Catherine Shen
Host, Where We LiveCatherine is the Host of Connecticut Public’s morning talk show and podcast, Where We Live. Catherine and the WWL team focus on going beyond the headlines to bring in meaningful conversations that put Connecticut in context.
Before her current position, Catherine was Connecticut Public’s education reporter for just over a year. She covered a variety of stories like student mental health, childcare shortages, and teacher burnout. She joined Connecticut Public's newsroom in 2021. The Los Angeles native came to CT Public after a decade of print and digital reporting across the country.
She started her journalism career in the Los Angeles fashion scene. While that was an exciting time, Catherine ultimately needed to get back to her news roots. She was soon traipsing all across California’s Central Coast as a freelance news reporter for several newspapers, where she broke stories about local government, law enforcement, and education. She also covered crime, healthcare, business, as well as arts and culture.
After finding herself on the East Coast, she continued reporting in New Jersey, covering a mix of academic news, nonprofit projects, and human feature stories both off and on camera. Then she moved to Connecticut and started reporting for the New Britain Herald, where she won several Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists awards for her coverage on the COVID-19 pandemic, social justice movements, and police accountability.
Catherine received an undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism from Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. While an undergraduate student, she was a reporter for the university newspaper and its student-run television station, Cable 8 News. She’s also a proud member of the Asian American Journalism Society.
In her downtime, she tries her best to catch up on her reading list but often fails due to a variety of distractions, including reorganizing her bookshelves, scavenging library book sales, and thinking about reading books.
Catherine can be reached at cshen@ctpublic.org and follow her on Twitter at @catshenwnpr.
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This hour, we hear from curators and experts at the Yale Peabody Museum less than a week after the reopening. -
Bigfoot and Nessie and Glawackus — oh my! This hour, we learn all about cryptids, or creatures we’re not sure exist, here in Connecticut and beyond. -
The death of longtime U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman was announced by his family on Wednesday. He was 82. This hour, we discuss his political career, impact and legacy. -
This hour, we revisit our conversation with author Rebecca or RF Kuang, focused on her award-winning novel, "Babel." -
This hour, we hear from one salon that’s just for natural curls in Connecticut, and a local student who wrote about how stylists there help to untangle "hair trauma." Plus, curators at the Wadsworth Atheneum preview a new exhibit, Styling Identities: Hair’s Tangled Histories. -
Local animal shelters say they are struggling to keep up with calls from people trying to surrender pets. This hour, we check in with those shelters. Plus, we hear from farm animal and wildlife rescues in the state. -
This hour on Where We Live, we hear from the Office of the Child Advocate and Disability Rights Connecticut. We learn about their investigation into a group of schools serving special needs students and what can be done to protect the rights of these students. -
There are several historical exhibits celebrating local avant garde artists currently on view or in the works in the state. This hour, we learn about these artists and their legacies, exploring the influence of New York-based art movements on Connecticut art-makers, Pop Art in particular. -
A flannel shirt and blue jeans - are these staples in your wardrobe? This hour on Where we Live, we hear about the small but mighty American clothing and textile industry, and how some entrepreneurs are trying to preserve it. New York Times reporter and author Steven Kurutz joins us. -
At the Maurice Sendak Foundation in Ridgefield, the late artist's legacy is kept alive and "wild" by a team of experts. This hour, we hear from them just after the posthumous release of the picture book, "Ten Little Rabbits."
