Richard Engel Biography
Richard Engel is an American journalist who has served as the Chief Foreign Correspondent for NBC News since April 2008. He also hosts the award-winning series “On Assignment with Richard Engel” on MSNBC. In addition, Engel is the author of three books: “A Fist in the Hornet’s Nest,” “War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq,” and “And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East.”
Richard Engel Age
Engel is 50 years old. He was born on September 16, 1973, in New York, New York, United States.
Richard Engel Height
He is 1.83 meters tall.
Richard Engel Nationality
He is American.
Richard Engel Education
Engel attended the Riverdale Country School, a highly competitive college-prep school in New York City, where he initially struggled with his schoolwork and progress. At 13, he joined a wilderness survival camp, where he learned about leadership and independence. This experience improved his academic performance, and he began to gain popularity among his peers. Engel spent his junior year of high school in Italy, where he became fluent in Italian. This exposure to different cultures and countries significantly influenced his future career choices.
He later attended Stanford University, where he occasionally wrote for The Stanford Daily. Engel spent one summer as an unpaid intern at CNN Business News in New York City. He graduated from Stanford in 1996 with a B.A. in international relations.
Richard Engel Parents
Richard was born to Peter and Nina Engel. His father, Peter Engel, a Jewish, is a former Goldman Sachs financier, and his mother, Nina Engel, a Swedish, ran an antique store. Engel has one older brother, David Engel, who is a cardiologist.
Richard Engel Wife
Richard is married to Mary Forrest. The couple got married in May 2015. Mary Forrest is a television producer. They have two sons together, Henry born in September 2015, and Theodore, born in August 2019. Tragically, their eldest son, Henry Thomas Engel, passed away in August 2022, at the age of six. Henry had been diagnosed with Rett syndrome, a rare genetic neurological disorder that affects brain development and leads to severe cognitive and physical impairments. Richard and his wife have been open about their son’s condition and their journey, raising awareness about Rett syndrome.
Richard was previously married to a fellow Stanford student whose identity has not been publicly disclosed. Their marriage ended in divorce in 2005.
Richard Engel NBC News
Engel is an author and Chief Foreign Correspondent for NBC News. He is widely regarded as one of America’s leading foreign correspondents for his coverage of wars, revolutions, and political transitions around the world for over twenty years. He is also recognized for his outstanding reporting on the Syrian civil war, the 2011 revolution in Egypt, the conflict in Libya, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and overall unrest throughout the Arab world.
Engel was named chief foreign correspondent of NBC News in April 2008. His reports appear across all NBC News and MSNBC platforms, including “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt,” “TODAY,” “Meet the Press,” “Dateline” and NBCNews.com.
Engel also hosts the special ongoing award-winning series “On Assignment with Richard Engel” on MSNBC, which draws on his over twenty years of experience in award-winning original reporting in the field and combines in-depth reporting with interviews in key locations across the world.
Engel’s work has received numerous awards, including eight News & Documentary Emmy Awards. Most recently, “On Assignment” won the prestigious Peabody Award for “American Betrayal,” as well as the Sigma Delta Chi Award and the National Headliner Award for the same episode. “On Assignment” also won the Edward R. Murrow Awards’ Continuing Coverage category for its series of investigative reports on Vladimir Putin and Russia, as well as the prestigious Scripps Howard Award for outstanding reporting on this subject.
Additionally, Engel was honored with two Peabody Awards for his coverage of the rise of ISIS (2014) and his reporting on the Viper Company, a remote U.S. Army unit in Afghanistan (2008), and the National Headliner Award for his continuing coverage of Syria (2020). In 2013, Engel was the recipient of the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism and was also honored with the “Tex” McCrary Award for Journalism Excellence by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. Richard also received two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for his coverage of the Arab uprisings (2012) and his report “War Zone Diary” (2008) – The one-hour documentary, compiled from his video journal, gave a rare and intimate account of the every day realities covering the war in Iraq. In 2007, Engel received the Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism, the first ever given to a broadcast journalist, for “War Zone Diary.”
Engel is the author of three books, “A Fist in the Hornet’s Nest”, “War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq,” and “And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East.”
Engel lived in the Middle East after graduating from Stanford University in 1996 with a B.A. in international relations. He speaks and reads fluent Arabic, which he learned while living in Cairo. He has also traveled extensively in the Middle East and can comfortably transition between several Arabic dialects spoken across the Arab world. He is also fluent in Italian and Spanish.
Richard Engel Salary
Engel’s salary is estimated to be approximately $4 million per year.
Richard Engel Net Worth
Engel’s net worth is estimated to be around $10 million. This includes his earnings from his extensive career as a journalist and correspondent, primarily with NBC News.
