Christina Cala
is an audio producer & editor with over a decade of experience.
She cares deeply about getting more languages on the air & embracing joy.
Her work can currently be heard on NPR's Code Switch, where she’s the show’s senior producer.
Some of her favorite episodes from the show are about speaking with a potato in your mouth, a fight around who Lakota language belongs to, & an exploration of how to honor enslaved ancestors. Her work can also be found on All Things Considered, TED Radio Hour, Life Kit, Weekend Edition, It’s Been a Minute & Popular Science.
Before producing Code Switch, she geeked out about sound design & story on TED Radio Hour. She learned most of what she knows about field production, mixing, & reporting while producing & directing All Things Considered. In her five years there, she covered everything from the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
Christina is a proud Colombian-American, who was born & raised in sunny California. When not telling stories with sound, she can be found swimming in glacial lakes, dancing salsa, writing in the park or perfecting her babka recipe.
Selected Work
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Selected Work *
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A Father, A Husband, An Immigrant: Detained And Facing Deportation
Padre, Esposo E Inmigrante: Detenido Y Con El Riesgo De Ser Deportado
Chronicles Of A Venezuelan Exodus: More Families Flee The Crisis On Foot Every Day
What It’s Like On Both Sides Of The U.S.-Mexico Border’s Busiest Crossing
Chef José Andrés Has Served Nearly 1.5 Million Meals To Hungry Puerto Ricans
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Code Switch Mid-Career Reporting Fellowship— Designed curriculum, created reporting plans, led weekly training sessions and edited podcast episodes for two mid-career fellows : one who reported on how albinism upends our ideas around color as a shorthand for race and another on the role of therapy if combating anti-Blackness in Latino communities
NPR Story Lab Podcast Incubator — Mentor and story editor for the 2022 incubator. Worked with an independent producer on how to report, structure, record and edit a longform narrative podcast called “Viva La Mota," over the course of eight months.
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2025 Gracie Feature/Special Award for reporting on the fight around intellectual property, copyright and Lakota language on the Standing Rock Reservation
2019 Edward R. Murrow award for continuing coverage on the asylum crackdown
2018 NPR Diversity Success employee award for co-founding NPR’s Marginalized Gender and Intersex People of Color Mentorship program
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The Ferriss – UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship — Awarded a $10,000 grant to report on how indigenous communities in Colombia are navigating the commercialization of their ancestral medicine - ayahuasca.
Edit Mode Fellow — Association for Independents in Radio - Participated in the inaugural fellowship cohort to receive training for audio producers interested in editing narrative audio.
Carnegie Global Reporting Fellowship — Reported on nanotech labs that create targeted cancer drug treatments.
Eric Lund Global Reporting and Research Grant — Reported on huacas, archaeological ruins, in danger of destruction in Lima.
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