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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Researchers say the U.S. monkeypox outbreak is much larger than the CDC is reporting. Symptomatic people are being denied testing, so it's unclear how many people are infected and spreading the virus.
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The monkeypox outbreak has grown to more than 800 cases in dozens of countries. Officials say cases are going undetected because the disease looks different than what's described in medical textbooks.
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Their prediction stemmed from the eradication of smallpox. Here's what they said more than three decades ago — and how it foreshadowed events of 2022. -
The cases point to possible sexual transmission of this cousin of smallpox — a previously unknown method of spread for monkeypox.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is having a surprising silver lining — it's breathing new life into the fight against HIV by accelerating the development of a new type of HIV vaccine.
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New versions of omicron are circulating in the United States and South Africa. Two new studies shed light on the potential for future surges — and the risk factor if you've already had omicron.
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My 6-year-old has been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 at least four times and never tested positive. Many people fall into that category. Researchers have theories about why they've been able to ward it off.
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A new coronavirus variant is a bit like Frankenstein, with the head of omicron and the body of delta. Scientists are eager to learn more about the origins of hybrid variants like "deltacron."
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Scientists have solid, physical evidence indicating the COVID pandemic began at a seafood market in Wuhan, China. Data suggest the virus jumped from an animal at the market into people at least twice.
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Scientists now know that the potency of the booster shot wanes quickly after about three months. We look at the latest research on a fourth shot.
