COLLEGE PARK — Amna Nawaz, co-anchor of PBS NewsHour, and graduating senior Kiersten Hacker have been selected as the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism’s 2024 commencement speakers, Dean Rafael Lorente announced.
Merrill College’s commencement ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. on May 20 at Reckord Armory on the UMD campus. No tickets are required. It will be live-streamed on the college’s YouTube page.
Nawaz became co-anchor of the program in 2023. Since joining PBS NewsHour in 2018, she 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. Nawaz also serves as an NBC News and MSNBC contributor.
She was previously an anchor and correspondent at ABC News, and a foreign correspondent and Islamabad bureau chief at NBC News. She is also the founder and former managing editor of NBC’s Asian America platform.
Nawaz has won three Peabody Awards: as part of the NewsHour team honored in 2023 for its coverage of the gun violence epidemic in America; as part of the NewsHour team honored in 2022 for its coverage of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; and for her documentary work on 2019’s “The Plastic Problem,” examining global plastic pollution and efforts to address it.
Nawaz is the first-generation American daughter of Pakistani parents, born and raised in Virginia. She 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.
Hacker is from Long Island, New York, and studied journalism with a minor in public leadership at the University of Maryland. During her first year, she started writing for the student publication Stories Beneath the Shell, eventually working her way up to become editor-in-chief in her junior and senior years. She also studied food writing in Rome for a summer.
These experiences led her to internships at Montgomery Community Media and Chesapeake Bay Magazine. During her senior year, she worked in the Capital News Service Annapolis bureau for two semesters covering Gov. Wes Moore and the Maryland General Assembly. Her experience in Annapolis and love for local news inspired her career goal to cover state politics for an online or print publication.
After graduation, Hacker will work as an intern for The Baltimore Sun. She is also a state champion cheerleader after helping found her high school’s competitive squad. In her free time, she loves making new crafts at her sewing machine, painting, skiing and spending time outdoors.
For more information, contact:
Josh Land
joshland@umd.edu
301-405-1321