May 4, 2020
Amna Nawaz C01, serves as senior national correspondent and primary substitute anchor for the PBS NewsHour.
Prior to joining the NewsHour in April 2018, Nawaz was an anchor and correspondent at ABC News, anchoring breaking news coverage and leading the network’s livestream coverage of the 2016 presidential election. Before that, she served as a foreign correspondent at NBC News, reporting from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey, and the broader region. She is also the founder and former managing editor of NBC’s Asian America platform, built to elevate the voices of America’s fastest-growing population.
At the NewsHour, Nawaz reports on politics, education, climate change, health care, national security, culture, and sports. She’s interviewed heads of state, senior Administration officials, and entertainment icons. Her reporting has taken her to border communities along the US-Mexico border and into Central America, to remote parts of the Brazilian Amazon, and to big cities and small towns in every corner of America.
In 2019, her reporting as part of a NewsHour series on global plastic pollution was the recipient of a Peabody Award, and was turned into an hour-long, primetime special, The Plastic Problem, for PBS. In 2019, Nawaz also co-hosted the Broken Justice criminal justice podcast, examining the role of public defenders and the story of one man wrongfully imprisoned for decades.
While at ABC News, Nawaz reported the documentary, “Roberts County: A Year in the Most Pro-Trump Town,” following four families’ lives over President Trump’s first year in office, and hosted the podcast series, “Uncomfortable,” featuring in-depth, one-on-one conversations with thought leaders on the issues dividing America.
Nawaz has also been honored with an Emmy Award for the NBC News Special “Inside the Obama White House,” a Society for Features Journalism Award, and was a recipient of the International Reporting Project fellowship in 2009. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where she captained the varsity field hockey team, and later earned her master's degree from the London School of Economics.
She lives with her husband and two daughters in the Washington, D.C. area.