She left Romania during the communist regime with her mother and grandmother, for Switzerland and then the United States, where she attended The Oak Grove School and, later, The Thacher School in Ojai, California. She graduated from Dartmouth College, and from Exeter College, Oxford, with a masters in linguistics. In 2000, she co-led the Royal Geographical Society's expedition to Tibet. She got her name "Rukmini" through her family's closeness to the Indian theosophist Rukmini Devi Arundale, founder of Kalakshetra Foundation in Chennai, India.
Career
She began as a freelancer in New Delhi, India including for Time magazine, then joined the Associated Press in Portland, Oregon, in 2003. After a year in New Orleans documenting the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she began reporting out of Dakar, Senegal, as a West African correspondent for The AP in late 2006. In 2014, she was hired by The New York Times. Her reporting focuses on Islamic extremism.
Callimachi began her writing career by writing poetry and was published in The American Scholar, Oxford Poetry, and Black Warrior Review, but realized it was "a totally dead-end street as a career." She has said, in an interview with Slate in 2016, that she shifted her focus from poetry to journalism and prose writing.
Awards
2016 Aurora Prize for Integrity in Journalism.
2014 Michael Kelly Award and finalist in 2009 and 2012
2011 Eugene S. Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award from Ball State University for her article, "Haiti-Hotel Montana".
2009 Pulitzer Prize Finalist "for her in-depth investigation of the exploitation of impoverished children in West and Central Africa"
2007 Sidney Hillman Foundation Award, “Coverage of Hurricane Katrina aftermath,” The Associated Press
2004 John M. Templeton Religion Story of the Year award, The Daily Herald (Ill.), "Passage from India"
1998 Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry
Works
"Gabon casts first votes after dictator's death". Associated Press. 30 August 2009.
Callimachi, Rukmini (9 August 2009). "Opium addictions grip families in Afghanistan’s remote villages". The Boston Globe.
"Afghan women candidates campaign in burqas". The Taiwan News. 30 July 2009.
"Ruler with 45 homes among world's most corrupt". The Taiwan News. 22 June 2009.
"'Gabon weeps' for strongman despite lost riches". FreeLibrary. 20 June 2009.
"Somali pirates held after attack off the Seychelles". The Scotsman. 29 April 2009.
When the lights go out, students take off to airport. The Guardian. London. 21 July 2007. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
Callimachi, Rukmini (15 May 2005). "Mt. St. Helens' Victims Remembered". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
Callimachi, Rukmini (26 November 2004). "Adidas Feeling Pressure From Nike on Home Turf". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
Callimachi, Rukmini (23 August 2004). "Banks Look to Cash In by Providing Personal Touches". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
Callimachi, Rukmini (18 August 2004). "All the Comforts of Home". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
Callimachi, Rukmini (10 May 2004). "Bioengineered Grass Is Cause for Growing Concern". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
Tim McGirk (29 January 2001). "Tremor Mortis". Time.
Callimachi, Rukmini (27 June 2015). "ISIS and the Lonely Young American". The New York Times.
