Selena Simmons-Duffin
Selena Simmons-Duffin reports on health policy for NPR.
She has worked at NPR for ten years as a show editor and producer, with one stopover at WAMU in 2017 as part of a staff exchange. For four months, she reported local Washington, DC, health stories, including a secretive maternity ward closure and a gesundheit machine.
Before coming to All Things Considered in 2016, Simmons-Duffin spent six years on Morning Edition working shifts at all hours and directing the show. She also drove the full length of the U.S.-Mexico border in 2014 for the "Borderland" series.
She won a Gracie Award in 2015 for creating a video called "Talking While Female," and a 2014 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for producing a series on why you should love your microbes.
Simmons-Duffin attended Stanford University, where she majored in English. She took time off from college to do HIV/AIDS-related work in East Africa. She started out in radio at Stanford's radio station, KZSU, and went on to study documentary radio at the Salt Institute, before coming to NPR as an intern in 2009.
She lives in Washington, DC, with her spouse and kids.
-
COVID-19 Contact Tracing Workforce Barely 'Inching Up' As Cases SurgeThe number of people working to stop COVID-19 outbreaks from spreading is far from the level needed in most states, according to a new NPR survey and analysis. Find out how your state is doing. -
Health departments urged those who attended a Rose Garden event seemingly responsible for a coronavirus outbreak to get tested. Contact tracing for the event has been a challenge.
-
White House officials have in some instances violated public health guidelines for the coronavirus. NPR discusses what would have happened if guidelines were followed.
-
Michael Caputo, one of the top officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, has come under fire for controversial remarks he made during a Facebook Live appearance on Sunday.
-
"We've got to take a deep breath," says one health official about the rapid timeline pushed by the CDC. "It is very clear that we need to lean forward to prepare to deliver the vaccine." -
The Trump administration is trying to halt residential evictions through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but legal scholars are unsure it will stand up in court.
-
14 States Make Contact Tracing Data Public. Here's What They're LearningThe information includes details on where transmission is happening most. If more states shared this widely, it could shape policy and save lives, health researchers say.
-
NPR's White House and health correspondents discuss the reappearance of daily coronavirus task force briefings after a long hiatus.
-
The Trump administration is directing hospitals to use a new platform to report COVID-19 data instead of an existing system at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
-
More than 1,000 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have signed a letter to CDC Director Robert Redfield about a culture of racism at the agency.
