Rebecca Hersher
Rebecca Hersher (she/her) 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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Floods, wildfires and hurricanes can have long-term financial consequences for college-age people. As climate change makes disasters more common, more and more students are struggling. -
Climate change is making powerful hurricanes more common. That may require adding a new official designation for the more intense storms, a new study suggests. -
The invasion of Ukraine hampered collaboration with Russian climate scientists. That's bad news for our collective ability to understand, and prepare for, a hotter planet. -
2023 was significantly hotter than any year going back to at least the late 1800s. The coming decades will be even hotter if humans don't rapidly move away from burning fossil fuels, scientists warn. -
Global temperatures soared past previous records in 2023, according to new data from the European Union. Nations must slash fossil fuel emissions to avoid even higher temperatures, scientists warn. -
There are hundreds of U.S. neighborhoods where the population is declining due to flood risk, a new study suggests. Climate change drives flooding from heavy rain and sea level rise. -
The comments came shortly before talks kicked off in Dubai. In reality, scientists warn that further fossil fuel development is driving global warming. -
This year's United Nations climate summit is being held in the petroleum-dependent United Arab Emirates. Delegates began by approving a landmark fund to pay for climate losses. -
World leaders, climate experts and oil company executives converge on Dubai later this week to talk about climate change at the United Nations COP28 meeting. Here's what you need to know. -
Global emissions of greenhouse gases are rising, according to an annual accounting by the United Nations. It warns development of new oil, gas and coal is incompatible with meeting climate targets.
