David Simon is a Baltimore-based author, journalist and writer-producer of television specializing in criminal justice and urban issues. In 1988, after four years on the crime beat with the Baltimore Sun, he took a leave of absence from the newspaper to write his Edgar Award-winning book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, which inspired Barry Levinson's Emmy Award-winning television program of the same name. Simon adapted his second book, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, into the Emmy-award winning HBO mini-series, “The Corner.” He is also the Creator, Executive Producer and Head Writer of the critically acclaimed original HBO series "The Wire.”

While at Berkeley Mr. Simon was Writer-in-Residence at the Graduate School of Journalism.