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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NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with British diver Tom Daley about his new book, "Made with Love," and how he turned knitting and crocheting into a mindfulness practice.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with writer Nick Hornby about his new book, "Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius."
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks with National Air and Space Museum curator Jennifer Levasseur about recently discovered debris from the Challenger space shuttle.
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In the first two months of the war in Ukraine, 15,000 babies were born. Their parents are raising the next generation of Ukrainians — children now as old as the war. -
NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks with Tampa Bay Times Political Editor Emily Mahoney about how Florida, the nation's one-time biggest swing state, has turned redder this midterm season.
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Researchers have observed octopuses lobbing silt and shells at each other — and they say in some cases it might be deliberate.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks with Insider Data Senior Editor Walt Hickey about aging lawmakers in the U.S., and why Congress has been skewing older now than in years past.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks with Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha about how Latinos voted in the midterms.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks with Governing Magazine reporter Alan Greenblatt about Democrats defying the odds in state legislatures like Michigan and Minnesota, where they flipped three chambers.
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NPR takes a look at Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the first Gen Z member elected to Congress.
