Audrey Woods, MIT CSAIL Alliances | June 29, 2026
Karen Given has always been curious about people. While working on NPR's Only A Game, it was never about the sports for her but the players, understanding what makes them tick, what makes someone smart and innovative, how they take on challenges, and—perhaps most importantly—how they fail. "I've discovered I'm much more interested in the why of things," she says, going all the way back to a childhood fascination with "picking the world apart and then sharing it with others."
This motivation to "make big concepts available and accessible" through the lens of shared humanity has led her to work on stories about the people behind the headlines: celebrities, physicians, foreign affairs experts, and now technology, computer science, and AI researchers.
She's bringing her insatiable curiosity to CSAIL as the new host of Building 32, a podcast from CSAIL Alliances.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD STORY?
After getting her start in radio as well as years of experience with live Moth-style storytelling, Given is keenly aware of the power of stories. "There is a study that shows when you are listening to someone tell a story, the waves in your brain do something that mimics the storyteller's brainwaves.” Not only can storytelling potentially rewire our brains, it also has the potential to change our minds.“I think it's the most powerful way to get people to pay attention to things that they might think they don't care about. And that is a really, really important thing in the world right now."
Given now sees stories everywhere. “I love thinking about what makes stories work, what makes things appeal to us, what makes us feel, what makes us not feel.” She jokes that she can’t watch TV anymore without looking for techniques or lessons she can bring to her own podcasting. To her, the most compelling stories reveal the messy and honest parts of a person’s journey, not the polished version of their life. "What's really interesting are the moments where you don't succeed and you keep going." For this reason she enjoys talking to people about their failures, which she says "are more interesting, more instructive than successes, and they're more relatable." That relatability is the connective magic of storytelling and podcasting. "When you're doing it right, it really is a coming together of two people. It's more of an exchange."
"The promise that I might be able to make someone else feel what I feel, excited about something that excites me, inspired by something that inspires me, angry at what angers me… All of those things, I find really powerful."
FINDING THE WHY: HER APPROACH TO PODCASTING
Given acknowledges that reaching the concrete specifics of an individual's story can sometimes be easier said than done, which is why she has an arsenal of strategies to create a conversational space where people feel comfortable enough to share their mistakes, learning lessons, and the ways in which they've grown.
"People tell their story best the first time they tell it to you," so Given prefers to walk in fresh—no pre-interviews. She wants surprise, laughter, and the sincerity that only comes from a first impression. "Podcasting is such an intimate medium. Most people listen to what I do in earbuds. I'm inside their ear. They can tell when it's fake or overly planned."
Her favorite question is one she borrows from Ira Glass: What did you make of that? "It's such a fantastic question, because if you say 'how did that make you feel?' that feels really intrusive and weird. But 'what did you make of that?' is this wide-open question where people can go an emotional route, they can explain, they can get really logical." One of her former NPR colleagues even tried it on his girlfriend over a weekend and reported back that they'd had "the best conversation they'd ever had." When she wants a subject to share something deeper, she might also tell them how she would feel in the same situation and then let them agree, disagree, or "fight me." All this makes her subjects "partners in telling their own stories," bringing out the best—and most interesting—in the people she talks to.
WELCOME TO CSAIL!
Karen's first episode will be with Senior Research Scientist David Clark, credited as an original architect of the internet, which she thinks is an appropriate place to start. "To think about where things were when he was a student versus where things are now is just mind-boggling. And how he helped to bring us here—it's just wild. I can't wait to get into all of that."
Going forward, Given plans to balance a combination of looking back at the accomplishments of the CSAIL community and highlighting the future-focused thinking happening in the lab. "CSAIL has been there for it all. I don't think we can fully understand where we're going unless we really understand how we got here."
Looking through the list of researchers and potential subjects, she says, "There's just so much to choose from! The question is where to begin."
We look forward to hearing what she finds!
A FEW THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT KAREN GIVEN
- Her favorite podcast is Heavyweight, which makes her cry happy tears.
- She loves travel almost as much as she loves storytelling and says her favorite destination is "probably the place I haven't been to yet."
- She has fun facts about everything, a side effect of constantly diving into new topics.
- She's currently deep in a podcast about the United Nations.
