Sarah Handel is the Associate Producer for NPR's Talk of the Nation. She also directs the show from time to time, and assists the New York production staff of NPR's Talk of the Nation Science Friday. After a formative stint as a college radio DJ at WUOG in Athens, Georgia, Sarah knew a career in sociology could never compare to radio. Then, one evening, she heard a story on the Magnetic Fields on All Things Considered, and realized a gig at National Public Radio was her logical next step. This goal dovetailed neatly with her planned return to the DC area, where she grew up and had been accepted at graduate school. Once there she translated her interests in music, literature, technology, and art into an internship at NPR's Arts Information Unit, temped for a while, and happily landed at Talk.
David Schaper is a NPR National Desk reporter based in Chicago.
In this role, he covers news in Chicago and around the Midwest. Additionally he reports on a broad range of important social, cultural, political, and business issues in the region.
The range of Schaper's reporting has included profiles of service members killed in Iraq, and members of a reserve unit returning home to Wisconsin. He produced reports on the important political issues in key Midwest battleground states, education issues related to "No Child Left Behind," the bankruptcy of United Airlines as well as other aviation and transportation issues, and the devastation left by tornadoes, storms, blizzards, and floods in the Midwest.
Prior to joining NPR, Schaper spent nine years working as an award-winning reporter and editor for Chicago Public Radio's WBEZ-FM. For three years he covered education issues, reporting in-depth on the problems, financial and otherwise, plaguing Chicago's public schools.
In 1996, Schaper was named assistant news editor, managing the station's daily news coverage and editing a staff of six. He continued general assignment reporting, covering breaking news, politics, transportation, housing, sports, and business.
When he left WBEZ, Schaper was the station's political reporter, editor, and a frequent fill-in news anchor and program host. Additionally, he served as a frequent guest panelist on public television's Chicago Tonight and Chicago Week in Review.
Since beginning his career at Wisconsin Public Radio's WLSU-FM, Schaper worked in Chicago as a writer and editor for WBBM-AM and as a reporter and anchor for WXRT-FM. He worked at commercial stations WMAY-AM in Springfield, IL; and WIZM-AM and FM in La Crosse, WI; and at public stations WSSU-FM (now WUIS) and WDCB-FM in in Illinois.
Schaper earned a Bachelor of Science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and an Master of Arts from the University of Illinois-Springfield.
Lynn Neary is an NPR arts correspondent and a frequent guest host often heard on Morning Edition, Weekend Edition and Talk of the Nation.
In her role on the Arts desk, Neary reports on an industry in transition as publishing moves into the digital age. As she covers books and publishing, she relishes the opportunity to interview many of her favorite authors from Barbara Kingsolver to Ian McEwan.
Arriving at NPR in 1982, Neary spent two years working as a newscaster during Morning Edition. Then, for the next eight years, Neary was the host of Weekend All Things Considered. In 1992, she joined the cultural desk to develop NPR's first religion beat. As religion correspondent, Neary covered the country's diverse religious landscape and the politics of the religious right.
Over the years Neary has won numerous prestigious awards including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold Award, an Ohio State Award, an Association of Women in Radio and Television Award and the Gabriel award. For her reporting on the role of religion in the debate over welfare reform, Neary shared in NPR's 1996 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award.
A Fordham University graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in English, Neary thinks she has the ideal job and suspects she is the envy of English majors everywhere.
Toluse Olorunnipa has been a reporter with The Miami Herald since 2009, covering a number of beats, including real estate, the economy and the auto industry. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The Tallahassee Democrat and the Stanford Daily, and is a native of Tallahassee. He now covers property insurance, economic development and foreclosures in the capital.