Sharon LaFraniere

Sharon Veronica LaFraniere (born June 15, 1955) is an American journalist at The New York Times.

Early life and education LaFraniere was born in Detroit, Michigan. Her father was a car salesman, her mother worked various jobs. In 1973, she graduated from The Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a private school she attended on an academic scholarship. As a high school student, she worked at a gas station, a pancake house, a hamburger diner, a grocery store and a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. As a college student, she worked as a waitress, a housekeeper, a typist, a researcher and a junior probation officer.

In 1977, LaFraniere earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in comparative literature, graduating magna cum laude and with honors from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island on a full academic scholarship. She earned a Master of Science degree in 1979 in journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Awards 1999 Overseas Press Club Award for business reporting. 2013 Gerald Loeb Award for International for "China's Secret Fortunes". 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. 2021, finalist, Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting 2021, winner, The Association for Business Journalists, for breaking news on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal life She and her husband have three grown children.