Neda Ulaby
Neda Ulaby reports on arts, entertainment, and cultural trends for NPR's Arts Desk.
Scouring the various and often overlapping worlds of art, music, television, film, new media and literature, Ulaby's stories reflect political and economic realities, cultural issues, obsessions and transitions.
A twenty-year veteran of NPR, Ulaby started as a temporary production assistant on the cultural desk, opening mail, booking interviews and cutting tape with razor blades. Over the years, she's also worked as a producer and editor and won a Gracie award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for hosting a podcast of NPR's best arts stories.
Ulaby also hosted the Emmy-award winning public television series Arab American Stories in 2012 and earned a 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She's also been chosen for fellowships at the Getty Arts Journalism Program at USC Annenberg and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism.
Before coming to NPR, Ulaby worked as managing editor of Chicago's Windy City Times and co-hosted a local radio program, What's Coming Out at the Movies. A former doctoral student in English literature, Ulaby has contributed to academic journals and taught classes in the humanities at the University of Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University and at high schools serving at-risk students.
Ulaby worked as an intern for the features desk of the Topeka Capital-Journal after graduating from Bryn Mawr College. But her first appearance in print was when she was only four days old. She was pictured on the front page of the New York Times, as a refugee, when she and her parents were evacuated from Amman, Jordan, during the conflict known as Black September.
-
As the tequila industry surges, the early harvesting and cloning of agave are disrupting the ecosystem of some species — leading some groups to go to bat for the hardworking nighttime pollinators. -
The film academy's 54-member board of governors, including Oscar-winning actors Whoopi Goldberg and Tom Hanks, voted to strip the legendary producer of his membership.
-
Before the hurricane wreaked "cataclysmic destruction," the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami hosted decades of quinceañerasand weddings. Now, hundreds of volunteers are helping clean up. -
Even as Miami returns to normal, an emergency shelter continues to take in people every day. -
White supremacists using Crusaders' crosses and other medieval imagery on their homemade shields say the time period is an ideal of a white Europe. But medieval scholars say the white supremacists are wrong and the scholars are fighting back.
-
The Hollywood box office is off by a lot this year. Bad sequels, big bombs and fewer films contributed to the weak bottom line.
-
Set in a medical marijuana dispensary, the big networks all turned the show down. But Netflix picked it up and co-creator Chuck Lorre says, ultimately, it's about characters who care for one another. -
YouTube Stars Stress Out, Just Like The Rest Of UsYoung YouTube stars work hard to look authentic and accessible, and they can make millions of dollars doing it. But the pressure to appear perfect while living online can sometimes be too much. -
Sam Shepard was both a prize-winning playwright and an an acclaimed actor. He won a Pulitzer for Drama for Buried Child in 1979 and wrote more than 40 other plays as well as short stories and essays. He died Thursday at his home in Kentucky of complications from Lou Gehrig's disease. He was 73.
-
Celebrity chef Rosanna Pansino hosts the YouTube show Nerdy Nummies and has more than 8 million subscribers. Among her fans are thousands of children who want to learn how to bake.
