Meet our Next Speaker

Amna Nawaz

June 10, 2023

Topic: On the Frontlines: Reporting Overseas and Here at Home

Amna Nawaz serves as co-anchor of PBS NewsHour. Prior to joining PBS NewsHour in April 2018, Nawaz was an anchor and correspondent at ABC News, anchoring breaking news coverage and leading the network’s livestream coverage of the 2016 presidential election. Before that, she served as foreign correspondent and Islamabad Bureau Chief at NBC News. She is also the founder and former managing editor of NBC’s Asian America platform, built in 2014, to elevate stories from America’s fastest-growing and most diverse population.

At the NewsHour, Nawaz has reported from the White House, across the country, and around the world on a range of topics including politics, immigration, foreign affairs, education, gun violence, criminal justice reform, the climate, culture, and sports. She also serves as an NBC News and MSNBC political contributor.

Throughout her career, she has covered major events such as the January 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol; the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas; the elections and inaugurations of President Joe Biden, President Donald J. Trump, and President Barack Obama; Hurricane Katrina; the 2010 Haiti earthquake; the U.S. war in Afghanistan; and the September 11th attacks.

Nawaz has interviewed multiple heads of state and international leaders including Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. She has interviewed government officials including Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan, ICE Director Mark Morgan, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and VA Secretary Denis McDonough. She has interviewed a variety of newsmakers including acclaimed director Ava Duvernay, actor Riz Ahmed, WNBA star Sue Bird, and country singer Reba McEntire.

On January 6, 2021, Nawaz reported live for several hours from outside the U.S. Capitol building as it was under attack, part of a NewsHour team honored with a Peabody Award for its coverage.

Nawaz previously won a Peabody for her documentary work on 2019’s “The Plastic Problem,” examining global plastic pollution and efforts to address it. Her other documentaries include “Raising the Future,” a 2021 documentary on America’s childcare crisis; and 2022’s “Life After Lockup,” which followed the lives of four formerly-incarcerated people to track the challenges of re-entry after prison.

In 2020, Nawaz hosted a criminal justice podcast, “Broken Justice,” which was named a finalist for the Silver Gavel Awards, honoring work that fosters the American public’s understanding of law and the legal system. She also hosted 2021’s “The Longest Year,” a pandemic-focused podcast series on the many ways Covid-19 changed Americans’ lives. Nawaz has hosted three seasons of the primetime PBS series, “Beyond the Canvas,” featuring profiles and interviews of some of the world’s leading artists, musicians, and creators. 

In 2019, Nawaz became the first Asian American and the first Muslim American to moderate a presidential debate. While at ABC News, Nawaz hosted the documentary, “Roberts County: A Year in the Most Pro-Trump Town,” following four families’ lives over President Trump’s first year in office. She also hosted the podcast series, “Uncomfortable” for ABC News Radio, featuring in-depth, one-on-one conversations with thought leaders on the issues dividing America. While at NBC News, she was the first foreign journalist to gain access to North Waziristan – then the global hub of Al Qaida and the Taliban – while pregnant with her first daughter.

Nawaz was a Fall 2021 Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Asian American Journalists Association, the South Asian Journalists Association, and the Inter-American Dialogue. In 2022, Nawaz was the recipient of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies’ Vision Award and the Media Award from the Muslim Affairs Public Council’s Media Award. She has also been honored with the American Muslim Institution’s Excellence in Media Award in 2018 and an Emmy award as part the 2009 NBC News Special “Inside the Obama White House.”

She is the first-generation American daughter of Pakistani parents, born and raised in Virginia. Nawaz earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where she captained the varsity field hockey team and studied abroad at the University of Zimbabwe. She later earned her master’s degree from the London School of Economics.

She lives with her husband, Paul, and their two daughters in the Washington, D.C. area.

Meetings open to members and members’ guests only.  Unless otherwise noted, all meetings take place at Elk Hall, 210 Rankin Street in Rockland.  Please plan on arriving by 11:30 AM for noon meetings.  The speaker begins promptly at noon and lunch is served from 1 PM.

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Upcoming Speakers

  • June 10, 2023
    Amna Nawaz
    Topic: On the Frontlines: Reporting Overseas and Here at Home
  • July 10, 2023
    Thomas Ricks
    Topic: First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country
  • August 14, 2023
    Ambassador Charles Ray
    Topic: The Future of Democracy in Africa
  • Monday, October 9, 2023
    Ambassador Ronald Lehman
    Topic: The Importance of STEM to U.S. National Security

View all speakers past and present »

Articles

Amna Nawaz Interviews & Reports

Posted on Thursday June 1

Our June 2023 speaker, Amna Nawaz, thought the following videos would provide a helpful background for her presentation On the Frontlines: Reporting Overseas and Here at Home. “Secretary of State Blinken discusses U.S. immigration policy as Title 42 ends,” PBS NewsHour, May 11, 2023 With COVID restrictions at the border expiring, the U.S. is preparing […]

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Christopher Costa: Two articles on future terrorism threats

Posted on Tuesday April 25

Our May 2023 speaker, Christopher Costa, thought the following articles would provide a helpful background for his presentation on Counterterrorism and the Future Terrorism Threat. The world has entered the fifth wave of anti-government terrorism,” by Christopher Costa, The Hill, January 12, 2023. In light of a failed far-right coup in December in Germany, fueled by ideologically and historically incoherent […]

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Cyberwar in Ukraine: What You See Is Not What’s Really There

Posted on Sunday April 2

By Susan Landau Friday, September 30, 2022, 8:01 AM It has been seven months since Russia invaded Ukraine. Despite much speculation, many aspects of the war have ultimately not turned out as expected. The war wasn’t, as Russia had anticipated, a six-day rout—or even a six-month one. And notably, cyber didn’t, as some had predicted, […]

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Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons at our behest. Here’s what we owe them.

