Award winning journalist, broadcaster, writer, and author, Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host, and executive producer of YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali which airs as a radio program on KPFK, KPFA, and dozens of community radio stations around the U.S. and as a TV show on Free Speech TV, and a podcast on Spotify and iTunes.
She is the author of Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World is Possible (Seven Stories, 2025), and Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights, 2023). Her first book, co-authored with James Ingalls, is Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2006, Seven Stories).
Sonali is Senior Editor at YES! Magazine. She is also Senior Correspondent and Writing Fellow of the Independent Media Institute‘s Economy for All project and a monthly columnist at OtherWords, a project of Institute for Policy Studies. And she was formerly a weekly columnist at Truthdig. She is Senior Correspondent for The Zero Hour, appearing weekly with host Richard RJ Eskow for in-depth analysis of timely issues. Sonali is also the founding Co-Director of the Afghan Women’s Mission, a US-based non-profit solidarity organization that funds the work of RAWA. And she serves on the Board of Directors of the Justice Action Center.
Watch her 2014 TEDx talk, “My journey from astrophysicist to radio host.”
In addition to her journalistic and political work, Sonali is also a prolific artist and has won awards for her work and displayed her paintings at many exhibits. She hosts regular art shows in her local community of Pasadena and Altadena. She is also an avid crafter, dabbling in ceramics, crochet, knitting, lino-cut printing, wood burning, sewing, and embroidery. She is also an avid baker and chocolatier.
She is a singer/songwriter and has performs with her husband James Ingalls at local coffee houses and open-mics under the name “Love and Subversion.”
AWARDS:
2024 – Hedgebrook Writers-in-Residence Awardee.
2023 – Social Justice Advocate Award, South Asian Network.
2022 – Winner of Best National Political Commentary, Los Angeles Press Club Awards
2019 – Progressive Women’s Voices program awardee, Women’s Media Center.
2017 – Winner of Best Election Related Political Commentary, Los Angeles Press Club Awards
2015 – Winner of Best TV Anchor award, Los Angeles Press Club Awards
2015 – Historian of the Lions award, Center for the Study of Political Graphics
2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 – Finalist for Best Radio Anchor, Los Angeles Press Club Awards
2006, 2010 – South Asian Network Community Solidarity Awards
2010 – Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes Media Award
2004 – Phenomenal Woman Award, Cal State Northridge Women’s Studies Department
2004 – American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Media Award
BACKGROUND:
Sonali Kolhatkar was born and raised in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Indian parents. She has two sisters and is the granddaughter of the famed Indian independence leader and freedom fighter S. Y. Kolhatkar, who founded the Communist Party of India – Marxist.
In 1991, at the age of 16, Sonali left her family and moved to the United States for higher education. In 1996 she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Bachelor of Arts in Astronomy with Special Honors from the University of Texas at Austin. In 1996 she obtained a Master of Science in Astrophysics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
From 1998 to 2002 she worked as an Applications Developer at the California Institute of Technology. In March 2002, Sonali changed careers and left astronomy to host a morning show on KPFK, Pacifica Radio. Watch Sonali’s TEDx talk describing how she transitioned from a career in Astronomy to public radio. Sonali lives in Pasadena with her husband, parents, and two children.