NeEddra James studies audio journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
NeEddra’s reporting interests include neurodiversity, behavioral health, women’s health, California public policy and politics, wealth inequality, climate change and the future of journalism within Web3 and decentralized AI ecosystems.
Their current work explores ADHD and women’s health.
NeEddra’s passion for journalism started in the late nineties on KRON-TV’s Emmy-Award winning youth news program, First Cut.
NeEddra aspired to become a professional journalist as a young co-host and reporter, but never anticipated traveling such a circuitous path through academia, the nonprofit sector and Silicon Valley to get there.
NeEddra earned a BA in Religion at Bowdoin College, and a Master’s in History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she received a Ford Foundation Pre-doctoral Fellowship funding research on the role mainstream museums played in consolidating liberal multiculturalism as the dominant Post-Civil Rights cultural narrative.
In 2005, NeEddra was invited to join the critical studies track in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program and presented research on the controversial 1969 Metropolitan Museum exhibition “Harlem on My Mind.”
NeEddra left the academy in 2008 for mental health reasons. For the next several years they worked in the nonprofit sector developing and facilitating social and emotional literacy learning experiences for youth, adults and educators.
With a background in social justice, teaching, facilitation and learning experience design, NeEddra began working at the intersection of emotional intelligence, DEI and people development in Bay Area start ups.
Already an avid podcast listener, NeEddra fell in love with producing podcasts while serving as the Senior Producer of LifeLabs Learning’s branded podcast, The LeaderLab.
Quickly recognizing how ideas they’d been mulling over could be produced as a podcast, NeEddra sought additional training and mentorship at UC Berkeley’s Journalism School.
When NeEddra isn’t working, they can be found playing with their two young children in the East Bay forests.
