Doualy Xaykaothao

Doualy Xaykaothao is a reporter and producer, based in Seoul, South Korea, covering breaking news from Asia for NPR News. Her reports can be heard across all NPR News programs.

Xaykaothao joined NPR in 1999 as a production assistant for Morning Edition and has since worked as an NPR producer, editor, director and reporter for NPR's award-winning programs. As a producer for NPR's Newscast Unit, she was a member of the team receiving the 2001 Peabody Award for its coverage of the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. From 2003 to 2006, she reported for NPR from Bangkok, Thailand, including coverage of the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. In 2006, she served as a fellow for the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS with a focus on women inside Nepal's 10 year civil war. Xaykaothao was an Annenberg Fellow for NPR Member station KPCC in Los Angeles in 2007, and was part of the reporting team to receive a LA Press Club Award for breaking coverage of the California wildfires. Most recently, she was a producer with NPR's afternoon newsmagazine All Things Considered, until relocating to Seoul in early 2009.

Xaykaothao is Hmong-American, born in Laos, but raised in Texas. She attended Ithaca College and Empire State College in New York, where she specialized in television, radio, political science, and ethnic studies. Her radio career began at Harlem community radio station WHCR 90.3 FM, where she first volunteered as news-reader. Later, at Pacifica Radio's WBAI 99.5 FM, she worked for the station's resident film critic, the late Paul Wunder. At Pacifica, she also coordinated and produced Asia Pacific Forum, a one-hour program about the diverse Asian communities in the United States and abroad.

For those who are curious, Xaykaothao's name is pronounced "dwah-lhee sigh-kow-tao."