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Stella M. Chávez | The Texas Newsroom

Investigative Reporter

Stella M. Chávez is an investigative reporter for The Texas Newsroom, a collaboration between NPR and member stations around the state. She's based at KERA in Dallas and is currently reporting on how state government is working with federal agencies on immigration enforcement and border security.

Throughout her career, Stella's been interested in telling deeply reported and intimate stories about diverse communities. As the daughter of a Mexican immigrant father and a Mexican American mother, Stella strives to gives her audience a greater understanding of immigrants and refugees through her reporting. She’s covered the impact of immigration raids as well as mass shootings in Uvalde and El Paso. Previously, she covered education for KERA and produced several multi-part projects, including Generation One about immigrant students in North Texas and The Race to Save Failing Schools about schools trying to meet state academic standards.

Before working in public radio, Stella spent more than a dozen years in newspapers, reporting for The Dallas Morning News, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel and The Ledger in Lakeland, Florida. She’s received several national and state awards, including one from Investigative Reporters and Editors for the collaborative project “Hot Days: Heat’s Mounting Death Toll on Workers in the US”. Other honors include the Livingston Award for Excellence in National Reporting and Dart Award for Excellence in Reporting on Victims of Violence for “Yolanda’s Crossing,” a seven-part series that reconstructs the journey of a young sexual abuse victim from a village in Oaxaca, Mexico to Dallas. Her reporting was also included in news coverage that received Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards.

In her spare time, Stella enjoys traveling, hiking and writing about her experience as a longtime caregiver. [Copyright 2025 KERA]