Nicole Grundmeier

Contact: ngrundmeier@iowapublicradio.org

Job Title: Senior Content Editor

Topic Expertise: Investigative/enterprise reporting and editing, women’s and gender issues, agriculture, health care, education, gymnastics

Location: Des Moines, Iowa

Education: Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism (2006) MS, Journalism.
Iowa State University (2004) BS, Journalism and Mass Communication.

Language: English

Honors & Awards: Best Bylined Commentary, gold, 2024 AABP awards; Best Feature, Single Story, silver, 2024 AABP awards; Best Specialty E-Newsletter, bronze, 2024 AABP awards. 2021 Des Moines Education Association Volunteer of the Year award winner.

Memberships: USA Gymnastics professional member

About Nicole

Nicole Paseka Grundmeier is the senior content editor of The Midwest Newsroom, a public radio collaboration among NPR member stations in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska.

Nicole grew up on a corn and soybean farm near Onawa, Iowa. As a child, she watched the “CBS Evening News” religiously and was drawn to journalism while watching coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall and, later, the 1991 Gulf War. While a senior in high school, Nicole worked at her hometown weekly newspaper, the Onawa Democrat.

She attended Iowa State University in Ames and was the editor-in-chief of the Iowa State Daily in 2003-2004. She was the first person in her Czech-American farming family to graduate from college.

Nicole attended graduate school at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. During the summer of 2005, she participated in the Medill Innocence Project and worked on two cases involving wrongful murder convictions. That experience ignited her interest in holding people in power accountable. In 2006, Nicole lived in Prague for four months as an intern at the Prague Post in the Czech Republic.

Nicole returned to Iowa and worked at The Sioux City Journal, The Des Moines Register and the Des Moines Business Record/Fearless. She also freelanced for the Washington Post, particularly for The Lily, the Post’s former publication that focused on women’s and gender issues.

She has coached competitive and recreational gymnastics in Iowa, including at a gym that produced two Olympians. Her favorite gymnastics podcast, GymCastic, is part of what piqued her interest in radio. She loves traveling, swimming, reading and attending NCAA gymnastics meets in her spare time. Nicole lives in Des Moines with her husband, who is also a journalist, and their daughter, who is a competitive dancer.

Nicole has taught journalism as an adjunct instructor and wants to do whatever she can to help the next generations of journalists. She is a big believer that an informed public is critical not only to a healthy democracy, but also to peace. She wants news to be accessible to everyone.