Rebecca Hersher
Rebecca Hersher (she/her) is a reporter on NPR's Climate Desk, where she reports on climate science, weather disasters, infrastructure and how humans are adapting to a hotter world.
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, heat waves and hurricanes in the U.S. and around the world.
Hersher was part of the NPR team that won the Kavli Science Journalism Award for the series "Beyond the Poles: The far-reaching dangers of melting ice," as well as a Peabody award and an Edward R. Murrow award for coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Her 2019 coverage of climate-driven flash floods also won an Edward R. Murrow award, and she was part of a team that was honored with a 2020 Society of News Design award for multimedia storytelling. She was a finalist for the Daniel Schorr prize, a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting fellow and an NPR Above the Fray fellow, investigating the causes of the suicide epidemic in Greenland.
She can be reached at rhersher.01 on the free encrypted communication app Signal.
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The Trump administration has delayed billions of dollars for projects to protect Americans from floods, wildfires and hurricanes. Local leaders are increasingly anxious. -
A community fishery in Cambodia was struggling. There weren't enough fish to make ends meet, until local fishermen started planting a specific type of tree. -
A potentially strong El Niño weather pattern will likely emerge this summer and persist through the rest of the year. The hottest years on record generally occur in years when El Niño is active. -
The semi-aquatic dinosaur, Spinosaurus mirabilis, was discovered by an international team of scientists working in Niger. -
The Trump administration is proposing massive changes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. We asked disaster experts to weigh in. -
The sprawling agency saw its baseline funding expire after lawmakers left town for a week-long recess, but without a deal to rein in the conduct of federal immigration officers. -
People in poor countries often get little or no warning about floods, storms and other deadly weather. Local efforts are changing that, and saving lives. -
Strong winds can make it feel a lot colder than the thermometer suggests. Protect yourself by covering exposed skin and sheltering inside. -
Tens of millions of people are in the path of a major winter storm. Federal cuts threaten efforts to understand the causes of such weather. -
Thousands of employees whose contracts end this year will lose their jobs, FEMA managers said at personnel meetings this week. The cuts could hobble the nation's disaster agency.
