News

May 1, 2009

Natalie Morales, co-anchor of NBC's Today show and a 1994 graduate of the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, is being inducted into Rutgers' Hall of Distinguished Alumni Saturday, May 2, at the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick.

Morales majored in Journalism and Mass Media at SCILS. She joined the "Today" show as a national correspondent in 2006. In 2007, she was named a co-anchor of the show’s fourth hour; she also fills in regularly at the news desk.

Watch Natalie Morales interview Rutgers University students last year before the "Super Tuesday" primaries in New Jersey

Read about RU-tv students visiting Natalie Morales at the Today show in April

Prior to signing on with Today, Morales was an anchor and correspondent at MSNBC since March 2002. In these national roles, she has contributed to NBC News coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino and the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, as well as several major breaking news stories including Hurricane Katrina and recovery efforts, the Tsunami disaster, the passing of Pope John Paul II, the 2004 Presidential election, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the Columbia space shuttle explosion.

Morales was recently named one of People magazine's "Most 100 Beautiful People," and Hispanic Magazine named Morales a “Top Hispanic to Watch” in 2005, and a “Top Trendsetter” in 2003.

Morales, who speaks Spanish and Portuguese, was born in Taiwan and spent much of the first 18 years of her life living overseas in Panama, Brazil, and Spain as a self-proclaimed “Air Force brat.”