Elise Hu

Hu was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Chinese-American immigrants, and grew up in suburban Missouri and Texas.[5] She graduated from Plano Senior High School in Plano, Texas. During high school, she and friends were paid $100 each to appear in national 7-Up advertisements, after which agents scouted Hu to work as a model for a few years into college.[6] She interned at WFAA-TV in Dallas[7] before earning a bachelors in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.[8] She speaks Mandarin Chinese.[5]

Hu began her career as a television reporter for stations including KWTX-TV,[9] KVUE-TV and WYFF-TV, and then was among the founding journalists at the Texas Tribune, a digital news startup.[10] She joined NPR in 2011 and opened the Seoul bureau in early 2015, where she oversaw coverage of South Korea, North Korea and Japan.[11] She hosted video series on NPR named "Elise Tries,"[12] which received a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation,[13] and "Future You, With Elise Hu."[14] As of 2020, she is host-at-large based at NPR West, filling in on programs such as "It's Been a Minute";[15] correspondent for Vice News;[16] and co-founder of the podcast production company Reasonable Volume.[17]

Her reporting has been honored with a National Edward R. Murrow Award for Video,[18] a Gannett Foundation Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism,[19] beat reporting awards[20] from the Texas Associated Press. The Austin Chronicle twice named her "Best of Austin" for reporting and social media work.[21]

Hu is a senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab,[15] a director on the Grist.org board,[22] and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[23] She previously served as a guest co-anchor on Tech News Today on TWIT,[24] an adjunct instructor for Georgetown University[25] and an adviser and blogger for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

• NPR bio
• NPR's Seoul bureau announcement