Kimberly Junod
World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).
Kimberly's interest in radio started from her love of music and sound. After graduating high school in Sydney, Australia, she spent several months learning multi-track recording and mixing at Eclipse Recording Studios in Sydney. Returning to the United States to study for her B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania, she got her start in radio with a student internship at WXPN (the station that produces World Cafe). After graduating Magna Cum Laude with dual majors in Communications and Music, she became WXPN's line producer, engineering the Peabody Award-winning show, Kids Corner. In 2004, Kimberly also earned a Masters in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania and in 2021 completed a Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology. Outside of work, she has a passion: dragon boating, having represented the U.S. in the World Dragon Boat Championships and first International Dragon Boat Federation World Cup. She currently serves on the board of the United States Dragon Boat Federation (representing the Eastern Regional Dragon Boat Association) and is a part of the USDBF's High Performance Committee.
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When you hear the name Josh Groban, you probably think of his soaring voice. Groban talks about making an album of some of his favorite movie songs and shares a touching story about bringing his father into the studio to record with him. -
On his popular podcast and Netflix series, Hirway dissects songs alongside some of music's biggest stars. His latest album, In the Last Hour Of Light, has been a labor of love. -
Growing up in Chattanooga, Tenn., Janjay Lowe tried to forget his early life in Liberia, but survivor’s guilt caught up with him. -
These days, when songwriter Jesse Welles posts a clip of himself playing acoustic guitar on social media, millions of people watch. Over the past few years, he's become a genuine sensation by sharing socially conscious songs online, often in the woods near his home in Arkansas. -
Do you have a friend or loved one you always go to for advice? When you listen to Boy Golden, you might get the feeling that he's that guy in his world. The Canadian songwriter's new record was inspired by suffering and its ability to connect us. -
In most cities, New Year's Day means sleeping in and recovering from the night before, but in Philadelphia, the celebration only gets bigger with the annual Mummers Parade. -
World Cafe steps inside the Grammy Award-winning producer and engineer Will Yip's new studio in South Philly as part of its latest Sense of Place series. -
The radio DJ, journalist and activist shares tales from her storied career for the first installment of our series, Sense of Place: Philadelphia. -
Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell takes great care with each note he plays. When he stopped by the World Cafe studio to talk about his new album, In My Dreams, he brought that same care to the stories he chose to tell. -
World Cafe correspondent John Morrison says the rock band's second studio album was "one of the most inspired, quintessential mainstream rock records of the '90s."
