Stephen Kurkjian is one of the most acclaimed investigative reporters in the United States. A forty-year veteran of the Boston Globe, he is the paper’s former Washington bureau chief and a founding member of its investigative Spotlight Team. He began his career at The Globe covering topics such as the Vietnam War protest movement to Woodstock rock festival. In 1969, he covered Senator Kennedy's fatal accident on Martha's Vineyard Chappaquiddick Island and the Woodstock rock festival which solidified his decision to remain a reporter for his career rather than the law.

Kurkjian has won more than twenty-five national and regional awards, including the Pulitzer Prize on three occasions. During his career, Kurkjian specialized in writing about political and government corruption, as well as, in his later years, art theft. He has also written and spoken extensively about the Armenian Genocide.

Stephen Kurkjian was a 2019 Aurora Forum Goodwill Ambassador and served as an Aurora Prize Expert Panel Member in 2017 and 2019-2020.