Thomas Lu
Thomas Lu (he/him) is a producer for NPR's science podcast, Short Wave. The podcast is a perfect equation of curiosity, nerdiness and everyday discoveries.
Lu came to NPR in 2017 as an intern for theTED Radio Hourwith Guy Raz. After his internship, he continued to develop his radio skills working with How I Built This, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition and Pop Culture Happy Hour. He pitched and produced All Things Considered's annual Thanksgiving music segment with Ari Shapiro.
Lu was then hired as a producer for Hidden Brain — where he worked on episodes ranging from the benefits of nature to the importance of the human voice to our hidden influence on others. He contributed to the Hidden Brain episode "The Ventilator," which earned an Edward R. Murrow award in 2020.
Prior to NPR, Lu interned for StoryCorps in Brooklyn, New York.
Lu is a 2020 AIR New Voices Scholar. He graduated from Middlebury College in 2016 with a degree in psychology. Oh, and he's a huge fan of the Golden Girls.
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What's the point of money? The answer might seem obvious: we need it to get paid for our work, and to buy the things we need. But there's also a deeper way to look at the role of money in our lives. -
We live in a world of stories. They're in movies, books, and plays. They're even in the things that we buy. -
Finding a new job may be the solution to your woes at work. But there may also be other ways to get more out of your daily grind. This week on Hidden Brain, we explore ways to find meaning at work. -
We know our actions affect those around us. But how do we know whether our impact is positive? This week on Hidden Brain, what it means to do good in the world. -
Envy is one of the most unpleasant of all human emotions. This week, we explore an emotion that can inspire us to become better people — or to commit unspeakable acts.
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This week on the Hidden Brain radio show, we dig into the culture and psychology that determines the foods that make us salivate and the scents that make us squirm. -
This week on the Hidden Brain radio show, we explore how the constantly evolving nature of languages can give us different ways of understanding ourselves as well as the world we live in. -
Food fills many of our needs. Hunger is just one. Paul Rozin explains the profound role that food plays in our lives. -
There can be a lot of psychological noise involved in learning. And mental chit chat can make learning hard. One solution, silence it with a click. -
The eugenicists were utopians, convinced that they were doing hard but necessary things. And that included making decisions about who gets to have children.
