Theo Baker
Theo Baker (born 2004 or 2005) is an American investigative journalist for The Stanford Daily, the student newspaper of Stanford University. 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. Reporting As a freshman reporter at The Stanford Daily, Baker began publishing stories in November 2022 about accusations of image manipulation against Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne, leading to a formal investigation from the university. Baker learned about the accusations through the scientific review website PubPeer and brought them to scientific integrity expert Elisabeth Bik. A lawyer representing Tessier-Lavigne sent what has been described as 'legal threats' to Baker, describing his reporting as "replete with falsehoods". 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. Tessier-Lavigne announced his resignation as Stanford's president on July 19, 2023, with multiple major news outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, attributing it as