Rebecca Hersher
Rebecca Hersher is a reporter on NPR's Science Desk, where she reports on outbreaks, natural disasters, and environmental and health research. Since coming to NPR in 2011, she has covered the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, embedded with the Afghan army after the American combat mission ended, and reported on floods and hurricanes in the U.S. She's also reported on research about puppies. Before her work on the Science Desk, she was a producer for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered in Los Angeles.
Hersher was part of the NPR team that won a Peabody award for coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and produced a story from Liberia that won an Edward R. Murrow award for use of sound. She was a finalist for the 2017 Daniel Schorr prize; a 2017 Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting fellow, reporting on sanitation in Haiti; and a 2015 NPR Above the Fray fellow, investigating the causes of the suicide epidemic in Greenland.
Prior to working at NPR, Hersher reported on biomedical research and pharmaceutical news for Nature Medicine.
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The shipping industry is starting to move away from pollutant-intensive heavy fuel oil. Scientists and private companies are betting on a clean replacement technology: hydrogen fuel cells. -
When Hurricane Barry came ashore over the weekend, it did not do as much damage as feared, But it tested a number of systems and hurricane protection entities put in place after previous storms.
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The water in the Gulf of Mexico is hot and the Mississippi River is high. That could spell disaster for Louisiana. -
Neighborhoods around a Louisiana chemical plant have the highest cancer risk in the U.S. Residents felt powerless, until the Environmental Protection Agency released data on what they were breathing. -
As sea levels rise, coastal flooding that used to happen only during storms is increasingly occurring on sunny days. That has local officials reconsidering everything from zoning to police budgets. -
When people who own dogs are stressed, their dogs also get stressed, a new study suggests. It's another indication of how emotionally synchronized dogs and their humans can be. -
The Arkansas River is rising well above its previous record, and it's forecast to stay that way for days. That's putting pressure on old levees and making it hard for some residents to evacuate. -
NOAA forecasts that two to four major hurricanes will form this year in the Atlantic. But even an average year can cause record-breaking damage, as storms get bigger and wetter. -
The term "100-year flood" can be confusing and misleading, scientists, local emergency officials and homeowners all agree. Experts say there's a better way to communicate about flood risk. -
PFAS are a family of chemicals accumulating in the soil, rivers, drinking water and the human body. How much exposure to these substances in clothes, firefighting foam and food wrap is too much?
