Eli Chen
Digital News ProducerEli Chen is WUNC’s afternoon digital news producer. Hailing from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, she is a Taiwanese American journalist who’s worked mainly in audio for more than a decade. She comes most recently from National Geographic, where she was the senior editor of Overheard, which won the 2022 Ambies Award for the best science and knowledge podcast. Prior to that, Eli covered science and environmental issues at St. Louis Public Radio and Delaware Public Media, and produced segments for Science Friday. While in St. Louis, she helped launch live storytelling shows there with the science communication nonprofit and podcast, The Story Collider. And she has served as a regular mentor with the NPR’s Next Generation Radio project since 2017. Eli has a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and environmental sustainability from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a master’s in journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York.
Eli lives with her partner, Matt, and cat-like pitbull mix Rosie in Chapel Hill, and likes to draw, rollerskate, and celebrate Asian American food and pop culture on the regular. You can follow her on X @StoriesByEli and instagram @elichenreports.
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The number of Asian grocery stores and supermarkets in the NC Triangle have grown significantly since the 1990s, reflecting the rapid growth of the Asian population in the area. The stores have also become gathering spaces for folks across the diaspora, looking for flavors that remind them of home. -
After much community anticipation, the Wheels Roller Skating Rink in east Durham is reopening under city ownership. Roller rinks across the country have declined drastically since the 1990s. Since then, North Carolina has lost roughly half of its rinks. -
As snow fell across North Carolina Wednesday, some residents in Raleigh made the most of it by playing out in the snow. -
RTI International at Research Triangle Park announced that it will temporarily lay off 61 employees in North Carolina as a result of the pause in U.S. foreign assistance. -
Since 2020, registered Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander voters in North Carolina grew by 31% and about 72,000 voted early for the 2024 election. But Asian American organizers say many found the vote-by-mail process challenging, and that tensions have increased between parties at the polls. -
The town of Cary is asking its residents to vote on a $560 million parks and recreation bond measure during this election cycle. Many believe the rapidly growing area needs more recreational facilities, while others balk at the proposed 26% property tax increase. -
Many of North Carolina's Hmong residents live in western North Carolina, which was badly impacted by Helene. Community leaders say that families, especially older folks, need access to Asian food staples and language interpretation assistance to apply for federal disaster relief funds. -
Worsening heat from climate change is becoming increasingly hazardous to human health. WUNC explains in a comic informed by several experts how we physically respond when we're feeling too hot, what ways people become sick and die from the heat, and how we can prepare ourselves to better handle extremely hot days. -
North Carolina Asian Americans Together, El Pueblo, NC Black Alliance and other advocacy groups today called on voters in November to vote against a change to the state constitution that says noncitizens cannot vote in North Carolina — a prohibition that is already state law. -
Indian American voters are excited about the possibility that Vice President Kamala Harris, being of Indian and Jamaican descent, could become the Democratic nominee for president. Indian Americans also make up the largest portion of North Carolina's rapidly growing Asian American and Pacific Islander population.