Stephanie Elam

About

Stephanie Elam is a CNN correspondent based in the network's Los Angeles bureau where most recently she's covered the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on California. She also joined a vaccine trial and reported on the process in an effort to encourage Black Americans to trust the science.In 2018, Elam helmed CNN's coverage of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano as its eruption devoured much of the Leilani Estates subdivision on the Big Island. In fact, Elam has covered numerous natural disasters for CNN - from Hurricanes Matthew, Harvey and Irma in the Southeast; an EF5 tornado which killed 15 adults and nine children in Moore, Oklahoma; to several wildfires in the West, including the Thomas Fire which at the time, was the largest wildfire in California's history. Elam has also reported on the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake threat in the Pacific Northwest and California's drought battles. Elam was also live in Minneapolis when the polar vortex brought wind chills that felt like -44 degrees. She was also out in the drizzling rain in St. Joseph, Mo., for the solar eclipse in 2017 in what turned out to be a crowd-pleasing event despite the weather.Beyond the elements, Elam also covered the death of legendary musician Prince from Minnesota as well as the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. She also reported on the Donald Sterling scandal surrounding the former Los Angeles Clippers owner's racist remarks.From the Emmys to the Academy Awards, Elam can also be found on the red carpet in Hollywood interviewing the year's top contenders in film, music and television.Before joining CNN Los Angeles, Elam served as a weekend evening anchor and general assignment reporter for KNBC Los Angeles. From 2003 to 2011, Elam was a CNN business news correspondent based in New York, covering a myriad of stories from the bursting housing bubble that led to the worst financial downturn in decades to the death of Michael Jackson.Elam's career began in New York as a copy editor for Dow Jones Newswires before joining Bridge News where she helped coordinate seamless 24-hour news coverage among the organization's newsrooms worldwide.While working for Bridge News, she covered corporate earnings for PBS's "Nightly Business Report" and for WebFN and anchored "Market on the Close," which tracked the stock market in the last hour of trading. She also previously helmed "First Business," a weekly syndicated business program and co-hosted "Black Enterprise Report," a nationally syndicated show focused on business, career and financial education.