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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The Supreme Court's unanimous ruling upholds access to mifepristone, a drug used in more than 60% of abortions. The decision shocked some doctors and abortion rights advocates. -
State laws on abortion keep changing – with new bans taking effect in some places while new protections are enacted in others. And abortion will be on the ballot in at least four states.
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Telehealth accounts for 19% of all abortions, new research finds. And while the number of abortions did plummet in ban states, overall abortions across the country are up. -
This year's winning entry is an emotional account of living with schizoaffective disorder, from a student at Miami Dade College. -
Columbia University officials answered lawmaker questions about antisemitism on campus. But Wednesday's hearing played out very differently from the 2023 hearing that grabbed so many headlines.
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More than 5,000 women are expected to give birth in the next month in Gaza. One clinic is offering free ultrasounds, and for many, it's the first in their pregnancy.
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Women who are pregnant or who have recently given birth in Gaza face serious challenges amid daily airstrikes, continued ground fighting, high rates of disease and a growing lack of food and water. -
And not just toddlers — infants and preschoolers too. A new effort aims to help the 4 million college students raising kids by putting Head Start programs on community college campuses. -
The university agreed to the fine as part of a settlement agreement with the U.S. Education Department, which found numerous violations of the Clery Act, a campus safety law. -
Students taking the exam use their own devices, or school devices – they no longer need a paper and pencil. More than a million students are expected to take the test.
