As managing editor of Radiolab, I run the day-to-day operations of the show. I oversee the release calendar, edit about half the new episodes, manage most of the show’s producers and work with the other editors, hosts and executive editor to define the vision of the show. Over the dozen or so years I’ve worked at Radiolab, I’ve guest hosted several times and have reported and produced many stories on everything from parasites to parrots to fugitives to brain tumors. I was lead producer on the episode “Words,” which won a Peabody Award. I’m also working on some reporting projects of my own.
Previously, I created and hosted the podcast Undone at Gimlet Media, a narrative documentary show that revisited news events from the recent past and revealed their impact on today. It topped the iTunes charts in its first season. After that I edited Start Up and helped launch, Uncivil, a show about the Civil War by Chenjerai Kumanyika and Jack Hitt. Its first episode won a Peabody Award.
From 2014 to 2015 I edited the live journalism show Pop-Up Magazine, which presented true stories from some of the country's top writers, photographers, filmmakers, radio producers and artists, with live original music. I produced the show’s first performance in Los Angeles and its first national tour (with stops at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco), as well as a show at the main stage of the TED conference and a one-night-only pop-up restaurant in collaboration with Samin Nosrat. The New York Times has called the show "a sensation.”
My first full-time job in journalism was as a staff producer and on-air contributor at Radiolab.
I got my start in narrative journalism training to be a magazine writer under Rebecca Skloot in the MFA program at the University of Memphis. I did extensive research for and fact-checked her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I also wrote stories for the New York Times Magazine, Popular Science, and the St. Petersburg Times, among others. I got a grant from National Geographic to canoe from Chicago to St. Louis and I wrote articles for the magazine.
I went to college at the University of Delaware and did a fellowship at The Poynter Institute.
I grew up in rural Eastern Pennsylvania and now live in Portland, Maine.
I’ve also taught podcasting and journalism at Harvard, Berkeley, the Organization for Tropical Studies, the Power of Storytelling and NYU, where I currently teach a podcasting workshop for scientists. I also lead a speaker series at Radiolab that’s featured Jonathan Goldstein, Avery Trufelman, Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn, Sarah Stillman, Cord Jefferson, Damon Lindelof, Penny Lane, Amanda Knox, Eli Saslow, Hannah Rosin, Rachael Aviv, Brian Lehrer and many others.