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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The FDA will likely make a decision about approving Pfizer's vaccine "shortly after" an advisory committee meeting on Thursday. The agency has found "no specific safety concerns" about the vaccine. -
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is taking a county-by-county approach. Dr. LouAnn Woodward of the University of Mississippi supports a statewide order and laments the politicization of mask-wearing. -
To turn around the current jump in coronavirus cases, epidemiologist Ellie Murray says governments need to focus on the places that are driving the spread, like restaurants and bars. -
For decades, states have claimed that lethal injection is quick, peaceful and painless. An NPR investigation — and legal battles across the country — tell a different story. -
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. -
Colette Pierce Burnette of Huston-Tillotson University says keeping students and staff safe was paramount. Black people are dying from COVID-19 at two and a half times the rate of white people. -
The growing coronavirus death toll doesn't provoke the same type of emotional response that a plane crash might. It's a coping mechanism and how our neurons are wired, says psychologist Elke Weber. -
Travis Bristol, an assistant professor of education at the University of California at Berkeley, explains how teacher training and the presence of Black teachers can help reshape education. -
Rebecca Sibilia, founder of EdBuild, says a Supreme Court case shaped a funding model for public schools that reinforces inequity. She tells All Things Considered about a new model that could help. -
Lee Merritt, a co-counsel for several black families of victims of police violence, met with President Trump before he signed an executive order on policing, which Merritt says is not enough.
