Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Today is the last day of Women's History Month. All throughout March, you've heard interviews in our series, Equalizers: Women Music Production. We've been talking to women who work as audio engineers and record producers, fields in which women are seriously underrepresented. We've talked to history makers, Grammy winners, big names like Wendy and Lisa and Patrice Rushen. To wrap up the series, we wanted you to learn a little about some of the women engineers here at WNYC.

They're always here making sure everything works and gets on the air and sounds great, but since they're behind the board, you never get to hear from them. We asked them to step up to the mic and talk a little about their experiences, what brought them into engineering, and what it's been like. For our final installment of Equalizers: Women in Music Production, here are the women engineers who make WNYC radio.

Juliana Fonda: My name is Juliana Fonda. I am a senior broadcast engineer for New York Public Radio. I am the broadcast engineer mostly for the two talk shows, which are The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It with Alison Stewart. I worked for WQXR Radio when we were owned by The New York Times. One of the few women engineers there. I worked in the podcasting business at The Times. I was the only woman there. I love being able to make something work.

I love being able to be like, "Oh, I know I have that music bed, and they're talking about it right in this second. Let's see if we can pull it in and fill it-- It's that click, that something. I wish there was a word for sound like umami. Just that perfect moment of audio that it just, "Wow, that worked." I can genuinely say I love coming to work every day.

Irene Trudel: Irene Trudel. I'm technical director for Soundcheck. I just love the immediacy of live music. Some of my most memorable early experiences with live music, I recorded Jeff Buckley and Gary Lucas, their first ever radio appearance. Jumping ahead to WNYC, I was part of the concert crew, so we'd go out and do live remotes a lot. Laurie Anderson, Margaret Leng Tan, she used to play on toy pianos, Chick Corea, Randy Newman, Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble.

When I was starting out, there were no women engineers that I knew of. I mean, I didn't have a lot of women role models. Early days working here, the band would come in and they'd say, "Well, tell the engineer that," and I'd say, "Hi, I'm the engineer." It took a while for them to recognize that women could do this too.

Jennifer Munson: My name is Jennifer Munson. I'm the technical director for On the Media. I'm taking a long conversation that's been edited down to the best parts and I'm fixing sometimes thousands of edits to make that sound like an actual conversation. I got my degree in vocal performance and audio technology, and the first time I walked into the studio, it was magical. Oh, I have just received the most incredible support from other women in the industry looking out for each other and promoting each other and mentoring each other.

Liora Noam-Kravitz: I'm Liora Noam-Kravitz, and I'm senior broadcast engineer and I work in the newsroom. I mix features and podcasts. I grew up in a place where there's a mandatory military service. At the end of basic training, you get, like, what's your job in the Army? I got engineer because that was the best, right? It was like army but not really army, because really, you were in a radio station with all the stars and whatever. It was fun. When I used to train new engineers here, I always preferred the women. I don't know, it's just I feel like women's brains are good. They can do a lot of things at the same time.

Amber D. Bruce: My name is Amber D. Bruce. I am broadcast engineer, mixing all the different elements of the show together so it goes on air smoothly. My whole life, we would listen to the radio. We listened to WNYC growing up. I would listen to Z100 every morning before getting ready for school. One thing I love about working here is that we tell so many stories about people in the community or things going on in the community. It just really highlights life.

As a woman, I feel like you have to hustle a little harder. You have to know a lot more. You always have to be learning new things. I feel like, as a woman, we are afraid of not knowing something, so it's been extra important to just always be on top of things, always be learning.

Shayna Sengstock: I am Shayna Sengstock, and I am a broadcast engineer here at New York Public Radio. I run the soundboard. I also work in maintenance engineering. I take apart things, I fix things, I make sure that things are pretty. I think engineering has always, again, "been a man's club" a little bit. It's one of those things where you want to be taken seriously and you want to be recognized for your work. Not because, like, "Oh, wow, you're a good female engineer." No, I'm just a good engineer. You don't need to put female and tack that onto my work and what I do. I'm just good at what I do.

[music]

Alison Stewart: Thanks to WNYC engineers Juliana, Shayna, Irene, Jen, Amber, and Liora for all their work. Also, thanks to Wayne Shulmister, who produced the audio. You can listen to all our Equalizer interviews by checking out our podcast feed or going to wnyc.org.