Ailsa Chang
Ailsa Chang is an award-winning journalist who hosts All Things Considered along with Ari Shapiro, Audie Cornish, and Mary Louise Kelly. She landed in public radio after practicing law for a few years.
Chang is a former Planet Money correspondent, where she got to geek out on the law while covering the underground asylum industry in the largest Chinatown in America, privacy rights in the cell phone age, the government's doomed fight to stop racist trademarks, and the money laundering case federal agents built against one of President Trump's top campaign advisers.
Previously, she was a congressional correspondent with NPR's Washington Desk. She covered battles over healthcare, immigration, gun control, executive branch appointments, and the federal budget.
Chang started out as a radio reporter in 2009, and has since earned a string of national awards for her work. In 2012, she was honored with the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for her investigation into the New York City Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" policy and allegations of unlawful marijuana arrests by officers. The series also earned honors from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists.
She was also the recipient of the Daniel Schorr Journalism Award, a National Headliner Award, and an honor from Investigative Reporters and Editors for her investigation on how Detroit's broken public defender system leaves lawyers with insufficient resources to effectively represent their clients.
In 2011, the New York State Associated Press Broadcasters Association named Chang as the winner of the Art Athens Award for General Excellence in Individual Reporting for radio. In 2015, she won a National Journalism Award from the Asian American Journalists Association for her coverage of Capitol Hill.
Prior to coming to NPR, Chang was an investigative reporter at NPR Member station WNYC from 2009 to 2012 in New York City, focusing on criminal justice and legal affairs. She was a Kroc fellow at NPR from 2008 to 2009, as well as a reporter and producer for NPR Member station KQED in San Francisco.
The former lawyer served as a law clerk to Judge John T. Noonan Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.
Chang graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University where she received her bachelor's degree.
She earned her law degree with distinction from Stanford Law School, where she won the Irving Hellman Jr. Special Award for the best piece written by a student in the Stanford Law Review in 2001.
Chang was also a Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University, where she received a master's degree in media law. She also has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she never got to have a dog. But now she's the proud mama of Mickey Chang, a shih tzu who enjoys slapping high-fives and mingling with senators.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Megan Reilly, interim superintendent for the Los Angeles Unified School District, about the decision to require all students 12 and older to be vaccinated against COVID.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients about the Biden administration's new measures to curb COVID-19, like mandating vaccination in many workplaces.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician, on President Biden's strategy to slow the spread of the coronavirus delta variant.
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The NFL is back. So are the fans. COVID-19 has never left. How will the league deal with full crowds during a pandemic? NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Lindsay Jones, who covers the NFL for The Athletic.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Kathleen Hoke, professor of law at the University of Maryland, about the decision the FDA faces on which e-cigarettes are safe for the public and which should be removed.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with American Academy of Pediatrics President Lee Savio Beers about the mounting pressure to consider emergency use authorization of COVID-19 vaccines for children under 12.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Grover Street, a travel nurse and author of the book Chasing the Surge: Life as a Travel Nurse in a Global Pandemic, about working on the road with COVID-19 patients.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Roselyn Romero of the Associated Press about how college students are using forged vaccination cards to attend in-person classes, and what schools are doing to respond.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Dr. Christina Bergin, a hospitalist in Phoenix, Ariz. Dr. Bergin is urging the governor to require masks in schools after her child was exposed to COVID-19.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Steve Contorno, political editor of the Tampa Bay Times, about how Floridians view Gov. Ron DeSantis' leadership during the pandemic.