Leyla Santiago

Leyla Santiago joined the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media in the fall of 2023 as the Daniels Executive-In-Residence. Santiago has worked in local, national and international newsrooms as a broadcast journalist. Most recently, she was a correspondent for CNN, based in Miami, and was at the forefront of CNN's coverage on natural disasters, immigration, the Covid-19 pandemic, politics, and the relationship between the United States and Latin America.

After her extensive coverage of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, Santiago was nominated for a Peabody Award and her team won an Edward R. Murrow award. She was one of the first to reach some of the most remote parts of the island after the hurricane. Officials added more cases to the list of hurricane-related deaths after her investigation exposed inaccuracies in the government's low death toll.

In 2020, Santiago joined CNN's political team to report from the campaign trail. She covered the presidential bids of Congressman Beto O'Rourke and Senator Elizabeth Warren and captured the campaigns' courtship of voters, focusing on the issues that mattered most to communities across the country.

In April of 2018, Santiago spent nearly a month traveling through Mexico with a caravan of migrants thrust into the national spotlight after President Trump tweeted about the group. Santiago introduced viewers to the families of the caravan and explained the complexities of U.S. immigration laws. She also garnered the prestigious Alfred I. DuPont award for the documentary, "The Journey Alone," about the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America and Mexico crossing the U.S southern border in 2014.

Santiago was named to Crain NewsPro's "12 to Watch in TV News" in 2019.

Before joining CNN, She reported as a journalist for WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina; KBAK/KBFX in Bakersfield, California, KTUU in Anchorage, Alaska; and NBC29 in Charlottesville, Virginia.