Ailsa Chang

Ailsa Chang is an award-winning journalist and a host of NPR's newsmagazine All Things Considered, as well as NPR's daily news podcast Consider This.

Chang landed in public radio after leaving a career in law. In 2006, she stepped away as a litigator at a law firm in San Francisco, and soon found herself sitting inside a cubicle — an intern in her 30s, at Member station KQED. That's when she realized what beautiful preparation a legal career was for a career in journalism.

In the years since, Chang has earned a string of national awards for her work. In 2012, she was honored with the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for her investigation into the New York City Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" policy and allegations of unlawful marijuana arrests by officers. The series also earned honors from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists.

She was also the recipient of the Daniel Schorr Journalism Award, a National Headliner Award, and an honor from Investigative Reporters and Editors for her investigation into Detroit's broken public defender system.

In 2011, the New York State Associated Press Broadcasters Association named Chang the winner of the Art Athens Award for General Excellence in Individual Reporting for Radio. In 2015, she won a National Journalism Award from the Asian American Journalists Association for her coverage of Capitol Hill. 

And in 2025, she received another award from the Asian American Journalists Association for her international reporting, when she and a team at All Things Considered covered the battle over cultural identity for indigenous people in Taiwan.  

Chang is a former Planet Money host and correspondent, where she reported on the underground asylum industry in the largest Chinatown in America, privacy rights with cell phones, and the federal government's doomed fight to stop racist trademarks.

Previously, she was a congressional correspondent with NPR's Washington Desk, where she covered battles over healthcare, immigration and Supreme Court confirmations.

Prior to coming to NPR, Chang was an investigative reporter at NPR Member station WNYC from 2009 to 2012 in New York City, focusing on criminal justice and legal affairs.

She was a Kroc Fellow at NPR from 2008 to 2009, as well as a reporter and producer for KQED in San Francisco.

The former lawyer served as a law clerk to Judge John T. Noonan Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.

Chang graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University where she received her bachelor's degree.

She earned her law degree with distinction from Stanford Law School, where she won the Irving Hellman Jr. Special Award for the best article written by a student in the Stanford Law Review in 2001.

Chang was also a Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University, where she received a master's degree in media law. She also has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.

Chang grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.