globe in 2022, Villa de Petrzelka (who likes to be called Lissa, which is pronounced like Lisa) worked at BuzzFeed News and TIME magazine. Some of the stories Lissa is proudest to have worked on include investigations into Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s treatment of staff; a gripping recounting of the the 2017 GOP baseball practice shooting; a profile of Beto O’Rourke in the wake of the 2019 El Paso shooting; and breaking the first sexual harassment story about the late Rep. John Conyers, which ignited the #MeToo movement on Capitol Hill.

Lissa’s favorite project since arriving at the Globe was contributing to the newsroom’s Two Weeks in America package, an award-winning project that involved driving for two weeks from Kansas City to Los Angeles with two other journalists and convincing people they came across to share their stories. She has also enjoyed working on investigations, including one that exposed security lapses around panic buttons on Capitol Hill, and another that shed light into Planned Parenthood’s 2023 restructure and layoffs in a post-Roe America.

Her favorite part of being a journalist is having an excuse to start a conversation with anyone she meets. In her seven years of reporting, she has traveled to half of the states in the country on assignment, and she looks forward to someday successfully pitching assignments from all of them.

She can be reached at lissandra.villa@globe.com and you can tweet at her @lissandravilla.