
Elise Hu
Elise Hu is a host-at-large based at NPR West in Culver City, Calif. Previously, she explored the future with her video series, Future You with Elise Hu, and served as the founding bureau chief and International Correspondent for NPR's Seoul office. She was based in Seoul for nearly four years, responsible for the network's coverage of both Koreas and Japan, and filed from a dozen countries across Asia.
Before joining NPR, she was one of the founding reporters at The Texas Tribune, a non-profit digital news startup devoted to politics and public policy. While at the Tribune, Hu oversaw television partnerships and multimedia projects, contributed to The New York Times' expanded Texas coverage, and pushed for editorial innovation across platforms.
An honors graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia's School of Journalism, she previously worked as the state political reporter for KVUE-TV in Austin, WYFF-TV in Greenville, SC, and reported from Asia for the Taipei Times.
Her work at NPR has earned a DuPont-Columbia award and a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media for her video series, Elise Tries. Her previous work has earned a Gannett Foundation Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism, a National Edward R. Murrow award for best online video, and beat reporting awards from the Texas Associated Press. The Austin Chronicle once dubiously named her the "Best TV Reporter Who Can Write."
Outside of work, Hu has taught digital journalism at Northwestern University and Georgetown University's journalism schools and served as a guest co-host for TWIT.tv's program, Tech News Today. She's on the board of Grist Magazine and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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In a time of polarization and political division, NPR and StoryCorps explore whether simple but courageous acts — talking and listening — can be a countervailing force to national discord.
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Writing letters to strangers in almost all 50 states became an outlet to process anxieties about the pandemic. And a reminder of all the ways we are connected.
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Cathy Park Hong's essays serve as a major reckoning, pulling no punches as the author uses her life's flashpoints to give voice to a wider Asian American experience, one with cascading consequences.
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Researchers have found that giving your brain an electrical stimulation while you sleep can lead to quicker learning and improved memory. Future You's episode 6 explores what this will mean in 2050.
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Scientists have developed promising clock-turning treatments for mice. Could pills that mimic the benefits of exercise help humans? In this Future You: the effort to stop the symptoms of growing old.
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You know "the Force" that binds all things — the one that can let your mind move objects? The latest Future You video demos an armband that allows users to control objects with thoughts.
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The community shaken by California's Camp Fire is finding ways to come together for Thanksgiving.
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More than 500 Yemenis are awaiting asylum decisions on a South Korean resort island that allowed them to arrive visa-free. Their presence has sparked nationwide protests.
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When President Trump and Kim Jong Un meet on Tuesday, it will be the result of strenuous diplomacy by officials from the U.S., North Korea and other countries. Here are some of the key figures.
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"No regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship of North Korea," the president said in January. Human rights experts fear the issue may be ignored now.