Jad Abumrad is a pioneer in the fields of both journalism, new media, and audio storytelling. He is a musical composer, radio producer, performer, and writer, and he is best known for having created, produced, and starred in several National Public Radio (NPR) and American Public Radio series, including Radiolab, More Perfect, and Dolly Parton’s America. His radio work has earned him great public and critical recognition, including the Peabody Award (three times) and a 2011 MacArthur Fellow award. After retiring from Radiolab in 2022, Abumrad joined the faculty at Vanderbilt University, where he holds a joint appointment as a Distinguished Research Professor of Cinema and Media Arts and of Communication of Science and Technology in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.

Abumrad was raised in Tennessee. He attended Oberlin College, where he received his B.A.in creative writing and music composition, with a special interest in electronic and electroacoustic music. Among the most influential people in narrative audio in the past twenty years, Abumrad has reported and produced documentaries for a number of local and NPR programs, including On the Media, PRI’s Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Democracy Now!, and WNYC’s “24 Hours at the Edge of Ground Zero.” He hosts Everything. Together. Radio on Apple Music Hits. Each episode offers a kaleidoscopic mix of uptempo, electro, dance, funk, hip-hop, experimental noise, soul, and everything in between.

Employing his dual backgrounds as composer and journalist, Abumrad has created what has been called “a new aesthetic” in broadcast journalism. For instance, his show Radiolab has led the way for new approaches to science reporting, audio storytelling, sound design, and how we listen to audio stories. He orchestrates dialogue, music, interviews, and sounds into compelling documentaries that draw listeners into investigations of a range of complex topics, such as the nature of numbers, the evolution of altruism, or the legal foundation for the war on terror.

In 2016, Abumrad launched Radiolab’s first ever spin-off series, More Perfect, a podcast that tells the stories behind the U.S. Supreme Court’s most famous rulings. He hosted the four-part podcast series, UnErased, in 2018, which tells the stories of survivors of gay conversion therapy. In 2019, he hosted the nine-episode podcast of Dolly Parton’s America, an in-depth exploration of the life, career, and enduring appeal of country music star and songwriter Dolly Parton. The series has won seven national awards, including a George Foster Peabody Award.

Jad Abumrad has an unusual and profound understanding of how to claim and hold listeners’ attention. He is legendary for his meticulous attention to detail: the telling quotation, the unexpected pause, the sound effect or musical backdrop, the turn of phrase that illuminates an abstruse concept or subtle phenomenon. Abumrad’s work advances a dynamic revisioning of audience and reception, one that restores academic inquiry to the heart of public life.

CO-SPONSORED BY THE COLLEGE ARTS AND HUMANITIES INSTITUTE