
Elissa Nadworny
Elissa Nadworny covers higher education and college access for NPR. She's led the NPR Ed team's multiplatform storytelling – incorporating radio, print, comics, photojournalism, and video into the coverage of education. In 2017, that work won an Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in innovation. As an education reporter for NPR, she's covered many education topics, including new education research, chronic absenteeism, and some fun deep-dives into the most popular high school plays and musicals and the history behind a classroom skeleton.
After the 2016 election, she traveled with Melissa Block across the U.S. for series "Our Land." They reported from communities large and small, capturing how people's identities are shaped by where they live.
Prior to coming to NPR, 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. In addition to USA Today, she's written stories for Dow Jones' MarketWatch, the Chicago Tribune, the Miami Herald and McClatchy DC.
A native of Erie, Pennsylvania, 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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President-elect Joe Biden plans to nominate Miguel Cardona to be his secretary of education. Cardona will have a lot on his plate, but one of the administration's top priorities is reopening schools.
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Cardona is a former teacher and has spent much of the pandemic pushing to reopen schools. President-elect Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate him on Tuesday evening.
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Researchers say the pandemic is largely to blame for this year's drastic enrollment declines, but college-going has also been on a decade-long downward trend.
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As Thanksgiving break approaches, many schools are seeing spikes in coronavirus cases. Some campuses are using students to work the phones as contact tracers.
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The Trump administration has often been openly hostile to colleges. With a President Biden, the federal government's approach to higher education seems almost certainly to be less confrontational.
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As coronavirus cases surge across the U.S., college students are nearing Thanksgiving break. But going home is complicated this year. We discuss how colleges ensure students' safe travel.
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As the new president sets his priorities, will having an educator as first lady help schools and colleges get what they hope for?
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NPR discusses what Election Day looks like on a college campus in Erie, Pa., where the vote is expected to be close, and college students likely will vote in high numbers.
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Wastewater offers an ideal testing opportunity for colleges: People often poop where they live; colleges know who lives in each dorm; and testing wastewater is a cheaper way to monitor virus spread.
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As colleges across the country see rising coronavirus rates, many campuses have gone into lockdown. Are these lockdowns effective at stopping the spread of the virus?