Elissa Nadworny
Elissa Nadworny reports on all things college for NPR, following big stories like unprecedented enrollment declines, college affordability, the student debt crisis and workforce training. During the 2020-2021 academic year, she traveled to dozens of campuses to document what it was like to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic. Her work has won several awards including a 2020 Gracie Award for a story about student parents in college, a 2018 James Beard Award for a story about the Chinese-American population in the Mississippi Delta and a 2017 Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in innovation.
Nadworny uses multiplatform storytelling – incorporating radio, print, comics, photojournalism, and video — to put students at the center of her coverage. Some favorite story adventures include crawling in the sewers below campus to test wastewater for the coronavirus, yearly deep-dives into the most popular high school plays and musicals and an epic search for the history behind her classroom skeleton.
Before joining NPR in 2014, Nadworny worked at Bloomberg News, reporting from the White House. A recipient of the McCormick National Security Journalism Scholarship, she spent four months reporting on U.S. international food aid for USA Today, traveling to Jordan to talk with Syrian refugees about food programs there.
Originally from Erie, Pa., Nadworny has a bachelor's degree in documentary film from Skidmore College and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
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A $111 billion merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery got the green light from the Trump administration, though several states are raising anti-trust concerns.
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Modern life has fried our attention spans. Could flexing our long term memory muscles help? NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks to actor William Sutton, who knows all 154 Shakespearian sonnets by heart.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with actress Samara Weaving about being a "Scream Queen," and about her new crime thriller "Carolina Caroline."
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A stay-out-of-the-water beach read features a giant, sentient sea creature. NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks with Tessa Yang about her debut novel, "The Jelly Fish Problem."
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With the peace process stalled, there are signs of growing public fatigue in Russia with the Kremlin's war as Ukraine uses robotic warfare to stay in the fight.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with Leo Woodall about his role as a piano tuner with hyperacusis in the new movie "Tuner."
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A lady's maid and a gentleman's valet fall in love and hatch a plan to get their employers together in the new novel "A Perfect Hand." NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks with author Ayelet Waldman about it.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks to reporters Ginny Monk and Dave Altimari of the Connecticut Mirror about their Pulitzer-winning investigations on predatory towing practices.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks to Mehrzad Boroujerdi of the Missouri University of Science and Technology about the status of the Trump Administration's negotiations to end the war on Iran.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks to Guy Goma who thought he was being interviewed for an IT job at the BBC but instead found himself live on air. His interview 20 years ago became a viral sensation.