Davar Ardalan
Please join your fellow press club members in warmly welcoming our newest member, Davar Ardalan.
Davar Ardalan is an award-winning journalist and media executive. She’s led global news teams at mission-driven legacy organizations such as National Geographic and NPR News, created award-winning programming and podcasts, conversational artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and championed data equity across platforms. Davar has managed teams at the US federal government, designing online communities at NASA and producing VR and social storytelling campaigns across global communities. She has trained chatbots and robots at Hanson Robotics.
Her accomplishments include:
- She currently serves as executive producer at National Geographic, where she oversees the popular podcast series, “Overheard,” as well as the limited series “Into the Depths” and other narrative storytelling content.
- National Geographic Audio recently received an Ambie award for “Overheard” from the Podcast Academy for Best Knowledge, Science and Tech Show.
- Davar worked at NPR for 22 years, starting as a production assistant and rising through the ranks to become responsible for national and international broadcasts including “Weekend Edition” and “Morning Edition.”
- At NPR, she then became senior producer of NPR News. She designed stories anchored in multiculturalism and steeped in historical content.
- Her last position at NPR was a senior producer for the Identity and Culture Unit, traveling nationwide to produce live events and to moderate Twitter chats on critical issues of the day, such as community and policing, voting rights, education, and immigration.
- Davar served as deputy director of the White House Presidential Innovation Fellowship where she navigated the bureaucracy, politics and process of the fellowship and built relationships and partnerships with key stakeholders. She helped line up 14 projects for fellows across nine federal agencies.
- She was founder and CEO of IVOW AI, where she pioneered cultural intelligence in artificial intelligence. Her organization brought together a team of journalists and technologists to design cultural AI. The name IVOW stands for Intelligent Voices of Wisdom.
- She has presented on the future of media and communications at the New York Academy of Sciences and at more than 70 events worldwide.
- In addition to the Ambie award for the National Georgraphic podcast she produces, she is also the recipient of numerous other awards in 2022 alone, including a Webby Award and three Anthem Awards.
- She has also been honored with a Gracie Award from the American Women in Radio and Television, a NASA Team Leadership Award, two NABJ Awards, and is the recipient of an Ellis Island Medal of Honor for individual achievement and for promoting cultural unity.
Davar says she wants to contribute to the Press Club of Southwest Florida in the areas of programs, future of media, data and voice chatbots, and the changing diversity in the media landscape.
A warm welcome, Davar. We look forward to your valuable involvement helping the press club fulfill its multi-faceted mission.