Emily Sweeney covers local news and writes “Blotter Tales,” a weekly column that appears in the Metro section every Sunday, and “Cold Case Files,” a new series and newsletter about unsolved crimes.

Her areas of expertise include history, crime, and technology, and she’s the author of several nonfiction books, including “Boston Organized Crime,” “Gangland Boston,” and “Dropkick Murphy: A Legendary Life.”

A proud native of Dorchester, Sweeney graduated from Boston Latin School (where she made history as the first girl ever to play on the boys’ varsity ice hockey team) and Northeastern University (where she played on NU’s championship-winning Division 1 women’s ice hockey team).

As a journalist Sweeney has written about a range of topics — from the business of mining conflict minerals to overcrowding in prisons to living conditions in state institutions for the disabled — and she’s been featured on many TV and radio programs, making appearances on Court TV, the Travel Channel, Science Channel, BBC Radio, Beat the Press, Bloomberg Radio, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, NESN, and other media outlets.

She was most recently featured as a guest expert in “Bloody Boston,” a documentary series about organized crime in Boston, and she’s slated to appear in the forthcoming Netflix series “How To Become a Mob Boss.”

She currently serves on the board of directors for the New England First Amendment Coalition and the New England Society of News Editors.