Ray Suarez will be the Master of Ceremonies for the 16th Annual Accent on Architecture Gala

Ray Suarez is one of the nations’ leading Hispanic voices in the media. In his speeches he touches on urbanization, connectivity, population and social dynamics, economy and culture, politics and technology, and global environmental threats. He then describes how these “drivers” will shape our cultural landscape, as well as our practices and education.

Ray Suarez joined The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in October 1999 as a Washington-based senior correspondent responsible for conducting newsmaker interviews, studio discussions, and debates, reporting from the field and serving as a backup anchor.

Suarez has 20 years of varied experience in the news business. Suarez went to The NewsHour from National Public Radio where he had been host of the nationwide, call-in news program, Talk of the Nation, since 1993. Prior to that, he spent seven years covering local, national, and international stories for the NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV in Chicago.

Suarez was also a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, a producer for the ABC Radio Network in New York, a reporter for CBS Radio in Rome, and a reporter for various American and British news services in London.

Suarez penned the recent book, The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration: 1966-1999, and contributed to another, Las Christmas: Favorite Latino Authors Share Their Holiday Memories. His essays and criticisms have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Baltimore Sun, among other publications.

Suarez shared in NPR's 1993-94 and 1994-95 DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton Awards for on-site coverage of the first all-race elections in South Africa and the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, respectively. He has been honored with the 1996 Ruben Salazar Award, Current History Magazine's 1995 Global Awareness Award, and a Chicago Emmy Award.

Suarez holds a BA in African history from New York University and an MA in the social sciences from the University of Chicago, where he studied urban affairs.

A longtime member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Suarez is a founding member of the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he now lives in Washington with his wife and two children.

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is broadcast nationally on more than 300 PBS stations and by satellite throughout much of the world. It has won more than 80 awards for outstanding reporting, including many of journalism's highest honors.