Alix Spiegel
Alix Spiegel has worked on NPR's Science Desk for 10 years covering psychology and human behavior, and has reported on everything from what it's like to kill another person, to the psychology behind our use of function words like "and", "I", and "so." She began her career in 1995 as one of the founding producers of the public radio program This American Life.While there, Spiegel produced her first psychology story, which ultimately led to her focus on human behavior. It was a piece called 81 Words, and it examined the history behind the removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
In January 2015, Spiegel joined forces with journalist Lulu Miller to co-host Invisibilia, a series from NPR about the unseen forces that control human behavior — our ideas, beliefs, assumptions, and thoughts. Invisibilia interweaves personal stories with fascinating psychological and brain science, in a way that ultimately makes you see your own life differently. Excerpts of the show are featured on the NPR News programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. The program is also available as a podcast.
Over the course of her career in public radio, Spiegel has won many awards including a George Foster Peabody Award, a Livingston Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, a Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.
Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Spiegel graduated from Oberlin College. Her work on human behavior has also appeared in The New Yorker magazine and The New York Times.
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Years before he got diagnosed with Parkinson's, Joy Milne noticed her husband's characteristic scent had changed. The discovery that she could smell his illness has opened up a new field of research. -
NPR's Invisibilia podcast brings you a story about a new Facebook effort to build a modern kind of Rosetta Stone, using artificial intelligence.
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A decade of high-profile unethical behavior has led researchers to a disturbing conclusion: The vast majority of us are not only capable of such behavior but do it all the time wihtout realizing it. -
Deep brain stimulation offers relief from some neurological problems and is being tested for mood disorders. But the treatment — an implant in the brain — raises ethical questions. -
Thousands of teens suffer from a rare chronic pain condition that makes everyday life excruciating. Some are trying a counterintuitive treatment approach: Load up on pain until you learn to ignore it. -
When Somalia decided to start a reality show with a singing competition, there was a major problem. Singing in public could bring on the wrath of al-Shabab.
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Reality TV is popular around the world. It's also roundly mocked as formulaic and contrived. But can that kind of fragile fantasy meaningfully influence the real world? -
Invisibilia co-host Alix Spiegel introduces us to a young man whose sights were set far beyond the Syrian orphanage in which he spent part of his childhood.
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Suddenly aware of repetitive feedback loops in his life, Max Hawkins created apps that decided where he should go, what strangers' parties he should attend, even how he should spend Christmas. -
When anthropologist Renato Rosaldo went to live with a Philippine tribe that was known for beheading people, he couldn't grasp the emotion that fueled this violence. Then his wife suddenly died.
