Selena Simmons-Duffin
Selena Simmons-Duffin reports on health policy for NPR.
She has worked at NPR for ten years as a show editor and producer, with one stopover at WAMU in 2017 as part of a staff exchange. For four months, she reported local Washington, DC, health stories, including a secretive maternity ward closure and a gesundheit machine.
Before coming to All Things Considered in 2016, Simmons-Duffin spent six years on Morning Edition working shifts at all hours and directing the show. She also drove the full length of the U.S.-Mexico border in 2014 for the "Borderland" series.
She won a Gracie Award in 2015 for creating a video called "Talking While Female," and a 2014 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for producing a series on why you should love your microbes.
Simmons-Duffin attended Stanford University, where she majored in English. She took time off from college to do HIV/AIDS-related work in East Africa. She started out in radio at Stanford's radio station, KZSU, and went on to study documentary radio at the Salt Institute, before coming to NPR as an intern in 2009.
She lives in Washington, DC, with her spouse and kids.
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Sometimes the right lullaby sends my kids off to dreamland so fast it makes me feel like I have a parenting superpower. Turns out the wonder of lullabies is confirmed by scientific research. -
NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin has a trick to get her kids to fall asleep at bedtime: lullabies. Science backs it up: Singing to your child helps them fall asleep faster, even than listening to Mozart!
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After promising booster shots to all recipients of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, then only some, 20 million Americans are now officially eligible to receive them.
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The rate of new cases of COVID-19 among babies and children under 4 years old in the U.S. recently surpassed the rate of new cases among adults older than 65. Here's how to protect newborns. -
Mask mandates and other interventions can help stop a surge, even where vaccination rates are low, say scientists who've reviewed states' data. When the measures start and how long they last matters. -
When his friends started to get sick after a week of parties, Michael Donnelly started keeping track. His work — and his community's willingness to help — led the CDC to a major pandemic discovery. -
Millions of people who need insurance are eligible for free health care plans. A special enrollment period is ending on Aug. 15. Here's how to sign up in time. -
The CDC advises wearing masks indoors if hospitals are overloaded and the coronavirus is spreading widely where you live. Find out the level of virus transmission in your county.
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New estimates show the U.S. is on track to see a big rise in cases and more than triple the number of deaths by October. -
With news about vaccinated people getting coronavirus infections, should you be worried? How common are breakthrough infections? Here's what scientists know and what they're trying to learn.
