Michael May
Senior Producer, NPR Story Lab
Michael May is the senior producer of the NPR Story Lab.
In this role, he works with newsroom staff to pitch and produce innovative projects, including podcasts, videos, web stories, and new series for broadcast. He helped incubate such projects as the podcast Rough Translation and the All Things Considered series "Been There." He frequently asks newsroom staff for stories around a theme — for instance, he asked the newsroom for personal stories, which led to this story about a young German boy who fled Nazi Germany with a toy monkey, among others.
May got hooked on producing radio in 1998 when he went to Moscow in search of Oleg Lundstrem, the lone jazz musician who continued to perform during the Stalin years. The resulting story aired on All Things Considered. Since then, May has been a daily news reporter at KUT, an editor at Weekend America and Latitude News, a managing editor for the Texas Observer, a contributing producer for WBUR's iLab, and, most recently, a radio instructor at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.
May has won two Overseas Press Club Awards, a Scripps-Howard Award, a Third Coast Audio Festival Gold Award, three National Headliners Awards (including one Grand Prize award), and two Edward R. Murrow Awards.
May graduated from Grinnell College with a Bachelor of Arts in history. He plays guitar, was a founding member of Austin's Minor Mishap Marching Band, and enjoys biking, kayaking, and skiing.
