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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In the hit HBO show, the world has been devastated by a pandemic caused by a deadly fungus. Is that even possible? Could the next pandemic come from fungi? Turns out it's a very real question. -
As we launch a series about spillover viruses — like SARS-CoV-2, which triggered a global pandemic, you may have a lot of questions. So do we — 7, to be exact, in the quiz below. See how you do. -
As case counts surge in China, rumors circulate about the effectiveness and safety of the made-in-China vaccines in use there. Here's what we know about CoronaVac and Sinopharm. -
After decades of wondering, an NPR reporter finally figures out how her husband's family dog knew when the school bus would arrive every day. She did some digging — and now it all makes scents. -
Scientists predict China will see the largest COVID surge of the pandemic this winter, with hundreds of millions of people infected. But some experts say that it could have been even worse. -
For nearly three years, China has enforced incredibly strict rules to keep coronavirus transmission in check. But now they're facing a potentially deadly omicron surge. -
Nearly half of Europeans died from the plague. Now a new study shows a protective gene mutation that survivors passed on to help with future outbreaks might cause other problems. -
Early fears of an escalating outbreak have not come to pass. Scientists are finding that the virus needs a very particular set of circumstances to spread effectively. -
We crunch the current numbers for high-risk and low-risk groups. We also look at how the risk of monkeypox compares with chances of catching COVID, of being in a fatal car crash and of a shark attack.
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A new study suggests that. yes, there are superdodgers. But explaining why they've been able to avoid the virus is a bit complicated.
