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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Chair design shifted dramatically about a hundred years ago, and it hasn't been good for our backs. Our daily lives are filled with chairs that make our posture worse. Luckily, we've got hacks. -
Inspired by Maya families where kids happily pitch in, correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff tries to get her 2-year-old daughter to become a household helper. -
In the past century, many Americans have lost the ability to sit in a way that doesn't strain their backs. Specialists say we could take a lesson from excellent sitters from other cultures.
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Global health activists say it's a big step toward wiping out malaria. But it will be tough to implement in poor countries. -
A new formulation of an old drug could save tens of thousands of women each year, the World Health Organization says, by preventing them from bleeding to death after labor. -
Maya kids do better on tests measuring attention, researchers say it's because these kids have something that many American kids have lost. -
In villages in Mexico, parents have accomplished what every mom and dad dreams of: Figured out a way to get to their kids to be helpful around the house. What's their secret? -
Many doctors in the U.S. say the practice puts an infant at risk of sleep-related death. A close look at the research reveals a different picture. -
Parenting doesn't have to be so stressful. Just ask a Maya mom. -
An 21st century outbreak could be as nightmarish as the 1918 pandemic, which killed about 40 million. So the Gates Foundation wants to spur the development of a flu vaccine. Don't we already have one?
