An investigative reporter and the director of The Outlaw Ocean Project, a non-profit journalism organization based in Washington D.C. that produces investigative stories about human rights, environment, and labor concerns at sea. Urbina spent 17 years reporting for The New York Times, and now regularly contributes to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, NPR, NBC News, and The Washington Post among others. He has earned numerous awards for his work, including a Pulitzer Prize, and recently, an Emmy and a Polk Award for International Reporting with The New Yorker. Several of his investigative stories have been converted into major motion pictures. In 2019, he published the best-selling book The Outlaw Ocean. The movie and TV rights were purchased by Netflix and Leonardo DiCaprio. During more than 5 years reporting at sea, Ian created a sound archive of field recordings consisting of rich sounds including machine-gun fire in Somalia and chanting sea slaves on The South China Sea. Ian then created The Outlaw Ocean Music Project in which he invited artists from around the world ranging a wide variety of genres to use the archive to make music inspired by the characters, settings, issues and emotions in the book. Hundreds of musicians from dozens of countries did just that. The Outlaw Ocean Music playlist can be found on Spotify. On June 12th, 2022, The Outlaw Ocean Music Project received the 2021 Award for Excellence in Innovation from the Scripps Howard Foundation.