Arezou Rezvani
GUEST SPEAKER
Arezou Rezvani is a reporter and senior editor for NPR News. She's also founding editor of Up First, NPR's daily news podcast.
Much of her work centers on people experiencing some of the most difficult days of their lives, in places that are often in the throes of radical change. Her reporting has brought her face to face with child coal miners in Afghanistan, resistance fighters in Ukraine, radical clerics in Pakistan, and abandoned newborns in Lebanon’s collapsing hospitals.
Her work on a multi-part series about children and opioid addiction won a Gracie Award in 2019. She was awarded a White House News Photographer Association Award for Politics is Personal in 2018.
In 2014, she led an investigation into the Pentagon's 1033 program, which supplies local law enforcement with surplus military-grade weapons and vehicles. The findings were cited by lawmakers during hearings on Capitol Hill and contributed to the Obama administration's decision to scale back the program.
Rezvani holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Southern California and bachelor's degrees in political science and French from the University of California, Davis. She’s based in Los Angeles.
