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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Forecasters say most of the U.S. is set to have a hotter summer, and 2024 will be one of the five hottest years ever recorded. Meanwhile, hot water in the Atlantic means more fuel for hurricanes.
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The number of heat-related deaths in Europe increased 30% in the last 20 years. Climate change is to blame. -
Nearly a third of China's urban population lives in areas that are subsiding, according to a sweeping national survey of 82 major Chinese cities. In coastal areas, that makes sea level rise worse. -
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. -
California is in the grips of an atmospheric river that's causing flooding all over the state. Climate change might be intensifying storms like it —but scientists are still working out the details.
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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. -
2023 was the hottest year ever recorded. That might make you feel sad, or angry. Or perhaps anxious, or guilty. Those feelings are normal, and you have a few options for how to react to them.
