Photos by Amy Blaszyk
Nour Akkad
Washington Desk
Clare recently received her B.A. in English from Pomona College, east of Los Angeles. Stuck inside the bubble of a small liberal arts college and without a car, Clare learned to love college radio.
This, and later an internship at a world news satellite TV show, piqued her curiosity about the growing importance of independent media. She plans to find a place for herself within it, but her plans change often and her ambitions usually aren't as practical as they should be. For now, she is content to explore post-college life, NPR, and Los Angeles (this time with car).
Lisa Brunner
Radio Expeditions
Alex has recently been converted to NPR - she credits years of attempted conditioning by her father. One of the main reasons she switched was because NPR's programming offers a fresh political perspective, in contrast to the sometimes stodgy radio alternatives at home in Raleigh, NC.
Alex is now in her last year at George Washington University, where she is majoring in English abd Creative Writing with a minor in Spanish Language and Literature. When she's not in school in D.C. or at home in Dixie, she's off in a world of her own - reading anything she can get her hands on. She just got back from Ireland, visiting Frank McCourt in his childhood through "Angela's Ashes." Next, she'll travel around the globe with Borges, trying to figure out what the heck he's talking about - in Spanish. Alex's favorite author is David Sedaris, who intensifies her love of all things North Carolina and her growing affection for NPR.
Alex is excited to be working at NPR with the Digital Media division, gaining more journalistic experience every day and trying her hardest to sound exactly like Michele Norris.
Paul de Revere
All Songs Considered
Rob graduated from the University of Mary Washington in May 2006 with a B.A. in History. He was a member of the UMW Electronic Music Collective, an independent study devoted to learning basic studio techniques and creating MIDI masterpieces.
From Big Pun to Bach, B.B. to Beck, Boom Bap to Bluegrass and everything in between, Rob actively seeks music that represents the differing attitudes and spirits of this space/time continuum. In addition to working at Performance Today, he is looking forward to offering a fresh musical perspective to Intern Edition as its Musical Director.
Loving the Redskins, hating the Redskins (and loving them again), a day on the links, Mexican food, live music, reading and catching a high pocket pair rounds out a fairly typical list of interests. He currently resides in relative obscurity in his hometown of Berryville, VA.
Tommy Gillespie
All Things Considered
Erika Engelhaupt is working toward her goal of becoming the world's most highly educated intern. She completed her second Master's degree a few months ago at the University of Colorado, where she studied journalism and all things environmental. There, she nourished her passion for writing about science and the environment. Her previous master's degree was in ecology at Tulane University in New Orleans, the city she calls home.
The simple fact of "home" took on new meaning for Erika last year after Hurricane Katrina. Living in Colorado at the time, she felt far from home and listening to NPR helped her feel more connected. Since the storm, she's stuck with the habit of dragging a little white battery-powered radio around her apartment with her at all times, always tuned to NPR. These days, she subjects everyone she meets to long diatribes on the beauty of a flat, hot, sticky and soulful place. In part to thank NPR reporters for their role in telling the story of her drowned city, she offers her services for free as an intern.
Ashley Grashaw
Talk of the Nation
Josh was raised in Bountiful, UT, and worked in both public and commercial radio before beginning his internship at NPR. Growing up he spent his time playing soccer and drumming for the local band The Dukes of Funk, whose music he describes as "aural Dadaism," in that it was "frequently misunderstood and not widely accepted as legitimate art."
Josh spent two years in Korea as an LDS missionary before attending Brigham Young University, where he graduated with a degree in English Language and Linguistics. He is an unapologetic republican and an avid country music fan, a combination that virtually guarantees he will not be invited to a single social event for the duration of his internship. In all seriousness, he is very thankful for the many kind and patient NPR employees who have taken time to teach and mentor him as he continues to look for his "niche" in the world of radio.
Adam Hinterthuer
Science Desk
Growing up in Evanston, IL, Mark Giangreco was introduced to radio broadcasting at an early age when he discovered his father, a local sportscaster, talking to himself in the family's attic. A microphone linked to a Chicago radio station apparently made this behavior socially acceptable.
