Award-winning Journalist and Author
Tara Kangarlou is an award-winning journalist and author who has reported and produced breaking news reports, investigative pieces, and magazine-style print and broadcast stories on both domestic and international issues. Over the years she has reported, written and produced for CNN, CNN International, NBC, Huffington Post, Al Monitor, and Al Jazeera America. She has previously served as a Fellow at the East West Institute and is a frequent on-air contributor on various news outlets worldwide covering international affairs, humanitarian issues, and the Middle East. In her award-winning debut book, “The Heartbeat Of Iran” she captures some of the most nuanced and complex realities of life in today’s Iran through intimate and personal stories of everyday Iranians.
In 2015, she led Al Jazeera America’s team with unprecedented access to report and produce from inside Iran during the historic nuclear negotiations between the UN Security Council’s five permanent members. While at CNN, Ms. Kangarlou was involved in covering major domestic and international stories such as the 2013 US Presidential Inauguration, the Boston marathon bombings, the 2013 Iranian presidential election, Nelson Mandela’s death, and the 2014 Russia-Ukraine crisis.Over the years she has interviewed many global leaders, heads of states, and senior government officials in the US and around the world. Ms. Kangarlou is an expert covering the global refugee crisis, MENA region, and international affairs. In recent years, she has spent much time in the Syrian border regions of Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan reporting and covering issues that impact Syrian refugees, host countries, and the Middle East at large. Ms. Kangarlou has also reported from Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh—the world’s largest refugee camp—covering the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims fleeing from Myanmar.
In 2016, having witnessed the horrible plight of war-torn refugees firsthand, Ms. Kangarlou launched Art of Hope, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization focused on helping Syrian refugees overcome the mental wounds of war and displacement through various trauma-relief and psychosocial programming in Lebanon – home to the largest number of refugees per capita in the world. At present Art of Hope is working to replicate their efforts for the many Ukrainian refugees in Poland and IDP inside Ukraine. She is an outspoken advocate for refugees, war-torn children and ethnically persecuted minorities. At present, Ms. Kangarlu is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreing Service, teaching a class at the intersection of journalist and public diplomacy.
Ms. Kangarlou was born and raised in Tehran, Iran until her late teens. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from UCLA and a Master’s Degree in Journalism from USC. She currently splits her time between London and DC.