Amna Nawaz Biography
Amna Nawaz is a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning political journalist serving as co-anchor of PBS NewsHour alongside Geoff Bennett. She is a former chief correspondent and primary substitute anchor for “PBS NewsHour.” She was the first Pakistani-American and first Muslim-American to moderate a presidential primary debate during the December 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate.
Amna Nawaz Age
Amna is 44 years old, she was born in 1979 in Virginia, United States. She celebrates her birthday on September 18. She was born in Alexandria, a bucolic town a short Metro ride from the nation’s capital. But they spent summers in Pakistan, visiting with extended family.
Amna Nawaz Height
Nawaz stands at a height of 5 feet 7 inches tall.
Amna Nawaz Education
Amna received her undergraduate degree in politics, philosophy and economics from the University of Pennsylvania where she captained the varsity field hockey team. She also holds a graduate degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics.
While at Penn, she intended to become a lawyer but she shifted to journalism after witnessing the 9/11 attacks mere months after beginning a fellowship at ABC Nightline.
Amna Nawaz Religion
Nawaz is Muslim.
Amna Nawaz Parents
Amna is the daughter of Pakistani immigrant, Shuja Nawaz and Seema Nawaz, who emigrated to the United States in 1975.
Amna Nawaz Father
Amna’s father Shuja Nawaz is a journalist and political and strategic analyst.He is the Director of the South Asia Center at The Atlantic Council of the United States. He writes for The Huffington Post and other leading newspapers. He was a newscaster and news and current affairs producer for Pakistan Television from 1967 to 1972 and covered the western front of the 1971 war between Pakistan and India as well as President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s visit to China January-February 1972.
He has also worked for the New York Times, the World Health Organization, and has headed three separate divisions at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He was also a director at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna from 1999 to 2001, while on leave from the IMF. He was the managing editor and then Editor of Finance & Development, the multilingual quarterly of the IMF and the World Bank. He served on the editorial advisory board of the World Bank Research Observer.
He is also an author having written two books of verse in English and chapters in numerous books on Pakistan (Oxford University Press) and Third World news in American media (Columbia University).
Amna Nawaz Ethnicity
She is of Asian ethnicity.
Amna Nawaz Husband
Amna is married to Paul Werdel, a former New York Times product director who left his job to become a stay-at-home parent.
Paul worked for The New York Times for almost six years. He joined NYT in 2012 as an assistant editor for digital platforms, he was promoted to senior editor of the platforms in 2014 and after only eight months he was promoted to senior product manager for mobile by the time he was leaving, he was the product director.
Prior to joining the NYT, he was the senior associate editor for TPM Media LLC, where he oversaw all NY-based editorial production for TPM Media and its hub site Talking Points Memo among other roles. He has also worked for Al Jazeera English as a deputy news editor and later as a news editor. He was also a BBC World News producer and director where he produced and directed a twice-nightly broadcast of BBC World News in and for the U.S. market. He began his career as a News Studio manager at UMTV and later joined the University of Maryland as a lecture for production coordinator and later assistant lecturer for Broadcast Journalism.
Amna Nawaz Daughters
She is the mother of two daughters, Lina and Karam.
Amna Nawaz PBS NewsHour
Amna is a co-anchor of PBS NewsHour alongside Geoff Bennett. The two began anchoring the show in 2023 after succeeding Judy Woodruff who stepped aside at the end of 2022. Amna had been the primary substitute anchor and correspondent for “NewsHour” since 2018, after the promotion, she became the first Muslim American woman to head a national newscast.
She joined PBS NewsHour in 2018 as a correspondent. She has since served as a senior national correspondent as well as chief correspondent.
She is a mental health advocate who has reported on the PTSD experienced by journalists in war zones as well as America’s scourge of mass shootings. She has two prestigious Peabody Awards, one for her coverage of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and another for a PBS report about global plastic pollution.
Amna began her journalism career at the ABC News Washington bureau in 2001 after landing a one-year fellowship. To her it was supposed to be a “stopover” between her undergraduate degree and law school. However, the 9/11 happened and at the time she was working at ABC’s “Nightline,” then anchored by Ted Koppel. She was part of the Peabody Award-winning team for 9/11 coverage. After her fellowship, she went back to school to do her graduate degree and after graduating she returned to journalism at NBC News, where she worked in the investigative unit with Lisa Meyers, as a producer at “Dateline NBC” and later spearheaded the NBC Asian American vertical. She also spent several years as NBC’s Islamabad bureau chief, shuttling between hot spots in the region, including Kabul.
In 2015, she returned to ABC News as a anchor and reporter covering politics. She led the network’s livestream coverage of the 2016 Presidential Election, anchoring breaking news, primary and debate coverage, as well as the Election Night 2016 special. She also hosted ABC News Radio’s “Uncomfortable” podcast. She reported and hosted “Roberts County; A Year in the Most Pro-Trump Town” documentary. In April 2018, she joined PBS NewsHour.
Amna Nawaz Salary
Amna earns an annual base salary of $1 million as a co-anchor of PBS NewsHour.
Amna Nawaz Net worth
She has an estimated net worth of $3 million.