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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Dartmouth College is going back to requiring the SAT after it found students from less advantaged backgrounds were not submitting test scores that were high enough to help them get in.
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A new study conducted by Dartmouth College found test scores could have helped less advantaged students gain access to the school. -
NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks with GennaRose Nethercott about the power of folklore and her collection of strange and fantastic short stories, "Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart."
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California is getting drenched by what meteorologists are calling a life-threatening storm.
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There's now a 4-to-6 week delay processing data for the Free Application for Financial Aid. NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks with high school senior Agustin Miguel and his mother, Ana, about the wait.
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The CIA says the war in Ukraine has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity to recruit spies in Russia. NPR's Elissa Nadworny talks to former CIA officer Douglas London about recruitment.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny asks Molly Manning Walker and Mia McKenna-Bruce about their new coming-of-age film, "How to Have Sex."
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Following Biden's win in South Carolina's Democratic primary, we hear from young Black voters as we look ahead to the state's Republican primary.
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More strikes on Iran-backed targets in the Middle East, Biden wins the South Carolina Democratic Primary handily, and House Republicans plan to vote on a stand-alone military package to Israel.
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NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with Elena Zavala of the University of California, Berkeley, about new research showing how homo sapiens and Neanderthals interacted and may have even interbred.
