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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So sweat doesn't really smell bad at all. But when bacteria eat the sweat — nostrils, look out! Only it turns out that these sweat-eating critters are responsible for a big health benefit. -
The U.S. is facing a shortage of the monkeypox vaccine as the outbreak grows rapidly. The White House is pursuing a controversial strategy where each person only gets a fraction of the full dose.
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It's basically the same vaccine used against smallpox. Here's how it works — and whether researchers think it's playing a role in the fact that the current outbreak is starting to slow down. -
Back in 2017, a doctor in Nigeria noticed how fast a local outbreak of monkeypox was spreading. He tried unsuccessfully to warn the world that Nigeria's outbreak could spread globally.
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Is it a sexually transmitted disease? Can you get it on a crowded bus? Trying on clothes? We talk to specialists about how this virus is transmitted and what kinds of precautions are warranted. -
There's increasing concern that the window of opportunity to contain the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. has closed. Some experts say it's already too late.
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Dr. Dimie Ogoina detected monkeypox in an 11-year-old patient in 2017 and saw many other cases since. He's tried to warn health officials that the virus has changed the way it spreads — to no avail. -
The testing system set up by the CDC actually deters doctors from ordering a monkeypox test, and many physicians aren't familiar with the disease, resulting in too few tests and little tracking. -
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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Scientists in Britain have detected multiple versions of the virus in wastewater. Officials say the risk to the public is extremely low and urge people to ensure their polio vaccines are up to date.
