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 grieving mother finds purpose in the new novel "No Place to Bury the Dead." NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks with author Karina Sainz Borgo about her book.
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A TV show heist involving maple syrup, inspired by a real-life caper: NPR's Ellissa Nadworny talks with actor Margo Martindale and series co-creator Ed Herro about "The Sticky."
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NPR staffers recommend five of this year's new novels for summer reading: "The Ministry of Time," "The Familiar," "Come and Get It," "Memory Place," and "Sex, Lies and Sensibility."
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In between missile attacks and air raid sirens Ukrainians say, so some residents of Kyiv are heading to the ski slopes for respite.
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Megan Miranda's latest summer thriller, The Last to Vanish, is set in a small hiking town in North Carolina, where 7 people have disappeared in the woods. Were they all accidents or was it something more sinister? -
NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks to Iman Vellani, the Pakistani-Canadian actress who plays Kamala Khan on "Ms. Marvel," about what the show means for representation on television. -
A third of Ukrainians have called Russian their mother tongue. Russian statues and cultural markers abound. Are these influences inherently toxic? The war is prompting emotional conversations. -
NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with actor Anna Chlumsky about Netflix's new limited series Inventing Anna.
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Still trying to get that spill from last night out of your rug? Get a stubborn wine or berry stain out by pouring boiling water through the stained material. -
A group of students from Brooklyn see every day how climate change disproportionately affects their community. They made a podcast that asked: Why?
