Sylvia Poggioli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sylvia Poggioli is an American radio reporter for National Public Radio. She is that network's senior European correspondent.
Poggioli was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she attended the Buckingham School, now Buckingham Browne & Nichols. She graduated from Harvard in 1968. She did post-graduate work at the University of Rome as a Fulbright Scholar. The selection of Rome was no coincidence, as her parents fled the fascists in the 1930s.
Beginning in 1971, Poggioli worked for Ansa, the Italian news service, on their English desk. She made her debut on NPR on September 4, 1982. She continued serving both Ansa and NPR for four years before leaving Ansa in 1986.
Poggioli eventually rose to European correspondent for NPR. Her radio career was interrupted in 1990 when she spent a year as a research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Poggioli was in London, gathering European reaction, during the 1991 Gulf War. Later, she was lauded for her coverage of the war between the Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats. For her coverage of the Balkans, she won the George Foster Peabody Award in 1993.
Poggioli was the featured reporter for the funeral of Pope John Paul II and subsequent conclave.
Poggioli has become a favorite reporter of the Magliozzi Brothers on Car Talk, possibly on account of their common Italian ancestry and her tongue twister name. Her name has also been featured in the absurdist comic strip Zippy the Pinhead.
She is currently based in Rome.
