Lisa Ling, executive producer and host of Our America on OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network, is the 2013-14 Global Speaker at Girls Preparatory School. The former field correspondent for the Oprah Winfrey Show and contributor to ABC News’ Nightline and National Geographic’s Explorer will address GPS students and faculty on Thursday, Oct. 10. The event is not open to the public.
In the first season of Our America, Ms. Ling embedded in a Midwest town ravaged by an onslaught of heroin; in season two, she witnessed the manifestation of PTSD in returning veterans of war. She has reported from dozens of countries, covering stories about gang rape in the Congo, bride burning in India, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, and the MS-13 gang in Central America.
Ms. Ling’s start in journalism was with Channel One News, where at 21 years of age, she covered the civil war in Afghanistan. She later went on to become a co-host of ABC Daytime’s show, The View, which won its first daytime Emmy during her time with the show.
She was a special correspondent for CNN’s Planet in Peril series and is a contributing editor for USA Today’s USA Weekend magazine. She is the co-author of two books, Mother, Daughter, Sister, Bride: Rituals of Womanhood and Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home, which she wrote with her sister Laura.
In an interview with the Miami Herald in May, the 39-year-old mother of a young daughter said, “I’m determined to raise a strong girl.” She is involved with Dove’s “Let’s Make Girls Unstoppable” initiative to promote self-esteem in girls.
The GPS Global Speakers Series began in 2008 to attract nationally and internationally recognized speakers.