Pulitzer Prize Board Adds Two Latinas, Aminda Marques and Quiara Alegria Hudes, To Its Ranks

The Pulitzer Prize board has picked two Latinas to join its ranks.

Miami Herald Executive Editor Aminda Marqués and playwright Quiara Alegria Hudes will join the organization that bestows one of the most prestigious awards in journalism and literature, Columbia University announced Tuesday.

“We look for diversity in the broadest sense,” Sig Gissler, the administrator of the Pulitzer Prize told Columbia Journalism Review. “Different backgrounds, regions, experiences, gender, race and ethnicity are all factors.”

Marqués grew up in Miami and joined the Herald as an intern covering community news, according to the paper. Minus a five-year stint at People Magazine’s Miami bureau, she’s been a fixture at the Herald for 25 years.

The paper has won 20 Pulitzers and was nominated for the award last year for covering the earthquake in Haiti. Working as a managing editor, Marqués played a key role in the Herald’s coverage of the Haitian disaster.

Perhaps best known for writing “In the Heights,” a broadway musical about New York City's mostly Dominican neighborhood, Washington Heights, Hudes won a Pulitzer this year in the drama category for her play “Water by the Spoonful.” The play tells the story of an Iraq war veteran.

The Pulitzer Board also elected journalist Steve Coll of the New Yorker to its board.

The 19-member board is made up of journalists, news executives, academics and people from the art world, according to Politico. Voting board member appointments can last up to nine years.