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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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.
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Answer a few questions and find out what kind of immune cell you'd be — and learn more about these amazing cells that fight off infection. -
The family history of SARS-CoV-2 is not what virologists expected — and it sheds light on the coronavirus that launched a pandemic. Check out our illustration of the virus's family tree. -
Scientists are beginning to come up with answers to the question of how long antibodies from an infection can protect you — and what they'll protect you from. -
It's a sibling of the first omicron variant that swept the world. Is it more contagious? Does it cause severe disease? Will it keep current omicron surges going? Researchers are looking for answers. -
Another version of omicron is spreading in Asia and parts of Europe. And it shows signs that it could be slightly more contagious than omicron. Where did this new variant come from?
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Researchers in the U.K. have the first estimates for how long a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine will last. The findings are mixed. -
Researchers now have the first data looking at how long that protection from a booster shot of the COVID vaccine will last and what the future of the vaccinations might be after the omicron surge.
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A look at the data that omicron is less severe. What does that mean for the future of SARS-CoV-2 — and the pandemic? -
There's growing evidence that omicron causes less severe disease than previous variants. Does that mean SARS-CoV-2 is evolving into a more mild virus? Will future surges be less deadly and disruptive?
