Neda Ulaby reports on arts, entertainment, and cultural trends for NPR's Arts Desk. She began there as a production assistant in 2000. Recent stories have ranged from a profile of the first woman nominated for an Oscar for cinematography to a piece about how a “broken orchestra” in Philadelphia returned unplayable instruments to public school children to an exploration of the origins of the expression “thirst trap.”

Scouring the various and often overlapping worlds of art, music, television, film, new media and literature, Neda Ulaby's radio and online stories reflect political and economic realities, cultural issues, obsessions and transitions, as well as artistic adventurousness— and awesomeness.

Ms. Ulaby hosted the Emmy-Award winning public television series Arab American Stories, and has worked at newspapers in Topeka, KS and Chicago, IL. A former doctoral student in literature and film at the University of Chicago, she graduated from Bryn Mawr College. Ms. Ulaby was born in Amman, Jordan and grew up in the idyllic Midwestern college towns of Lawrence, Kansas and Ann Arbor, Michigan, where, throughout her youth, she was an undistinguished student of the violin.