Michaeleen Doucleff
Michaeleen Doucleff is a reporter for NPR's Science Desk. She reports for the radio and the Web for NPR's global health and development blog, Goats and Soda. Doucleff focuses on disease outbreaks, drug development, and trends in global 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 2015, Doucleff and Senior Producer Jane Greenhalgh reported on the extreme prejudices faced by young women in Nepal when they're menstruating. Their story was the second most popular one on the NPR website in 2015 and contributed to the NPR series on 15-year-old girls around the world, which won two Gracie Awards.
As a science journalist, Doucleff has reported on a broad range of topics, from vaccination fears and the microbiome to beer biophysics and dog psychology.
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 doctorate in 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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The culprit is air pollution — a problem around the globe, from homes where people cook using coal and wood to the smoky streets of San Francisco when wildfires were raging. -
On an eight-hour Emirates flight, with mask-wearing enforced, a whopping 27 coronavirus-positive people boarded the plane in Dubai. Guess how many passengers got infected?
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How risky is it to travel on the plane during the pandemic? Scientists are beginning to answer that question, and are trying to figure out what passengers can do to lower their exposure risk.
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There's evidence that certain vaccines boost the body's defense against many kinds of illness. Scientists are investigating whether this benefit extends to protection from COVID-19.
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As scientists race to develop a vaccine specific for COVID-19, some researchers are testing an old vaccine, that's been proven safe and is cheap to manufacture, to see if it could slow the pandemic.
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Some parents swear by it. They say it's the only way they and their babies get any sleep. Others parents say it's harmful. So what does the science say? Here we separate fiction from fact.
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Last fall, Merck said it would stop selling its rotavirus vaccine to West Africa and redirect its supply to China at a higher price. After NPR broke the story, the situation changed — for the good.
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It took more than 30 years to develop. The hope is it will eventually save tens of thousands of lives each year. But there are a few issues.
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This year, the U.S. has confirmed 550 measles cases so far. A recent spike is connected to outbreaks in New York, but there are outbreaks in four other states too.
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Many people consider measles to be a quaint disease from the past. But it still kills over 100,000 children a year and can cause severe complications such as permanent hearing loss.
