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.
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Pope Francis broke a Catholic Church taboo last month when he said he would create a commission to study whether women can serve as deacons — as they did in early Christianity. -
With warmer weather comes an influx of refugees and migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, and a shift in the route they're taking. Over the weekend, hundreds of people drowned.
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The hope is that Chinese tourists will feel safer after recent terrorist attacks. In the long run, greater cooperation could help break up illegal activities by Chinese and Italian organized crime. -
Migrants are again heading to Italy on a dangerous sea-crossing from Libya. The surge comes as Austria prepares to shut its border leaving Italy in crisis over what to do with the new arrivals.
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Pope Francis is back at the Vatican this morning after his visit to the front lines of Europe's migrant crisis in Greece. Francis took 12 Syrians with him to Rome as a "humanitarian gesture."
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Pope Francis visited the Greek Island of Lesbos in order to draw attention to the plight of migrants there. The migrants are caught up in a controversial deal between the European Union and Turkey.
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The pontiff isn't content to remain in the Vatican or sit on the sidelines. His trip this weekend to the Greek island of Lesbos is just one part of his emerging world view. -
The southern Italian village of Riace had an aging, dwindling population. That was before it was reborn as a global village following the arrival of thousands of migrants from more than 20 countries. -
A funeral is being held Friday in Italy for Giulio Regeni, a doctoral student allegedly tortured and killed in Egypt. Thousands have demanded an independent probe into Regeni's death. -
Italy's Senate takes up a measure this week that would permit civil unions, but the bill would not legalize same-sex marriage. All of Western Europe already permits one or both.
