David Kestenbaum
David Kestenbaum is a correspondent for NPR, covering science, energy issues and, most recently, the global economy for NPR's multimedia project Planet Money. David has been a science correspondent for NPR since 1999. He came to journalism the usual way — by getting a Ph.D. in physics first.
In his years at NPR, David has covered science's discoveries and its darker side, including the Northeast blackout, the anthrax attacks and the collapse of the New Orleans levees. He has also reported on energy issues, particularly nuclear and climate change.
David has won awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
David worked briefly on the show This American Life, and set up a radio journalism program in Cambodia on a Fulbright fellowship. He also teaches a journalism class at Johns Hopkins University.
David holds a bachelor's of science degree in physics from Yale University and a doctorate in physics from Harvard University.
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For decades, the world's two biggest handbell companies — headquartered down the street from each other in Pennsylvania — were at each other's throats. -
Clothes donated to charity in the U.S. often wind up for sale in African markets. Here's the story of one shirt that started out at a bat mitzvah in Michigan and wound up in a market in Nairobi.
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The U.S. exports a billion pounds of used clothes every year. Much of that winds up in used clothing markets in sub-Saharan Africa. -
"This little baby — what my wife used to call my 'pretend money project' — is really going mainstream," says the chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation. -
Two Nobel laureates disagree on a basic economic question: Is it possible to reliably spot bubbles before they burst? -
Kenyans who received money with no strings attached started businesses and bought food for their kids, according to a new study. They didn't spend it on alcohol or cigarettes. -
I bought a Treasury bill on Tuesday, before Congress made the debt-ceiling deal. It was unclear whether I would get paid back on time. -
Whatever happens to a the global economy, one thing is clear: If the U.S. defaults, people all over the world who have loaned the government money won't get paid on time. -
With online health-insurance markets set to open this week, it's still unclear whether healthy people will sign up. Yet the success of the program depends on them.
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Oil sits under a pristine swath of the rainforest. Ecuador promised to leave the forest untouched — if the rest of the world would pay up.
