Before launching Kouvenda Media, Stephanie previously worked as a reporter at WYPR in Baltimore and at WHYY in Philadelphia. At WHYY, she covered issues including education, health care and immigration. She was also a reporter for the station’s It’s Our City project, a special online civic engagement project, and spent two years reporting for The Impact of War series, a joint NPR/member station project about soldiers and families affected by American combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Stephanie eventually transitioned from reporting to becoming a producer at WHYY. She worked on Voices in the Family, a weekly show focused on psychology, personality and interpersonal relationships; and then Newsworks Tonight, WHYY’s evening news program. On Newsworks Tonight, Stephanie produced daily shows and several long-form specials, including an award-winning news documentary about Atlantic City.

In 2016, Stephanie joined the Keystone Crossroads public media initiative to help create and executive produce Grapple. The podcast won the Public Media Journalist Association’s First Place Award in Division A. 

Stephanie graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University. She got her start in radio as a volunteer host and reporter for a community affairs show about the Greek diaspora for Hellenic Public Radio-COSMOS FM. Apart from public radio, Stephanie has conducted several oral history projects. She was selected as a Summer Institute fellow at the Columbia University Center for Oral History Research at INCITE, with a focus on Narrating Population Health: Oral History, Disparity, and Social Change.

Stephanie and Emily first worked together on Grapple. They produced a series exploring deeply rooted racial tensions in the Central Pennsylvania community of York, including a fatal riot during the 1960s, which resurfaced around the time of the 2016 election. Listen in to Part 1 and Part 2.