Alex Tizon.jpg

Alex Tizon was a professor at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. He was found dead in his Eugene home at 58.

(Photo by University of Oregon)

University of Oregon professor and Pulitzer Prize winner Alex Tizon has died, according to the School of Journalism and Communication. He was 57.

A medical examiner says Tizon died in his sleep of natural causes, journalism school Dean Juan-Carlos Molleda wrote. He was found by Eugene police in his home.

Tizon taught reporting and interviewing at the UO since 2011. He recently returned to the U.S. from a Knight International Journalism Fellowship in the Philippines, where he studied government efforts to alleviate poverty in its five most impoverished provinces, according to Molleda.

A first-generation immigrant from the country himself, Tizon chronicled his experiences and struggles as an Asian-American man in a 2014 memoir, "Big Little Man: The Search for My Asian Self."

Tizon spent 17 years as a reporter for The Seattle Times. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for a project investigating substandard living conditions in federally subsidized housing for Native Americans. He also reported on the 9/11 attacks and their effects throughout the country for the newspaper.

Tizon also worked in Seattle as a bureau chief for The Los Angeles Times and was a frequent contributor to The Atlantic Magazine.

"His death is a tragic loss not only to his family but to the entire SOJC (School of Journalism and Communication) community," journalism director Scott Maier wrote in a letter to students obtained by The Daily Emerald.

--Eder Campuzano | 503.221.4344

@edercampuzano

ecampuzano@oregonian.com