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.
-
One neighborhood is creating a "zone of tolerance" to confine prostitutes to certain areas. The community likes it and says it had to act because Italian society has failed to address the issue. -
As the second anniversary of his papacy nears, Pope Francis has made significant progress in bringing transparency to the Vatican's finances and Cardinal George Pell is carrying out sweeping reforms. -
In the 1960s and '70s, Piano was involved in the battle to revive decaying historic centers of cities. Now the Pritzker Prize-winning architect is fighting to save their often desolate outskirts. -
To mark International Women's Day, the Vatican is opening its doors to a group of women pushing for a greater role in the Catholic Church. The organizers hope to raise issues of church inequality.
-
The pedestrian and cyclist path would make use of a one-mile stretch of abandoned, elevated concrete track. "You are still in the city ... but you are flying above the city," Piano says. -
Actor Daniel Craig reportedly hit his head when the Aston Martin he was driving during filming the 24th James Bond thriller encountered a loose sanpietrino, as the cobblestones in Rome are known. -
Across Italy, newspaper headlines decry two days of "guerrilla warfare" in the heart of Rome and television news shows scenes of devastation. -
In a formal ceremony, 20 prelates became princes of the Catholic Church. The new cardinals mark a shift in the church under Pope Francis toward poor nations — and away from Europe. -
At the Vatican this week, the pope's G9 — a committee of nine cardinals — is working on how to overhaul Vatican governance.
-
A commission advising Pope Francis on how to tackle clerical sex abuse of minors has completed its first full meeting at the Vatican. The commission has been criticized for its slow start.
-
Pope Francis has declared slain Archbishop Oscar Romero a martyr. Previous popes declined to do so, possibly because of Romero's role in liberation theology. -
A promotional video produced ahead of Wednesday's conference on women's issues has been widely ridiculed as a sexist stereotype of the modern Western woman.
