Gillian Ferris

News Director and Managing Editor

Fahey Foto

Gillian came to KNAU in 2001 as a freelance reporter after careers as a river cook, baker and teacher. Her first story won an Arizona Associated Press Award. Since then, Gillian has won more than a dozen regional and national Edward R. Murrow Awards for Excellence in feature reporting, writing, editing and documentary work. She served as the local anchor for NPR’s Morning Edition for well over a decade before becoming news director and managing editor at KNAU. As much as she loves reporting, Gillian has found her true soul work in editing and producing other journalists’ work. When not in the newsroom, she’s outside hiking, surfing, playing disc golf, running rivers and hanging out with her beloved dogs and friends.

Ways to Connect

Daughter Finds Forgotten Paperwork, Realizes Mom Was History-Making Rebel

By Gillian Ferris • May 7, 2021

In 1968, a stay-at-home mom named Iris Feeley joined a class action lawsuit against American Airlines. It challenged the company’s policy that “stewardesses” – as they were then called – had to quit their jobs when they got married. The suit was one of many that year aimed at the airline industry’s gender-specific rules about marriage, pregnancy and body weight. Iris’s daughter Robyn was 8 at the time and didn’t realize the magnitude of the situation.

Appointments No Longer Required At State-Run COVID-19 Vaccination Sites

By Gillian Ferris • Apr 27, 2021

State health officials say appointments are no longer required at state-run vaccination sites as Arizona currently has enough COVID-19 vaccine to meet demand in metro Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff and Yuma.

AZ Senate Hires Audit Group To Review Maricopa Election Results

By Gillian Ferris • Mar 31, 2021

The Arizona Senate today announced it has hired a group of independent auditors to review the 2020 election in Maricopa County. The review will include a hand recount of 2.1 million ballots.

Families Reflect On An Exhausting Year Of School At Home

By Melissa Sevigny & Gillian Ferris • Mar 12, 2021

Schools across the country are beginning to resume in-person classes. The return marks one year since the coronavirus pandemic catapulted students and teachers out of their classrooms, and dropped them in front of their home computers. KNAU checked in with three families to see how they managed this past year.

Kayla Gundrum and Odin

Kayla: I’m Kayla.

Odin: I’m Odin.

Poetry Friday: The Grand Finale

By Gillian Ferris & Austin Davis & Aeka Joshi & Karen Vanaman & James Jay & Marge Piercey • Dec 25, 2020

It’s the last Friday of 2020, and that means it’s the last Poetry Friday of the year, as well. Today, we take a look back at a difficult year by way of the poems listeners submitted: from a frontline nurse, to a teenager stuck at home, to an up-and-coming poet who uses writing to manage his OCD.

This year’s Poetry Friday segments represent a timeline of how the coronavirus pandemic took hold of the world and our lives.