Jessica Aguirre is the 5, 6 and 11 p.m. evening anchor at NBC Bay Area News and an Emmy award winning journalist. Jessica has been a primetime, evening anchor, in the Bay Area for over 20 years.
In addition to anchoring the evening news, Jessica is the co-host of NBC Bay Area’s Race in America: The Conversation alongside Marcus Washington. The show explores racial equity and social injustice and attempts to bridge the divide between backgrounds and generations.
Jessica began her career at the Spanish Language network, Univision, while attending the University of Miami. Before arriving in the Bay Area in 1998 she anchored and reported in Los Angeles and Miami, earning Emmy awards for her series on the struggles of migrant children and for her investigative work on child molesters as well as an Associated Press award for her series chronicling the struggle of boat people fleeing Cuba. During her tenure at NBC Bay Area Jessica won an Emmy for her poignant series, on the emotional journey of an East Bay transgender teen and her efforts to preserve her fertility before undergoing sex reassignment surgery, another Emmy for her live coverage of the "Ghostship" warehouse fire in Oakland and for field anchoring from the deadly Sonoma and Napa county firestorms.
Most recently Jessica was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Silver Circle for twenty-five years of excellence in television journalism.
As the daughter of immigrant parents, Jessica is fluent in Spanish, and deeply involved in organizations that promote literacy and help stem the Latino achievement gap including The Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley. Jessica can also be found at many community events in the East Bay where she lends her voice to a variety of local causes. Her passion for news and global events has taken Jessica from Cuba to England and many places in between. She’s covered natural disasters like Hurricane Andrew, and man-made catastrophes like the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as race riots in Miami and the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 from ground zero. Jessica traveled to Brazil for the summer Olympic Games where she field anchored in English for NBC Bay Area and in Spanish for sister station Telemundo 48 , interviewing Bay Area athletes and highlighting the security and political issues, facing the people of Rio and Olympic tourists.
Here at home, Jessica has focused on covering laws and events that impact children, from investigative stories that uncover the loopholes set up by Jessica’s law to the deteriorating state of education in the public school system. Her Emmy nominated education show "Class Action" took a deep look at the issues facing California educators and public schools. Her investigative reporting into the aftermath of the Napa earthquake and the impact on local schools led to school safety legislation being introduced by Assemblyman Bill Dodd.
Jessica resides in the East Bay, with her two daughters. Her devotion to learning, supporting children and local charities has her routinely on the lecture circuit in the Bay Area discussing education, gender equity and minority advancement in the workplace. Jessica also serves on the board of Watermark, the Bay Area's largest membership organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in leadership positions.
Follow her on Twitter @JessAguirreNBC
The Latest
-
California is one step closer to becoming the first state ever to ban caste discrimination
On Monday, the state assembly overwhelmingly passed legislation that would add “caste” as a protected category under the state’s anti-discrimination laws. This has been a long fight for many, including one woman who left her high-profile job at Google because of concerns over caste discrimination.
-
Simone Biles, Suni Lee compete at US Gymnastics Championships in San Jose
The best gymnasts in the country will be twisting through the air, vying to make it onto the United States national team and among them is the most decorated American gymnast of all time — Simone Biles. She’s in San Jose’s SAP Center competing alongside reigning Olympic all-around champ Suni Lee.
-
Women's rugby gains popularity in the Bay Area
The Golden State Retrievers, based in San Jose, became the newest franchise in the Premiere Rugby Sevens league in 2023.
-
Napa Valley hosts V Foundation celebration to raise money to achieve ‘victory over cancer'
Starting Thursday the V Foundation will mark its 25th anniversary of wine celebration in Napa County. It will be four days of food, fun and some of the best wine in the valley. But the real mission is funding medical breakthroughs and harvesting the money needed to achieve “victory over cancer.”
-
Bay Area Civil Rights Activists Seek to Change California's Anti-Discrimination Laws
On Wednesday, Bay Area civil rights activists introduces what they hope will be a landmark change to California’s current anti-discrimination laws, which bar bias based on race, color, religion, gender and sexual orientation.
-
Hospital Mistakes: Simple Device Could Have Saved Life of Young Kidney Donor
A BROTHER’S GIFT When Anders Pederson learned his sister, Kelly, was in kidney failure and would need a transplant, he volunteered to donate to her immediately. Anders was 28 years old and healthy. Kelly had always been his best friend and mentor. “You know people have their partners that are their twin flames. Anders was my twin flame,” said Kelly….
-
Dozens of Mistakes Caused Death of Young Hospital Patient, Court Rules
Documents obtained by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit show medical staff at UCSF nearly quadrupled a young patient’s opioid medication and then failed to monitor him with a pulse oximeter, a simple medical device that would have alerted them if his blood oxygen level fell to a dangerously low level.
-
Simple Device Could Have Saved Life of Young Kidney Donor
After a healthy young man died at UCSF hospital, an NBC Bay Area Investigation uncovered the events that caused his heart to stop just one day after surgery. Photographic evidence shows Anders Pederson wasn’t being monitored with a pulse oximeter, even after a nurse practitioner changed his medication from Fentanyl to another powerful opioid: Dilaudid. While Fentanyl is more powerful...
-
‘It Ended up Pretty Much Being Hell on Earth:' Tenants Fight SF Landlord in Court
Jennifer Sarkany and her partner Ramsey Abouremeleh say they moved into the Outer Sunset home they rented in 2018 expecting the best. They were looking for a safe neighborhood close to Sarkany’s school. Instead, they say the next eight months were a waking nightmare, eventually leading to an acrimonious legal battle against their landlord Christie West. “It ended up pretty…
-
Organization Targets Discrimination in Tech Industry
A leader from the organization Time’s Up visited the Bay Area Wednesday to talk about discrimination and sexual harassment in the tech industry, and was honored by Watermark, the Bay Area’s largest organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in leadership positions.