Posted on Saturday March 4

By Jon B. Wolfsthal, The Washington Post, February 10, 2023 The world is on the cusp of a dangerous new nuclear era, and the war in Ukraine might be a glimpse of what is to come. Reflecting this, the hands of the iconic Doomsday Clock, an indicator reflecting the opinion of the Bulletin of the Atomic […]

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Derek Mitchell: Three articles on democracy and international security

Posted on Friday February 3

Ambassador Derek Mitchell thought the following three articles would provide a helpful background for his February 2023 presentation on Democracy and International Security. “The Ground Game: Supporting Democracy Must Be Part of America’s Global Strategy,” by Derek Mitchell, The Hill, September 15, 2022 Today’s International Day of Democracy offers an opportunity to review the state of global […]

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The revenge of history in Ukraine: year of war has shaken up world order

Posted on Friday December 30

By Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, December 26, 2022 The Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko recalls a quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck: “Wars are not won by generals, but by schoolteachers and parish priests.” It’s a country’s taught collective memory, its shared sense of its own history, that are the decisive instruments for mobilisation, and are […]

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Made with Bravery: the Story of Ukrainian Startup Resilience

Posted on Friday December 30

Produced and Directed by Dan Herman, Go To Jupiter Productions Inc., November 2, 2022 From coffee shops to bomb shelters, work-life balance to work-war balance, “Made with Bravery: the Story of Ukrainian Startup Resilience” profiles how Ukraine’s startup ecosystem has reacted and adapted to life amidst over 200 days of full-scale Russian invasion, and how […]

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Dan Golden: Op-ed, NYT book review, and book excerpt

Posted on Monday December 5

Below you will find an op-ed written by Dan Golden as well as a New York Times book review of and except from his recent book on cybercrime. Dan thought these readings would provide a helpful background for his December 2022 presentation. “Why the F.B.I. Is So Far Behind on Cybercrime,” by Dan Golden, The New […]

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Would Putin Roll the Nuclear Dice?

Posted on Tuesday November 1

By Steven Pifer, Time, October 18, 2022 Since Russia launched its most recent invasion of Ukraine in February, Moscow has threatened—sometimes subtly, other times explicitly—nuclear escalation should the war not go its way. Ukraine and the West have to take such threats seriously. But the Kremlin also needs to take their probable responses seriously and […]

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We can’t afford US Congress wavering in its support for Ukraine

Posted on Tuesday November 1

By Steven Pifer, The Guardian, October 27, 2022 On 24 October, 30 members of the House Democratic Progressive Caucus released a letter to Joe Biden calling for a “proactive diplomatic push” on Kyiv to work toward a ceasefire and “direct [US] engagement” with Moscow to end the Russia-Ukraine war. One week earlier, Republican House leader Kevin […]

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Taliban facing backlash after U.S. drone strike against al-Qaeda leader

Posted on Monday October 3

By Pamela Constable, The Washington Post, August 2, 2022 KABUL — The U.S. drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri here early Sunday also struck a humiliating blow against the Taliban regime, which had secretly hosted the aging extremist in the heart of the Afghan capital for months but failed to keep him safe. […]

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Beneath Kabul’s surprising veneer of normalcy, a precarious balancing act

Posted on Monday October 3

By Pamela Constable, The Washington Post, August 11, 2022 KABUL — An uneasy calm has settled over the Afghan capital this summer, a wary detente between the country’s stern religious rulers and a deflated, worried populace that is struggling to survive but also relieved that the punishing 20-year war involving foreign troops is over. Both […]

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Restore Reagan’s Military ‘Margin of Safety’

Posted on Wednesday September 7

By Roger Zakheim, The Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2022  The U.S. faces the most daunting security landscape in 45 years. That’s no coincidence. Earlier this year Russia launched the bloodiest armed conflict in Europe since World War II, and this summer China publicly displayed plans to strangle or swallow the free people of Taiwan. Leaders […]

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Collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces: An Assessment of the Factors That Led to Its Demise

Posted on Monday June 27

By the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), May 2022 Since 2002, the United States has allocated nearly $90 billion in security sector assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), with the goal of developing an independent, self-sustaining force capable of combating both internal and external threats. Yet, in August 2021, […]

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The big emerging question: How to finance the net-zero transition in emerging markets

Posted on Monday June 13

By Paul Bodnar, Jean Boivin, and Isabelle Mateos y Lago, Black Rock Investment Institute, October 2021 Climate change is a global crisis that requires a global response. Without a successful green transition everywhere, climate risk is unmanageable anywhere. Reaching the globally agreed climate goals requires speed – notably a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030, […]

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