Pien Huang
Pien Huang is a health reporter on the Science desk. She was NPR's first Reflect America Fellow, working with shows, desks and podcasts to bring more diverse voices to air and online.
She's a former producer for WBUR/NPR's On Point and was a 2018 Environmental Reporting Fellow with The GroundTruth Project at WCAI in Cape Cod, covering the human impact on climate change. As a freelance audio and digital reporter, Huang's stories on the environment, arts and culture have been featured on NPR, the BBC and PRI's The World.
Huang's experiences span categories and continents. She was executive producer of Data Made to Matter, a podcast from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and was also an adjunct instructor in podcasting and audio journalism at Northeastern University. She worked as a project manager for public artist Ralph Helmick to help plan and execute The Founder's Memorial in Abu Dhabi and with Stoltze Design to tell visual stories through graphic design. Huang has traveled with scientists looking for signs of environmental change in Cameroon's frogs, in Panama's plants and in the ocean water off the ice edge of Antarctica. She has a degree in environmental science and public policy from Harvard.
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An avian flu outbreak in dairy herds has stoked tensions between the federal government and raw milk advocates. Milk testing could provide assurances and useful data, but some farmers oppose it. -
Thousands of years ago, there was a ceremony to bind close friends together as sworn siblings. Could the practice be resurrected today to strengthen modern friendships? Two women did just that. -
PFAS chemicals have been used for decades to waterproof and stain-proof consumer products and are linked to health problems. -
The Windy City has the most lead pipes of any U.S. city. A study estimates that more than two-thirds of children there are exposed to lead in their home tap water. -
Jon Kabat-Zinn, who brought mindfulness meditation into mainstream medical settings, discusses how the centering practice can help with some of today's widespread social problems. -
The agency is replacing its COVID-specific guidance with general guidance for respiratory viruses that says people should stay home when they are sick. -
The state has at least 10 cases of the illness to date but the state's surgeon general has not called for vaccinations or quarantining of exposed kids. This goes against science-based measures. -
The current guidance advises five days of isolation. Unnamed health officials have indicated that this guidance may soon go away, a move that troubles public health experts. -
Flu is rising, and COVID levels are higher than last season's peak. But COVID hospitalizations and deaths are down. Nonetheless, COVID is still the most dangerous virus circulating. -
Experts warn that new tropical viruses are headed for the U.S. – and the country should take active measures to fend them off.
