Brandon Brockmyer, Ph. D.

Brandon Brockmyer is the director of Investigations and Research at POGO. He oversees a team of journalists and researchers who work to identify government waste, corruption, and abuse, safeguard constitutional principles, and explore emerging trends in good governance and anticorruption. Investigations produced under Brandon’s guidance have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, the Intercept, the New Republic, and other media outlets, and have been cited in dozens of congressional oversight letters. 

Brandon also oversees the production of Bad Watchdog, POGO’s first-ever investigative podcast. In 2020, he managed the production of POGO’s COVID-19 Relief Spending Tracker, which won three 2021 CSS Design Awards and garnered interest from the Biden-Harris COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force. In 2023, Brandon received a Society for Professional Journalists DC Dateline Award for his work on the report, Accounting’s Big Lie.

Brandon is an expert on government transparency and accountability, with over a decade of experience monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of government policies and social programs. He has been quoted by the Washington Post, ABC News, and other media outlets, and has been a featured speaker at events hosted by the Anti-Corruption Advocacy Network, the National Press Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Transparency and Accountability Initiative, and served on the World Bank’s Global Partnership for Social Accountability roster of experts.

Prior to joining POGO, Brandon worked as research director for the New Venture Fund’s Western Values Project, as research director for the U.S. watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and as a research officer for The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 2016, Brandon helped to establish the Accountability Research Center, an action-research incubator that aims to improve the organizational effectiveness of civil society partners and to inform agenda-setting within the global transparency, participation, and accountability field.

Brandon holds a Ph.D. in international relations from American University and an M.A. in psychology from New York University, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Reed College.