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.
-
On their new record 72 Seasons, Metallica proves they're still making inspired music for hardcore fans. For a metal band with many of its members approaching 60, that's no small feat. -
Molly Tuttle's new album is her third. But in many ways, it's a reintroduction – of her prodigious guitar talent, of her personal story, and to the Recording Academy that decides Grammy Awards.
-
Omar Apollo has been nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys, an accolade that usually takes artists years to achieve. But not for Apollo.
-
Celebrated bluegrass musician Billy Strings has a new album out, which he made with his dad, Terry Barber.
-
While scientists studied a coral reef ecosystem in the South Pacific, rising temperatures led them to believe it was doomed. Then, something miraculous happened.
-
Ten years ago today, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover successfully commenced its mission to explore the possibility of life on mars. Here's what it has discovered.
-
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Terry Virts, retired NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station, about Russia's decision to leave the ISS after 2024.
-
Anaïs Mitchell spent more than a decade developing her hit musical Hadestown, a retelling of a Greek myth set in hell. Now, after eight Tony Awards and a Grammy, she has changed the scenery.
-
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Australian songwriter Courtney Barnett about her new album Things Take Time, Take Time, in some ways a response to the 'anxiety and overwhelm' of the pandemic.
-
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Richmond, Va., songwriter Lucy Dacus about the childhood memories — real and imagined — that populate her latest album, Home Video.
-
Cuomo says Weezer is always looking to try the opposite of whatever it just did. Case in point: the band's new orchestral record, made back to back with a metal album.
-
In a new three-part special, NPR examines how George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery became part of a rallying cry that has led the U.S. to confront the racism of its past and present.
