Karen is a longform narrative reporter, editor and podcast host. She was a co-host of NPR's Planet Money and, before that, a reporter at This American Life and More Perfect. Karen's stories have also appeared on Radiolab, Reply All, Rough Translation, On the Media, The Rumpus and others. She is also a live storytelling performer for shows like The Moth and Pop Up Magazine. Karen has taught audio documentary at the Columbia, NYU and CUNY Graduate Schools of Journalism. She also taught live storytelling as a story coach for The Moth and was featured in their book, How To Tell A Story.

Most recently, Karen edited the series Chameleon: Wild Boys, which won the Ambie for Best Podcast of the Year, and was named one of the best podcasts of 2022 by The Atlantic, Vulture, The Economist, LA Review of Books and others. Her Rough Translation story that followed an ISIS hostage rescue mission won the Overseas Press Club award for the best international audio reporting of 2019.

Karen's work focuses on blending in-depth reporting with narrative storytelling about everything from the death penalty to the world’s largest treehouse, gerrymandering, teenage angst, public housing, religion and a showdown in a Utah strip mall parking lot.

Before becoming a journalist, Karen spent several years as a speechwriter, working in more than 20 countries. She managed communications for the CEO of Cisco, and later moved to India to work with Cisco's Chief Globalization Officer. After returning to the United States, she ran communications for Cisco's corporate social responsibility program and for the Skoll Foundation. Karen is a graduate of the Transom audio documentary program.

Karen's work focuses on blending in-depth reporting with narrative storytelling about everything from the death penalty to the world’s largest treehouse, gerrymandering, teenage angst, public housing, religion and a showdown in a Utah strip mall parking lot.

Karen Duffin