
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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NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Kevin Blackistone, a national sports columnist at The Washington Post, about where Thursday's NBA gambling arrests fit within the history of sports gambling scandals.
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Ever see two people and wonder, are they a couple? Aaron Feinberg, a co-creator of Meet Cutes NYC, takes this question head-on in his spontaneous interviews on the streets of New York and new book.
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In the NBA season opener, the Houston Rockets started what might be the tallest NBA lineup of all time. Host Ailsa Chang speaks with the Ringer's Rob Mahoney, about the evolution of the skilled big man in the NBA.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Anthony Amore, director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, about art heists and what he's noticed about the recent jewelry theft from the Louvre.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Ellie Rushing, crime reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer, on how a drop in violent crime and new technology is leading to a high homicide clearance rate.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Clarissa Bitar about their new album, Bakhaf al-Layl, and how they are leaning into vocals after a long time spent not liking the sound of their voice.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Brittney Denise Sparks of Sudan Archives about her new album The BPM. She talks about how discovering the electric violin in her teens changed things for her.
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NPR's Ailsa Chang talks to former top FBI lawyer Andrew Weissmann about the federal indictment of John Bolton, the former National Security Adviser under President Trump during his first term.
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Wild horse manager Meg Puckett remembers the horse "Jumper," a wild horse on North Carolina's Outer Banks famous for jumping fences.
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Wild horse manager Meg Puckett remembers the horse "Jumper," a wild horse on North Carolina's Outer Banks famous for jumping fences.