Rebecca Ramirez
Rebecca Ramirez (she/her) is the founding producer of NPR's daily science podcast, Short Wave. It's a meditation in how to be a Swiss Army Knife, in that it involves a little of everything — background research, finding and booking sources, interviewing guests, writing, cutting the tape, editing, scoring ... you get the idea.
Ramirez's journey to radio producer was a happy accident. At the University of Southern California, she pursued a double major in history and neuroscience. It was fun and engaging, but with no obvious career path. She answered an ad for an internship while playing an NPR podcast, and got hired! After graduation, she began an internship for Invisibilia, NPR's podcast about the unseeable forces that control human behavior. From there, she dove head-first into a completely different job - producing daily news on Morning Edition, NPR's daily morning news magazine. After a year, she jumped at the chance to help start a new NPR podcast. Aside from the joy of the hard work, Ramirez is involved in increasing NPR's diversity, both in its journalism through source diversity efforts and on staff as a leader of the Marginialized Genders and Intersex People of Color (MGIPOC) Mentorship Program.
Ramirez hails from Florida and lives in Washington, D.C.
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Though Pluto has formally been considered a dwarf planet for almost two decades, it still has many lessons left for planetary scientists — including hints about how the solar system formed.
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We kickoff our series Space Camp with a look at space launches. What does hurtling into space feel like? What physics are involved? And what's the "junk" in Earth's orbit?
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In honor of Short Wave's third birthday, hosts Aaron Scott and Emily Kwong quiz All Things Considered hosts about some of the many nuggets of information the science podcast has shared with listeners.
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The James Webb Space Telescope will give a glimpse of the earliest galaxies formed after the Big Bang — but only if the telescope is kept frigid. That's why there's a tennis court-sized sunshield.
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The safest way to have Thanksgiving this year is to stay in your social bubble. But those traveling to gather with friends and loved ones should keep pandemic safety guidelines in mind.
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The comet, 2I/Borisov, looks surprisingly like comets closer to home. It's a sign that the processes that formed the sun and planets are at work elsewhere in the universe.
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Young helped shape the sound of '60s and '70s Southern popular music for his work on songs like "Sweet Caroline" and "Hooked on a Feeling."