Ashley Westerman
Ashley Westerman is a Supervising Editor and Producer and lead Assignments Manager for Morning Edition. She is a long-time alumna of the show who rejoins the staff after a stint overseas living and working as a freelance reporter and audio producer based in the Philippines covering Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and then in Ukraine covering Russia's full-scale invasion.
An experienced reporter, editor and producer, Westerman has nearly 15 years of journalism experience – much of it here at NPR. She first arrived at NPR as a Morning Edition intern in 2011 and pitched a story on her very first day. She would go on to do a long detour to NPR member station 89.3 WRKF-FM in Baton Rouge, La., and then graduate school before landing back at NPR as a full-time producer at the show in June 2015. She was with Morning Edition until 2021, when she left to pursue a freelance reporting career overseas.
Westerman's journalism career has taken her many places across the world, including the bustling streets of Manila to cover the Philippines' 2022 Presidential Election and walking with endangered pachyderms in the Laos jungle, to over-crowded Rohingya refugee camps in southern Bangladesh and diving into an environmentally-friendly pearl farm in French Polynesia. She's also reported on environmental issues in China, lived and worked under Russian bombardment in Ukraine and followed the aftermath of the devastating eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai submarine volcano. Meanwhile, she has criss-crossed the US covering presidential elections, followed closely the collapse of the Appalachian coal mining industry and covered various Asian American issues – including adoption and immigration. In 2019, she detailed her journey of finding her birth mother in the Philippines for NPR.
Her byline can also be found at PRX's The World, Voice of America, Rest of World, Foreign Policy, Free Speech News and BBC World. In March 2022, she was the lead field producer in Ukraine for Ukraine Stories, a 20-episode podcast about the first months of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine produced by Fearless Media and launched on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon.
Westerman is an award winning journalist with a Gracie Award for her work with then-Morning Edition host Noel King in St. Paul-Minneapolis during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and several local AP awards from her time at WRKF-FM in Baton Rouge, La. She is also a two-time East-West Center fellow (2018 Jefferson Fellowship and 2023 Asia Pacific Journalism Fellowship) and a two-time International Center for Journalists Fellow (2013 Bringing Home The World and 2014 Hearst Foundation Health Fellowship).
Westerman was born in the Philippines and raised in rural Western Kentucky. She is an alumna of the University of Kentucky, where she obtained a B.A. in Journalism and Political Science. She also attended the University of Maryland for her M.A. in Journalism.
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As many island nations attempt to keep the coronavirus out, they also risk getting cut off from the outside world their economies depend on. -
Health care has consistently polled as the No. 1 issue for Iowa voters. As they prepare to caucus, voters weigh which candidate to support and what health care should look like in the future. -
Flooding in Indonesia's capital Jakarta has killed at least 60 people and displaced thousands. For now, the rain has let up and people are starting to return home. But more heavy rain is expected.
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After voting overwhelmingly for independence, the South Pacific island group now has to negotiate its separation with Papua New Guinea's government. -
The Solomon Islands and Kiribati recently established ties with China. Economic considerations are a key driver, but both nations also cite concerns about climate change as a reason for the decision. -
Marie Louise Yovanovitch was recalled after being targeted in a political campaign that's now a subject of a federal indictment. How did she make enemies in President Trump's world? -
Sam Rainsy of the now-banned Cambodia National Rescue Party was barred from boarding a plane from Paris to Thailand. His deputy was detained in Malaysia. Both risk arrest if they enter Cambodia. -
Some experts suggest King Maha Vajiralongkorn's firing of his consort may be an additional power move by a monarch who has worked to amass personal authority since he succeeded his father in 2016. -
They are urging the international community for more resources to help manage climate change and calling for larger countries to cut their carbon emissions. -
The law allows the government to determine what constitutes false information and stipulates hefty fines and jail sentences for people and media companies that violate it.
