Biography

Jessica Alpert is a radio journalist and documentarian, writer, and oral historian. Born in Houston, Texas to a Salvadoran mother and a Northeastern father, Jessica’s identity and challenges as a young Latina Jewish woman in a conservative hometown colors a significant amount of her academic and freelance work.

Jessica’s recent academic and creative projects surround the historiography, assimilation patterns, and local treatment of Central American religious minorities, specifically Jews and Mormons. A dedicated oral historian, Jessica collected testimonies from the 60-family Jewish community in El Salvador as a Fulbright Scholar in 2005-2006.

After graduating magna cum laude from Barnard College in 2003, Jessica moved to Washington, DC. During these two years Jessica worked for the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, organizing legal education trainings for developing democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean. An eye-opening experience, Jessica specialized in trainings to combat the trafficking of women and children for sexual purposes in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Suriname, and Brazil. Jessica received her M.A. in History from Indiana University in 2008. She continued her education in radio and storytelling through sound at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.

Jessica’s work and projects have appeared in Bust, Barnard Magazine, The Washington Post, Proteus, Wonkette, the BBC, National Public Radio, and Public Radio International.

Awards include the Friends of the Borns Jewish Studies Program Graduate Fellowship at Indiana University, Oral History Association Fellowship, Fulbright Scholarship, Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship, a Tinker grant, and a Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Fellowship.  Her radio work has received honors from the Religion Newswriters Association and the DART Center for Trauma and Journalism.

Jessica is now a full-time producer at WBUR, a National Public Radio affiliate in Boston.