Dave Isay

Dave Isay is one of the most trusted and respected broadcasters working today. The recipient of six Peabody Awards, a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, and the $1 Million TED prize, his work taps into the heart and soul of the human experience. He is an author, documentarian, and founder of StoryCorps.

Dave’s work is held in the highest regard and continues to garner acclaim. Since its inception in 2003, he and the StoryCorps team have worked tirelessly to record history as it is told by the unsung masses. StoryCorps has given nearly half a million Americans the chance to record interviews about their lives, pass wisdom from one generation to the next, and leave a legacy for the future. It is the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered. In 2018, Dave and StoryCorps announced their One Small Step initiative. One Small Step brings together people with different political views, of all backgrounds and beliefs, to record a StoryCorps interview with each other in order to remind us that we have more in common than divides us.

Upon receiving the TED prize, Dave proclaimed his vision for StoryCorps: “to help create a world where we listen closely to each other and recognize the beauty, grace, and poetry in the lives and stories we find all around us.” Dave and StoryCorps are helping to preserve the wisdom and knowledge of humanity by recording history one conversation at a time.

Dave has numerous books lauded as New York Times best-sellers, including Listening is an Act of Love, Ties That Bind: Stories of Love and Gratitude from the First Ten Years of StoryCorps, and Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work. Weekly, millions of listeners experience these stories on NPR’s Morning Edition.