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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Hundreds of people were allowed to leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Wednesday, and more are expected to leave Thursday as the war in Gaza continues.
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For the first time since Oct. 7, people have been able to leave Gaza. More than 70 critically wounded Palestinians and more than 300 people with foreign passports crossed into Egypt Wednesday.
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Thousands of Palestinians from Gaza were working in Israel when Hamas attacked on Oct. 7. Now, they're unable to go back and in limbo in the West Bank.
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A baby is born in Gaza amid abysmal and fast deteriorating hospital conditions
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Gaza is just about out of food, water, medical supplies — and now fuel. Only a few dozen aid trucks have made it into the Palestinian territory since Hamas attacked Israel.
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The teen fentanyl crisis is following students onto college campuses. Here's what students and staff are doing about it. -
New research looks at ways admissions offices can evaluate students after the U.S. Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling. The high court banned race-conscious admissions policies.
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Fentanyl-related teen overdose deaths nearly tripled from 2019 to 2021. As the school year gets under way, families in mourning urge education leaders to respond.
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Wesleyan University will end its practice of legacy admissions, which gives preference to children of alumni. This comes after the Supreme Court's decision to ban race-conscious college admissions.
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The U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling on affirmative action renewed calls for elite institutions to eliminate "legacy" admissions — or granting advantages to the children of people who attended.
