Elissa Nadworny
Elissa Nadworny is an NPR Correspondent covering higher education. She previously covered reproductive rights and abortion.
She regularly reports on international conflict, with a special focus on children and families. She has spent several months in Ukraine covering the war with Russia and in Israel, covering the war with Hamas and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
She guest hosts NPR radio shows such as All Things Considered, Weekend Edition and special election coverage.
In 2023, she tracked down a classroom of kindergarteners from eastern Ukraine, displaced by the war. The project took eight months, spanned multiple countries and continents, and told the story of children and families dealing with the trauma, loss, and fear that conflict brings.
Her work has won awards including a James Beard Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in innovation and several Gracie Awards.
She's a Livingston Award finalist for a story about college students getting their degrees from inside a state prison.
Other stories that have resonated with her include crawling in the sewers below a college campus to test wastewater for the coronavirus, sitting with the elderly living along the front lines in Ukraine's east, and the story of a pregnant woman in Gaza who gave birth amid abysmal and fast deteriorating hospital conditions.
In 2018, she went on an epic search for the history behind her own high school's classroom skeleton.
Before joining NPR in 2014, Nadworny worked at Bloomberg News, reporting from the White House.
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.
She can be reached via encrypted message at ElissaN.01 on Signal.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with Kristin Duncanson, a farmer in Minnesota, about how record high fuel prices are affecting her business.
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Former U.S. deputy national security advisor Anne Neuberger is watching for signs of competition and cooperation on artificial intelligence at President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping's summit this week.
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There's a long history of killer AI in cinema. Today, those works of fiction feel more real than ever.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with Director Maya Annik Bedward about her new documentary, Black Zombie.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks to Sayre Quevedo, creator of the "Reaching Out' podcast, about his and his brother's journey to find their biological father.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with Kurt Volker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, about worries that Russia's "hybrid attacks" could lead to a direct military confrontation with NATO.
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Over the years NPR's Michele Kelemen has seen high stakes diplomacy play out at the UN General Assembly.
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The President of Sacramento State talks about their Black honors college -- and how schools are dealing with DEI under the Trump administration. This story was produced with support from the Education Writers Association's Reporting Fellowship program.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with Adéla, about the rising popstar's debut album, Prima.
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Anthropic's Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman are joining calls for a slowdown amid fears the AI industry is racing toward building technology that humans can't control.