In high school, Mark served as news director the school's radio station (WNTH). He also hosted a reggae and rock radio show with his best friend, Jack ("White Lightning").
Based solely on tapes from the WNTH archives, the admissions office of Harvard University admitted Mark. As a junior, he spent a semester at the University of Bologna, where he studied Italian film and learned to supplement his speech with elaborate gestures. He was released from Harvard - despite his fervent protestations - in June 2006, with a degree in American History and Literature. Mark spent the following summer wandering Sicily, writing for the travel guide
Let's Go, before landing at NPR. In his spare time he reads lots of short fiction, plays ice hockey a bit too competitively, and argues about movies with his two younger brothers.
Rebecca Jacobson
Arts & Information Desk
After Harvard, where she studied literature and philosophy, and prior to her internship at NPR, Amanda Gill worked for three years at the New York Review of Books as an editorial assistant and with its publishing imprint New York Review Books, where she helped bring wonderful out-of-print classics back into print - sometimes in new translation, and always with new context given by contemporary writers.
Next year Amanda will be back in New York, still dazzled by the language of legal affairs, public life, and the great people at NPR. She encourages anyone reading this to listen to the brilliant oral arguments at the Supreme Court, which are taped for the national archives.
Ben Jarvis
Media Relations/Corporate Communications
Growing up, Addie Goss rebelled against L.A. by driving to the desert, where she could be alone with NPR and away from the people who teased her for listening. She joined Brown Student Radio (BSR) minutes into her freshman year, where she learned to create documentary radio with a Nixon-era mixer, a bicycle, and the smallest state in the nation.
Addie has since produced for NPR's
The Connection during a 2005 internship and reported for NPR's Next Generation Radio in Kansas City. Her most lasting project was founding
Off the Beat, BSR's first local news show. From 2004-2006 she trained and deployed reporters, field produced, reported, edited, hosted and mixed the weekly half-hour show, and barely slept.
Off the Beat has been recognized by Collegiate Broadcasters, Inc. and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Addie sees radio as an excuse to talk to anybody and everybody. In recent years she followed marathon runners through Death Valley in 125°F heat, interviewed Katrina survivors in New Orleans, and boarded a quahogger's skiff in Narragansett Bay. Most recently, she rode her bicycle - yes, bicycle - 4,000 miles across America with a microphone in her backpack. She has a running bet that, before leaving DC, she will interview someone operating a crane. If prompted, Addie will rave about radio's immediacy, its simplicity, and its power to evoke empathy. Her goal for 2007 is to start reporting for public radio - and, not surprisingly, she'll go anywhere to make it happen.
Jason Kane
Morning Edition
Born and raised in the eclectic city of Miami, FL, Jason is fond of the beautiful weather his hometown offers (which makes everybody envious when he gets to return home for winter breaks). Politics drew Jason to American University, where the students are ranked among the most politically active in the nation.
At AU, Jason is active in the College Democrats and Student Government. His degree in Political Science allows him to receive course credit for a Congressional internship, so he is now an expert on giving tours of the Capitol. An avid listener of NPR, he applied for the internship this fall to glimpse the inner workings of public radio. Jason hopes to someday work as a Congressional Aide.
Aemon Malone
National Desk
Bio
coming
soon!
Ricardo Ramirez
All Things Considered
David Kates interns at the arts desk at NPR West and works as an archives assistant at the Crossroads School Library. He is a second year Masters in Broadcast Journalism student at the University of Southern California. Last summer, he reported for a newsmagazine on Bush Radio in Cape Town, South Africa. Previous to that he volunteered on construction sites in Thailand and Costa Rica.
In 2004, David participated in an audio documentary institute at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies. he has a B.A. in American studies and sociology from Dickinson College and worked for nearly four years with an educational database in suburban Washington, D.C. David's also an avid fan of documentary film, carrot cake and becoming fluent in Spanish.
Laurel Wamsley
Weekend Edition-Saturday / Executive Producer-Intern Edition
Amanda Krohn was born and raised in Coral Springs, Florida. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from the University of Florida; she is currently a third-year student at The George Washington University Law School. Previous work experiences include three years in the United States Senate and a summer associate position at a New York law firm.
