Suki Dardarian is a 1980 graduate of the UW, where she double majored in journalism and political science and served as editor of the UW Daily. And last year, Suki was inducted into the Department of Communication Hall of Fame.
Suki has spent her entire career in the news business, first as a reporter who covered everything from the eruption of Mount St. Helens to high-profile court cases to visits of the Queen, the Pope and the Rolling Stones for the Everett Herald and Seattle Times. In her first year as an editor at the News Tribune in Tacoma, she lead a project that was the first and only Pulitzer finalist for the News Tribune.
Suki spent a majority of her career as a senior editor overseeing news coverage at the Seattle Times, where projects she helped overs earned Pulitzer Prizes in investigative reporting and breaking news.
Suki left the Northwest a decade ago, to become managing editor at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, one of the nation’s largest metro news operations. For two years she has served as editor in chief and is helping to lead the organization’s transformation. Under her leadership, the paper earned a Pulitzer Prize in breaking news, among other honors, for its coverage of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police.
Suki has been an advocate for open records and courts and government transparency. She served as president of the Associated Press Managing Editors, where she led efforts in diversity and ethics. Today, she serves on the advisory board of the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at the Penn State College of Communication.
Suki is married to Peter Callaghan, whom she met here at the UW and who has served as a political reporter and columnist at the News Tribune in Minnesota, where he works for MinnPost, the first online news publication in the country.
Suki and Peter have twin daughters, a journalist in Boulder and a physical therapist here in Seattle. They live in downtown Minneapolis, beside the Mississippi River.