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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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. -
Three years after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a "public health emergency," scientists have learned several lessons about how pandemics begin and how to stop them.
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As COVID spreads rapidly through China, rumors circulate about the effectiveness and safety of the Chinese-manufactured vaccines. But what does the scientific data actually say about these shots?
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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. -
China is facing possibly the world's biggest coronavirus surge yet. At the high end of estimates, 800 million people in China could become infected. What does this mean for China and other countries?
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Protests in China have cast a spotlight on the country's "zero COVID" policy. But why is China still relying on restrictions when the rest of the world has mostly moved on?
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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. -
A new study suggests that. yes, there are superdodgers. But explaining why they've been able to avoid the virus is a bit complicated.
