asrao

I'm looking to connect with other aspiring hosts, develop my hosting and interviewing skills and expand my network of women and POC in the field. We are also currently hiring a content director for the department I am a part of!

I am a radio journalist based in Durham, North Carolina who is passionate about exploring identity, connection and power through storytelling. I grew up in an immigrant, mixed-race family in the Midwest, and this constant straddling of multiple worlds fueled my curiosity. I studied Women’s Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and started my journalism career as an intern for the nationally-distributed public radio program The Story. From 2011-2014, I worked in Brooklyn for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department. I traveled and recorded interviews around the country and produced select pieces for NPR’s Morning Edition & Weekend Edition.

I moved back South in 2014 and spent almost seven years working for North Carolina Public Radio WUNC’s flagship state-wide daily talk show The State of Things. I served as a producer, lead producer, managing editor, guest host and regular host of the program. During this time I also co-founded and co-hosted a podcast about millennial feminism in the South called She & Her and and edited the narrative-driven podcast The Double Shift which aimed to challenge the status quo of motherhood in America.

When I am not making radio, I am exploring with my partner and my dog Oliver, cuddling my niece and nephew, gathering my friends for dinner parties or book club and making experimental smoothies, cocktails and baked goods.