Photo by Alix Blair

Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler have been producing radio together since 2002. Their work has aired nationally and internationally on public radio shows including: This American Life, Morning Edition, American Routes, WBEZ’s Chicago Matters, Weekend America, BBC’s A World in Your Ear, The Next Big Thing, Radio Lab, Re:Sound, Marketplace and numerous others. Kara and Ann created an experimental short documentary for the Third Coast International Audio Festival in 2003 about illegal migrants’ experiences crossing the Sonoran Desert. The piece has been featured at festivals around the world and also published in “Documentary 101: A Guided Listening Experience for the Classroom.” Recently, it was part of the Peabody Award winning Hearing Voices program: “Crossing Borders.”

The two have received honors from the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow awards, NFCB Gold and Silver Reels, the Peabody Awards, PRNDI, Associated Press and the Third Coast International Audio Festival. Currently, Ann and Kara, along with Rick Moody, are working on a bi-monthly series for Weekend America about people’s most memorable songs from childhood. It’s called “Song and Memory.”

Ann Heppermann is director of radio at Brooklyn College where she teaches audio documentary and runs the student radio station, BCR. Ann developed CUNY’s first radio workshop with NPR’s Next Generation Project, which educates CUNY students from across the five boroughs in public radio journalism. She created partnerships between CUNY and the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), 101o WINS, WNYC, Transom and National Public Radio.

Kara is documentary audio program director for the non-profit Union Docs and curates it’s monthly “Audio Bodega.” She’s a contributing artist to Conflux (projects include: Subtrak and The Colors of New York) and Stadtblind. In the summer of 2006, she helped create an interactive documentary film and audio map called “Capitol of Punk” about DC punk music and place with the arts group Yellow Arrow. It was featured at MOMA this spring as part of the show, “Design and the Elastic Mind.”