About Robert Krulwich
Robert Krulwich is an American radio and television journalist. He is currently co-host of NPR’s Radio Lab and a correspondent for NPR’s Science Unit. Appearing regularly on Nightline and ABC News, he also reports for ABC World News Tonight, Prime Time Live and Good Morning America. His specialty is explaining complex news ” economics, technology, science ” in a style that is clear, compelling and entertaining. With Ted Koppel, he co-hosted the eight-part prime time series, Brave New World, which probed the “eight biggest questions facing human kind.” With Peter Jennings, he produced an animated history of Bosnia for a children’s special. With Barbara Walters, he explored possible cures for cancer and reported on the AIDS epidemic.
A three-time Emmy Award-winner, he has explored the structure of DNA with a banana; on radio he created an Italian opera, “Ratto Interesso,” to explain how the Federal Reserve regulates interest rates; and he has pioneered the use of new animation on ABC’s Nightline and World News Tonight to illustrate such things as price fluctuations in the housing market. “ I like talking about ‘invisible ideas’ and trying to find a way to explain what you’ve learned so people can grasp it,” he says. Krulwich has been called “the most inventive network reporter in television” by TV Guide, “the man who makes the dismal science swing,” by the Washington Journalism Review, and “the man who simplifies without being simple,” by New York magazine.
He is a correspondent on the PBS investigative series, Frontline, where he won a Dupont Award for his coverage of campaign finance in the 1992 presidential campaign, a national Emmy for his investigation of privacy on the Internet, and a George Polk Award for an investigation on the savings and loan scandal.
Krulwich formerly anchored a cultural affairs series on PBS (and a simultaneous series on the BBC) called The Edge. GQ called the series “cocky, fearless, and brazenly sophisticated.” He has also hosted Live at Lincoln Center and appeared on Jay Leno’s premier Tonight Show broadcast.
Before joining ABC in 1994, Krulwich appeared regularly on CBS This Morning, 48 Hours and CBS’ Nightwatch with Charlie Rose. During the first Gulf War, he co-anchored the CBS program, America Tonight. From 1978 to 1985, he was Business and Economics correspondent for National Public Radio. He still contributes to NPR and, once a year, with friends, Jane Curtin, Buck Henry and Tony Hendra, he hosts a semi-fictional year-in-review called Backfire. In 1995, the group performed at the White House at the invitation of President and Mrs. Clinton.
He has received numerous awards for his reporting, including four consecutive Gainsbrugh Awards from the Economics Broadcasting Association, a Champion Award from the Amos Tuck Business School, PBS’s special award for Programming Excellence and the National Cancer Institute’s Extraordinary Communicator’s Award. In 2007 The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine presented Radio Lab with their Communications Award, the Academy’s top honor for excellence in communicating science to the general public. His ABC Special on Barbie, a cultural history of the world famous doll, also won a national Emmy. TV Guide named Krulwich to its “All Star” reporting team and Esquire placed him in its Esquire Registry in 1989. In 1974, Krulwich covered the Watergate Hearings for Pacifica Radio and, in 1976, he was Washington bureau chief for Rolling Stone.
Krulwich received a bachelor’s degree in US History from Oberlin College and a Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School. He lives in New York City with his wife, Tamar Lewin, a national reporter for The New York Times. They have two children, Jesse and Nora Ann. Mr. Krulwich takes special pride in coaching Nora’s basketball team, which is moving closer and closer to a winning season.