Theo Baker

Theo Baker (born 2005) is an American journalist. He was a student journalist at The Stanford Daily, the student-run, independent newspaper of Stanford University, until 2024. In 2023, he became the youngest recipient of the George Polk Award for his reporting that led to the resignation of Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Baker is the son of journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser.

Early life and education Baker is from the Washington, D.C., area His paternal great-grandparents were Greek immigrants who anglicized their surname from Bakirtzoglous. He attended high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

He matriculated at Stanford University in 2022, when he was 17, and joined The Stanford Daily. He graduated in June 2026 with a degree in history. Baker learned about the accusations through the scientific review website PubPeer and brought them to scientific integrity expert Elisabeth Bik.

In July 2023, the final university report found that Tessier-Lavigne's research "fell below customary standards of scientific rigor and process" but did not constitute fraud. Baker subsequently published another story that the investigating panel did not grant some witnesses anonymity, so they were unable to testify because of active non-disclosure agreements.

In late March 2024, an article by Baker titled "The War at Stanford" was published in The Atlantic. The article also mentioned an instance where a Stanford student allegedly advocated for violence against President Biden. The student's naming was denounced by some, such as journalist Glenn Greenwald, as a form of doxxing. The article was criticized by others on the basis of its portrayal of student protestors, alleging a biased narrative ignoring islamophobia and the plight of Palestinians. Jonathan Chait later published a piece in New York Magazine responding to this criticism, suggesting progressive attacks were motivated by viewpoints outside the mainstream and that critics were espousing "illiberal left-wing thought".

Baker took two terms off in his junior year to write a book about Stanford titled How to Rule the World, published by Penguin Press in 2026. The Polk Awards gave Baker a "Special Award", making him the youngest ever Polk awardee. He told Teen Vogue that he had previously said he would never become a journalist but changed his mind to "feel connected to [his] late grandfather, who passed just two weeks before [he] started at Stanford, and who would always sit down and talk about his time doing student journalism."