Sylvia Poggioli
Sylvia Poggioli is senior European correspondent for NPR's International Desk covering political, economic, and cultural news in Italy, the Vatican, Western Europe, and the Balkans. Poggioli's on-air reporting and analysis have encompassed the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the turbulent civil war in the former Yugoslavia, and how immigration has transformed European societies.
Since joining NPR's foreign desk in 1982, Poggioli has traveled extensively for reporting assignments. These include going to Norway to cover the aftermath of the brutal attacks by a right-wing extremist; to Greece, Spain, and Portugal reporting on the eurozone crisis; and the Balkans where the last wanted war criminals have been arrested.
In addition, Poggioli has traveled to France, Germany, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, and Denmark to produce in-depth reports on immigration, racism, Islam, and the rise of the right in Europe.
She has also travelled with Pope Francis on several of his foreign trips, including visits to Cuba, the United States, Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.
Throughout her career Poggioli has been recognized for her work with distinctions including the WBUR Foreign Correspondent Award, the Welles Hangen Award for Distinguished Journalism, a George Foster Peabody, National Women's Political Caucus/Radcliffe College Exceptional Merit Media Awards, the Edward Weintal Journalism Prize, and the Silver Angel Excellence in the Media Award. Poggioli was part of the NPR team that won the 2000 Overseas Press Club Award for coverage of the war in Kosovo. In 2009, she received the Maria Grazia Cutulli Award for foreign reporting.
In 2000, Poggioli received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Brandeis University. In 2006, she received an honorary degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston together with Barack Obama.
Prior to this honor, Poggioli was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences "for her distinctive, cultivated and authoritative reports on 'ethnic cleansing' in Bosnia." In 1990, Poggioli spent an academic year at Harvard University as a research fellow at Harvard University's Center for Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government.
From 1971 to 1986, Poggioli served as an editor on the English-language desk for the Ansa News Agency in Italy. She worked at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. She was actively involved with women's film and theater groups.
The daughter of Italian anti-fascists who were forced to flee Italy under Mussolini, Poggioli was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor's degree in romance languages and literature. She later studied in Italy under a Fulbright Scholarship.
-
Some 1.5 million people were expected to attend the Pope's last Mass in the U.S. on Sunday. It's the centerpiece of his weeklong visit.
-
Pope Francis issued a call for social justice in a speech to world officials gathered at the United Nations on Friday. Degradation of the environment, he argued, hits the poor the hardest.
-
As part of his U.S. tour, Pope Francis spoke to the United Nation's General Assembly. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli discusses the pope's address with Renee Montagne.
-
As part of his U.S. tour, Pope Francis spoke to the United Nation's General Assembly. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli discusses the pope's address with Renee Montagne.
-
Pope Francis arrives in New York Thursday evening for the second leg of his historic visit to the United States.
-
Pope Francis canonized the United States' first saint, Junipero Serra, on Wednesday. The controversial Spanish missionary founded Catholic missions in California in the 18th century.
-
Pope Francis arrived Tuesday for his first-ever trip to the United States. He came from Cuba, whose warming relations with the U.S. are due in part to papal mediation.
-
Starting his three-day visit as a migrant from Cuba was intentional. In a speech to Congress, he's expected to challenge positions along the political and social spectrum with more straight talk.
-
Vertical farms, food trucks, tropical forests and the supermarket of the future are on display at Expo 2015 in Milan. Exhibits from 145 countries focus on how to feed the planet sustainably. -
Vertical farms, food trucks, tropical forests and the supermarket of the future are on display at Expo 2015 in Milan. Exhibits from 145 countries focus on how to feed the planet sustainably.
