Michael LaForgia, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigations editor at the Tampa Bay Times, is the speaker for the University of South Carolina’s Buchheit Family Lecture on Wednesday, Nov. 2.

The lecture, titled “Local Investigative Reporting is Not Dead,” will take place at 7 p.m. in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications auditorium. It is free and open to the public.

A native of Summerville, S.C., LaForgia graduated from USC in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in English. After joining the Tampa Bay Times’ investigations team in 2012, he went on to earn two Pulitzer Prizes for Local Reporting – the first in 2014 for bringing issues at a Hillsborough County, Fla., homeless shelter to light, and the second in 2016 for a series on five failing schools in St. Petersburg, Fla.

LaForgia was recently promoted from investigations team reporter to investigations editor, replacing fellow Carolina alumnus Chris Davis, who moved to the USA Today Network.

LaForgia previously spent six years as a reporter for The Palm Beach Post. While at Carolina, he served as editor in chief of the student newspaper, The Daily Gamecock.

The Buchheit Family Lecture Series was created in 2000 in honor of the late Phil Buchheit, the former president and chairman of Mid-South Management Company and the former publisher of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. The series is sponsored by the Buchheit Family Endowment, which provides undergraduate scholarships and graduate and doctoral fellowships to students of the university’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications.