About Kamala Kelkar
I’ve led investigative and digital teams at NPR and PBS, managed cross-border collaborations, and edited award-winning work that has held the powerful to account at every level. But the hardest part of journalism is not finding the facts, it’s navigating the forces that try to bury them. This has defined the way I lead: by supporting people as they work through discomfort with a shared goal to produce the best possible story.
PAST ROLES
NPR; Deputy Editor of Investigations
KPCC/LAist; Senior Editor of Investigations
Spotlight PA; Co-Deputy Editor
PBS NewsHour; Head of Digital/Investigations (Weekend)
CLIPS, AWARDS, IMPACT
The Examination, Senior editor and consultant
Digital: How Mega-polluters take advantage of billions in green loans
NPR, Deputy editor of investigations
Podcast: Taking Cover (Produced by pentagon reporter and two Pulitzer winners)
Award: Robert E. Murrow | Investigation ‘24, Finalist for duPont-Columbia award ‘23
Impact: Revealed a friendly fire and the undocumented death of a translator
Podcast: White Lies, S2 (S1 was finalist for Pulitzer)
Award: Robert E. Murrow | Podcast ‘24
Impact: Compelled the State Department to declassify a list of 2,000 Mariel Cubans it had made in the 1990s to be detained and deported.
KPCC/LAist, Senior editor of investigations
Digital and radio: Medical Parole Got Them Out Of State Prison. Now They're In A Decertified Nursing Home
Award: Regional Edward R. Murrow ‘23, IRE Award digital finalist ‘22
Impact: A state legislature amended bill to expand compassionate care release, in hopes people on parole could be released.
Spotlight PA, Co-deputy editor
Digital: Department of Labor admits it overcharged unemployed Pennsylvanians millions
Award: Best Investigative News Award at the Institute of Nonprofit News in ‘22
Impact: State admitted to the issue and refunded $19 million to 109,000 people
Certifications
C.V. Starr and Robert Wood Johnson for Columbia Journalism School
John Jay/Guggenheim Justice Fellowship
Education Writer’s Association scholarship
Deutsche Welle Akademie, Chennai
Education
Columbia University — M.A., Journalism, 2015
San Francisco State University — B.S., Journalism, 2007
Extra Cirrikculars
Renaissance Journalism Launchpad Fellowship mentor | ‘25
Guest speaker for international journalists visiting through State Department | ‘22
Mentor for the Maynard Institute of Journalism Education | ‘21-present
Advisor on media resources for the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism | ‘22
Guest lecture for student journalists at La Sierra High School | ‘22
Want to collab?
Tell me what you’re working on!