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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A firestorm has erupted over the ethics of using that image on Facebook to promote a photo contest — and the broader issue of how Western media depicts young women and girls in poor countries. -
An inexpensive drug could dramatically reduce the number of deaths of mothers from bleeding after childbirth in low- and middle-income countries around the world. -
The disease-spreading bugs are creeping north in the states. But will they bring diseases like Lyme and Zika with them? -
An outbreak in Brazil isn't slowing down as predicted. Dr. Anthony Fauci calls it "a potential threat" to the U.S.
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Farmers in a remote Ugandan tropical forest suffered from an excruciatingly painful foot ailment. Usually parasitic worms are the cause — but not this time. -
If you're traveling this spring, be sure you're vaccinated. 2017 is shaping up as a bad year for the measles, with thousands of cases in Italy and Romania. And vaccine coverage is stagnating.
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The Zika virus continues to impact a small number of pregnant women and their babies in the U.S., and there is no sign of it slowing down. "Zika is here to stay," the CDC's acting director says. -
Scientists expected a surge of severe birth defects in Brazil because of the Zika outbreak. But that didn't happen last year. Researchers are re-examining the link between Zika and birth defects.
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It's aimed at rotavirus, a nasty pathogen that can cause diarrhea and kills more than 500 children a day. The secret to the vaccine is the same thing that makes space ice cream so cool. -
Move over Japanese women. You've been dethroned as the population with the healthiest hearts. This group of people can fight off heart disease even into their 80s. What's their secret?
