Soledad O'Brien, co-anchor of CNN's popular American Morning, will speak Monday, April 9 at 7 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.
O'Brien's talk, “Diversity: On television, behind the scenes and in our lives,” is part of the Presidential Forum on Diversity. The talk is free and open to the public.
O'Brien joined CNN in July 2003. That fall, she was the only broadcast journalist permitted to travel with First Lady Laura Bush on her trip to Moscow. In December 2004, she was among a handful of CNN anchors sent to Puhket, Thailand, to cover the tsunami that claimed more than 155,000 lives.
Prior to joining CNN, O'Brien had been at NBC News since 1991, where she contributed reports for the Today Show and weekend editions of NBC Nightly News. She was anchor of Weekend Today since July 1999. In 2003, she covered the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and she later anchored NBC's weekend coverage of the war in Iraq. In 1998, she covered Pope John Paul II's historic visit to Cuba.
A graduate of Harvard University, O'Brien began her career as an associate producer and news writer at the then-NBC affiliate, WBZ-TV in Boston. From there, she joined MSNBC, where she anchored the award-winning technology program, The Site and the cable network's weekend morning show. She also served three years as a local reporter and bureau chief for the NBC affiliate KRON in San Francisco.
O'Brien won a local Emmy for her work as a co-host on Discovery Channel's The Know Zone. She was named to People magazine's “50 Most Beautiful People” in 2001 and People en Espanol's “50 Most Beautiful People” in 2004. O'Brien was also included in Crain's Business Reports' “40 Under 40″ and Essence magazine's “40 Under 40,” both in 2004. O'Brien has also been named to Irish American Magazine's “Top 100 Irish Americans” on two occasions.
She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She also writes a bi-monthly column for USA Weekend magazine on parenting.