Selena Seay-Reynolds

Raised listening to public radio in the back seat of her mother's car, Selena Seay-Reynolds is now the lead audio engineer and a podcast host for NPR’s NextGenRadio, a program that finds and cultivates the next generation of public media talent. She started with NextGenRadio during her last year of college while working as a board operator at the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California, after writing into the program and asking if she could shadow the current audio engineer. Ever since this experience, she’s been a strong proponent for asking for exactly what you want, and believes in staying grounded within yourself so that you know what that is. She passes these philosophies on to her mentees (and anyone who will listen) in lengthy conversations and loves to think holistically about how mental and physical health influences our capacity for our jobs as reporters and engineers. Over the past two years, she’s felt herself grow into her own as a passionate educator with a real knack for virtual training, and has recently provided instruction for AIR, the Dow Jones Multimedia Training Academy, and is currently working on the second season of “Outsiders.” She also provides one-on-one freelance audio instruction for WLRN in Florida, production assistance for Wondery, and believes that her best purpose is found in helping record and share the stories of others in hi-fi quality, and empowering others to realize that they can do this too. Though now based in Los Angeles, she grew up within the broadcast signal of WHYY and thanks the reporters who inspired her to do what she does today. It was in listening to their reporting on food deserts while in high school that she was first brought to tears upon realizing the potential of hearing another person’s voice tell their own story, and believed from that moment on there would be no hatred in the world if we could just hear each other speak. While out on the road or in the air exploring this incredible planet of ours, she can be found dreaming up more efficient ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and discussing American culture’s complicated relationship with the film Scarface with anyone who’s seen it. She truly loves the Earth and all her creatures, pinball, Zener cards, and Jungian analysis.