Laurel Wamsley
Laurel Wamsley is a reporter for NPR's News Desk. She reports breaking news for NPR's digital coverage, newscasts, and news magazines, as well as occasional features. She was also the lead reporter for NPR's coverage of the 2019 Women's World Cup in France.
Wamsley got her start at NPR as an intern for Weekend Edition Saturday in January 2007 and stayed on as a production assistant for NPR's flagship news programs, before joining the Washington Desk for the 2008 election.
She then left NPR, doing freelance writing and editing in Austin, Texas, and then working in various marketing roles for technology companies in Austin and Chicago.
In November 2015, Wamsley returned to NPR as an associate producer for the National Desk, where she covered stories including Hurricane Matthew in coastal Georgia. She became a Newsdesk reporter in March 2017, and has since covered subjects including climate change, possibilities for social networks beyond Facebook, the sex lives of Neanderthals, and joke theft.
In 2010, Wamsley was a Journalism and Women Symposium Fellow and participated in the German-American Fulbright Commission's Berlin Capital Program, and was a 2016 Voqal Foundation Fellow. She will spend two months reporting from Germany as a 2019 Arthur F. Burns Fellow, a program of the International Center for Journalists.
Wamsley earned a B.A. with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead-Cain Scholar. Wamsley holds a master's degree from Ohio University, where she was a Public Media Fellow and worked at NPR Member station WOUB. A native of Athens, Ohio, she now lives and bikes in Washington, DC.
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The swimmers are now leaving Japan and the spotlight moves to the track and field events at Olympic Stadium. We'll walk you through the biggest things to watch for until the closing ceremony. -
From pictogram people to a moving rendition of "Imagine," the Tokyo Olympics' opening ceremony balanced fun with the seriousness of the moment. -
Cases of the variant have popped up in several states. But neither the WHO nor the CDC considers it a variant of concern, and the fast-spreading delta variant continues to dominate U.S. cases. -
The Amazon founder became the second billionaire this month to reach the edge of space — following Richard Branson, who rocketed there aboard a vessel made by his company Virgin Galactic. -
Life might feel like it's getting back to normal. But we're not out of the woods yet. Here's what the end of the pandemic might look like. -
The news is a blow to UNC, which had its reputation damaged by its trustees' initial reluctance to grant tenure to Hannah-Jones. Howard also announced writer Ta-Nehisi Coates will join its faculty. -
With the changes, "we don't have to lie to get our passports. We can just be ourselves," said Dana Zzyym, an intersex person who has fought for more gender options on U.S. passports. -
The delta variant is the fast-moving strain of the coronavirus now found in 96 countries. It's expected to be the dominant variant in the U.S. within weeks. -
Law enforcement in Surfside, Fla., is using DNA samples from family members to help identify the victims recovered from the rubble. "It's very emotional," police official Alfredo Ramirez III says. -
"The concrete deterioration is accelerating," the Champlain Towers South's condo board president wrote as she asked for a $15 million special assessment for major structural repairs. -
Rescue teams search for any survivors within the sudden mountain of debris. "That's not an old building," said Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett. "That kind of thing should not be happening." -
Legal experts say the state's law is unconstitutional. But it could have a chilling effect on the state's law enforcement officers anyway.
