Nissa Rhee is an award-winning writer, editor, and entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the journalism industry.
As a visionary media leader, Nissa transformed Borderless Magazine—a nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet reimagining immigration journalism—from a blog to a nationally recognized, award-winning newsroom with a dozen full-time employees. Her fundraising efforts have secured over $5 million to support the organization’s operations and its empathetic, human-centered reporting.
In 2025, the MacArthur and Field Foundations named Nissa a 2025 Leader for a New Chicago for her work as a “compassionate storyteller.” She was also a finalist for the 2025 Community Member of the Year award for the North American LION Publishers Awards for being someone who “goes above and beyond to support, acknowledge, and celebrate their fellow news entrepreneurs.”
Nissa’s leadership at Borderless has earned recognition in Chicago and beyond. Her editing and reporting work on the magazine’s investigations into Chicago’s troubled migrant shelter system catalyzed international coverage of the dangers faced by migrants and spurred city reforms. The journalistic impact of Borderless Magazine’s work has earned the magazine awards from ONA, INN, and LION. The magazine won Public Narrative’s 2024 Ripple Effect Award and the Next Challenge’s 2024 “Future of Local Journalism” award for its community-centered reporting.
Prior to Borderless, Nissa spent over a decade working as a reporter and editor in the U.S. and Asia. She also taught journalism at Northeastern Illinois University and trained Ukrainian refugee journalists in Greece as part of the U.S. State Department’s TechCamp program.
In 2019, she earned a Peabody Award nomination as a staff writer for “70 Million,” an innovative documentary podcast that explores the impact of local jails on individuals and communities.
Nissa served as a Juvenile Justice Reporting Fellow at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and was a three-time Reporting Fellow at City Bureau in Chicago. From 2017 to 2018, she served as a Gun Violence Reporting Fellow at Columbia University.
Nissa’s six-month investigation into the life expectancy gap in Chicago was recognized as the Best Online Feature story of 2018 by the Chicago Headline Club. Her cover story on Englewood was named one of the best stories about gun violence of 2018 by The Trace. She is also the recipient of a Peter Lisagor award for “Best In-depth Reporting in a Community Newspaper” for her coverage of lead poisoning.
Before covering criminal justice, Nissa worked as an editor at JoongAng Daily in South Korea, a foreign correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, and as a producer at Chicago Public Radio.
Nissa has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree from the University of Queensland.
Nissa lives in Chicago with her husband, kids, and rescue pup.
