Michele Norris

Executive Director, The Bridge at the Aspen Institute & Founding Director, The Race Card Project

Michele Norris is a Peabody Award-winning journalist, founder of The Race Card Project and Executive Director of The Bridge, The Aspen Institute’s new program on race, identity, connectivity and inclusion. For more than a decade Norris served as a host of NPR's "All Things Considered" where she interviewed world leaders, American presidents, Nobel laureates, leading thinkers and groundbreaking artists. She has also produced in-depth profiles, interviews and series for NPR News programs as well as special reports for National Geographic, Time Magazine ABC News and Lifetime Television. Norris created The Race Card Project, an initiative to foster a wider conversation about race in America, after the publication of her family memoir, The Grace of Silence. Before joining NPR in 2002, Norris spent almost 10 years as a reporter for ABC News in the Washington Bureau. She has also worked as a staff writer for The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. In 2014, Norris earned a Peabody award and the Distinguished Dialogue Award for her work on the Race Card Project. In 2009, she was named "Journalist of the Year" by the National Association of Black Journalists. The NABJ recognized Norris for her coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign — when she co-hosted NPR's Democratic presidential candidates’ debate, covered both conventions, anchored multi-hour election and inauguration live broadcasts and moderated a series of candid conversations with voters on the intersection of race and politics. That series earned Norris and Morning Edition Host Steve Inskeep an Alfred I. DuPont -Columbia University Award for excellence in broadcasting.

IWMF Awards