Michaeleen Doucleff
Michaeleen Doucleff, PhD, is a correspondent for NPR's Science Desk. For nearly a decade, she has been reporting for the radio and the web for NPR's global health outlet, Goats and Soda. Doucleff focuses on disease outbreaks, cross-cultural parenting, and women and children's health.
In 2014, Doucleff was part of the team that earned a George Foster Peabody award for its coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. For the series, Doucleff reported on how the epidemic ravaged maternal health and how the virus spreads through the air. In 2019, Doucleff and Senior Producer Jane Greenhalgh produced a story about how Inuit parents teach children to control their anger. That story was the most popular one on NPR.org for the year; altogether readers have spent more than 16 years worth of time reading it.
In 2021, Doucleff published a book, called Hunt, Gather, Parent, stemming from her reporting at NPR. That book became a New York Times bestseller.
Before coming to NPR in 2012, Doucleff was an editor at the journal Cell, where she wrote about the science behind pop culture. Doucleff has a bachelor degree in biology from Caltech, a doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of Berkeley, California, and a master's degree in viticulture and enology from the University of California, Davis.
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Parenting doesn't have to be so stressful. Just ask a Maya mom. -
An 21st century outbreak could be as nightmarish as the 1918 pandemic, which killed about 40 million. So the Gates Foundation wants to spur the development of a flu vaccine. Don't we already have one? -
Lost Art Of Bending Over: How Other Cultures Spare Their SpinesNo, we're not talking about squatting. We're talking about a way to bend over that has nearly disappeared in our culture. And it could be one reason why back pain is so common in the U.S. -
The budget would eliminate $120 million a year from an ambitious U.S. program that aims to set up an early-warning system for infectious diseases.
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In an era when many kids get a first smartphone at age 10, psychologists say the devices have turned us into Pavlov's dogs — drooling for the next notification, buzz or text. Ready to dial back? -
Mosquitoes find some people way more delicious than others. Now scientists have found a way to make you less attractive, no chemicals needed. -
There's a new fear from climate change: bacteria and viruses buried in frozen ground coming back to life as the Arctic warms up. We went digging in permafrost to find out how worried we should be.
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Just what exactly is permafrost? And what is happening now that it's warming up? To find out, we enter the Arctic Circle's secret world of ice and frozen history. -
In the test, kids get a treat. If they don't eat it for, say, 10 minutes, they're promised a second treat. In a new interview, Serena Williams tells how she thinks she'd fare. What do most kids do? -
This year, the world came tantalizingly close to wiping out two human diseases: Guinea worm and polio. But right at the finish line, both eradication projects have run into surprising roadblocks.
