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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More frequent and severe wildfires and hurricanes have caused billions of dollars of damage in the U.S. Climate experts warn the costs to the economy and to individual families are only rising.
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NewsDavid Legates, a professor whose research has been supported by fossil fuel companies, has been hired for a top position at the federal agency that oversees weather and climate forecasting. -
Hurricane Laura hit an area with dozens of major refineries and chemical plants, which emitted millions of pounds of extra air pollution.
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Hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves and disease outbreaks are all a preview of our hotter future. Dramatically cutting greenhouse gas emissions would help.
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NewsHurricane Laura rapidly intensified before it made landfall. Abnormally hot water in the Gulf of Mexico helped it gain power.
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Millions of home listings on Realtor.com now include information about climate change-driven flood risk. Other real estate sites are holding off.
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Focus more on water, less on wind and beware the cone of uncertainty. Here's a simple guide for understanding hurricane risks.
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A new study suggests there is far more plastic in the Atlantic Ocean than scientists previously thought, especially very small pieces of plastic that can end up inside fish and other animals.
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Scientists from around the world are writing the next major United Nations climate report. Summarizing the state of the atmosphere without meeting in person is as hard as it sounds.
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A new study finds that the U.S. places with the most polluted air in the 1980s remain the most polluted today. Poor people and people of color are more likely to live in places with dirty air.
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The pandemic has hindered climate data collection from ships and buoys in the oceans. The U.N. warns it could negatively affect climate models' accuracy unless scientists find new ways to gather data.
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Family violence increases in places that have been severely burned in bushfires, Australian research finds. The isolation and financial stress of COVID-19 appear to be exacerbating the problem.
