Elise Hu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elise Hu | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Born | February 17, 1982 |
| Education | University of Missouri (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, writer |
| Years active | 2002-present |
| Employer(s) | TED, National Public Radio, Vice News |
| Spouse | Matt Stiles (div. 2021) |
| Children | 3 |
Elise Hu (born February 17, 1982) is an American broadcast journalist. She hosts the TED Talks Daily podcast,[1] co-hosts Forever35[2] and serves as host-at-large for NPR.[3] From 2015 to 2018, she was NPR’s first bureau chief in Seoul, South Korea.[4]
Hu was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up in suburban Missouri and Texas.[5] Her father defected from China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, and her mother is from Taiwan.[6] She has a younger brother, Roger.[7]
Hu graduated from Plano Senior High School in Plano, Texas.[8] 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.[9]
Hu earned a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 2003.[10] During college, she interned at WFAA-TV in Dallas.[11]
Career
Hu began her career as a television reporter for stations including KWTX-TV,[12] KVUE-TV and WYFF-TV, and then was among the founding journalists at the Texas Tribune, a digital news startup.[13]
She joined NPR in 2011 and opened the Seoul bureau in early 2015, where she oversaw coverage of South Korea, North Korea and Japan.[14] She hosted the NPR video series Elise Tries,[15] which received a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation,[16] and Future You with Elise Hu.[17]
In 2020, Hu co-founded the podcast production company Reasonable Volume.[18] She continued working at NPR as a host-at-large, filling in on programs such as It's Been a Minute.[19] She also started contributing to Vice News as a correspondent.[20]
Hu is on the board of directors for Grist.org[21] and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[22]
Her book, Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital was published by E.P. Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in May 2023.[23] It explores South Korea's global influence in beauty and how a digital society narrows global appearance ideals.[24]
Awards and recognition
Hu’s reporting has been honored with a National Edward R. Murrow Award for Video,[25] a Gannett Foundation Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism,[26] and beat reporting awards[27] from the Texas Associated Press. The Austin Chronicle twice named her "Best of Austin" for reporting and social media work.[28]