Rebecca Hersher
Rebecca Hersher (she/her) is a reporter on NPR's Science Desk, where she reports on outbreaks, natural disasters, and environmental and health research. Since coming to NPR in 2011, she has covered the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, embedded with the Afghan army after the American combat mission ended, and reported on floods and hurricanes in the U.S. She's also reported on research about puppies. Before her work on the Science Desk, she was a producer for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered in Los Angeles.
Hersher was part of the NPR team that won a Peabody award for coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and produced a story from Liberia that won an Edward R. Murrow award for use of sound. She was a finalist for the 2017 Daniel Schorr prize; a 2017 Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting fellow, reporting on sanitation in Haiti; and a 2015 NPR Above the Fray fellow, investigating the causes of the suicide epidemic in Greenland.
Prior to working at NPR, Hersher reported on biomedical research and pharmaceutical news for Nature Medicine.
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West Antarctica is headed for decades of rapid melting no matter how quickly humans cut greenhouse gas emissions, and 2023 shattered records for missing sea ice around the continent. -
The majority of Americans think climate change will kill and displace a large number of people in the U.S. in the next 30 years, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. -
Climate change makes deadly floods, like what happened in Libya, more likely. Floods in China, Greece and Brazil in recent weeks underscore the growing danger. -
Four states are strengthening rules that require home sellers and landlords to disclose information about whether a home has flooded in the past, or is likely to flood in the future. -
The Atlantic hurricane season is now projected to have "above-normal level of activity" according to an updated forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. -
It's the middle of the winter in Antarctica, when the ocean around the continent freezes. But this year there's less sea ice than ever recorded. -
It's increasingly expensive and difficult to get home insurance, as losses rise from climate-driven disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes. And the solutions aren't always politically popular. -
El Niño is warming up the water in the Pacific Ocean. That extra heat affects the whole planet, and has helped drive record-breaking hot weather. -
Some of the hottest global weather in recorded history is happening this week. It's likely that records will continue to fall this year. -
A new satellite will take continuous measurements of dangerous air pollution in the U.S. That has scientists, and residents, warily optimistic about undoing decades of environmental injustice.
