April Dembosky

KQED Health Correspondent

April Dembosky is the health correspondent for KQED News and a regular contributor to NPR. She specializes in covering altered states of mind, from postpartum depression to methamphetamine-induced psychosis to the insanity defense. Her investigative series on insurance companies sidestepping mental health laws won multiple awards, including first place in beat reporting from the national Association of Health Care Journalists. She is the recipient of numerous other prizes and fellowships, including a national Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting, a Society of Professional Journalists award for long-form storytelling, and a Carter Center Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism. Dembosky reported and produced Soundtrack of Silence, an audio documentary about music and memory that is currently being made into a feature film by Paramount Pictures. Before joining KQED in 2013, Dembosky covered technology and Silicon Valley for The Financial Times of London, and contributed business and arts stories to Marketplace and The New York Times. She got her undergraduate degree in philosophy from Smith College and her master's in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a classically trained violinist and proud alum of the first symphony orchestra at Burning Man.

Craig Miller

Editor Emeritus, Science

Craig is a former KQED Science editor, specializing in weather, climate, water & energy issues, with a little seismology thrown in just to shake things up. Prior to that, he launched and led the station's award-winning multimedia project, Climate Watch. Craig is also an accomplished writer/producer of television documentaries, with a focus on natural resource issues.

Dan Brekke

KQED Editor and Reporter

Dan Brekke is a reporter and editor for KQED News, responsible for  coverage of topics ranging from California water issues to the Bay Area's transportation challenges. In a newsroom career that began in Chicago in 1972, Dan has worked for The San Francisco Examiner, Wired and TechTV and has been published in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine,  Business 2.0, Salon and elsewhere. Since joining KQED in 2007, Dan has reported, edited and produced both radio and online features and breaking news pieces. He has shared as both editor and reporter in four Society of Professional Journalists Norcal Excellence in Journalism awards and one Edward R. Murrow regional award. He was chosen for a spring 2017 residency at the Mesa Refuge to advance his research on California salmon. Email Dan at: dbrekke@kqed.org Twitter: twitter.com/danbrekke Facebook: www.facebook.com/danbrekke LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/danbrekke

Danielle Venton

Science reporter

Danielle Venton is a reporter for KQED Science. She covers wildfires, space and oceans (though she is prone to sea sickness). Before joining KQED in 2015, Danielle was a staff reporter at KRCB in Sonoma County and a freelancer. She studied science communication at UC Santa Cruz and formerly worked at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland where she wrote about computing. She lives in Sonoma County and enjoys backpacking.

Eliza Peppel

Eliza is an award-winning journalist living in Oakland. She was previously a reporting fellow at KALW, where she reported daily news and long-form radio features. Eliza studied journalism at Fordham University in The Bronx during the COVID-19 pandemic. She grew up mainly in California and spent a few childhood years in Aix en Provence, France.

Ezra David Romero

Climate Reporter

Ezra David Romero is a climate reporter for KQED News. He covers the absence and excess of water in the Bay Area — think sea level rise, flooding and drought. For nearly a decade he’s covered how warming temperatures are altering the lives of Californians. He’s reported on farmers worried their pistachio trees aren’t getting enough sleep, families desperate for water, scientists studying dying giant sequoias, and alongside firefighters containing wildfires. His work has appeared on local stations across California and nationally on public radio shows like Morning Edition, Here and Now, All Things Considered and Science Friday. 

Jon Brooks

Digital Editor

Jon Brooks is a former Digital Editor for KQED Science. He is the former editor of KQED’s daily news blog, News Fix. In 2014, he won a California Journalism Award for his coverage of ride services like Uber and Lyft and the taxi industry. A veteran blogger, he previously worked for Yahoo! in various news writing and editing roles. Jon is also a playwright whose work has been produced in San Francisco, New York, Italy, and around the U.S. He has written about film for his own blog and studied film at Boston University.

Josh Cassidy

Digital Video Producer

Josh is a Senior Video Producer for KQED Science, and the Lead Producer and Cinematographer for Deep Look. After receiving his BS in Wildlife Biology from Ohio University, he went on to participate in marine mammal research for NOAA, USGS and the Intersea Foundation. He also served as the president of The Pacific Cetacean Group, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching students K-6 about whales. Josh studied science and natural history filmmaking at San Francisco State University and Montana State University.

Katie DeBenedetti

KQED Contributor

Katie DeBenedetti is a digital reporter covering daily news for the Express Desk. Prior to joining KQED as a culture reporting intern in January 2024, she covered education and city government for the Napa Valley Register.

Katrin Snow

Senior Editor

Kat started in radio in 1985 at KMUN in Astoria, Oregon, where the Columbia River meets the sea. She worked several years protecting monarch butterfly habitat in California with the Xerces Society, an invertebrate conservation organization, before a love for radio news drew her back into journalism. Kat came to KQED in 2002, and before that was a reporter and news director at KUER in Salt Lake City, covering the state legislature, the environment and health. Kat coaches reporters and others in embodied narration and public speaking. She is a certified teacher of Soul Motion®, a conscious dance practice, and can sometimes be found in the Mojave desert or the Eastern Sierra.

Kevin Stark

Senior Editor

Kevin is a senior editor for KQED Science, managing the station's health and climate desks. His journalism career began in the Pacific Northwest, and he later became a lead reporter for the San Francisco Public Press. His work has appeared in Pacific Standard magazine, the Energy News Network, the Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal and WBEZ in Chicago. Kevin joined KQED in 2019, and has covered issues related to energy, wildfire, climate change and the environment.

Laura Klivans

Reporter

Laura Klivans is an award-winning science reporter for KQED News, where she covers climate change with an eye on both groundbreaking progress and gaps in action. She is the former host of KQED's blockbuster video series about tiny, amazing animals, Deep Look. Her work reaches national audiences through NPR, Here & Now, PRI, and other major outlets. Laura’s won five Northern California Area Emmy Awards for Deep Look and First Place in the Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards for a podcast exploring how one Oakland neighborhood teamed up to reduce planet-heating pollution. Beyond her reporting, she hosts and moderates events. In the past, she taught audio storytelling at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, led international education programs, worked with immigrants and refugees along the Thai-Burmese border, taught high schoolers sex ed, and was an actress. She's a former UC Berkeley Human Rights Fellow, USC Center for Health Journalism's California Fellow and Coro Fellow in Public Affairs. Laura has a master’s in journalism from UC Berkeley, a master’s in education from Harvard, and an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University. She loves trying to riddle the meaning out of vanity license plates.

Lesley McClurg

KQED Health Correspondent

Lesley McClurg is a health correspondent and fill-in host whose work is regularly rebroadcast on NPR and PBS programs. She’s earned multiple regional Emmy awards, a national and a regional Edward R. Murrow award, and was named Best Beat Reporter by the Association of Health Care Journalists. The Society of Professional Journalists has recognized her work several times, and the Society of Environmental Journalists spotlighted her coverage of California’s historic drought. Before joining KQED in 2016, Lesley covered food and sustainability for Capital Public Radio, environmental issues for Colorado Public Radio, and reported for KUOW and KCTS 9 in Seattle. Away from the newsroom, she loves skiing with her daughter, mountain biking with her partner, and playing with Ollie, the family’s goldendoodle. On deadline, she runs almost entirely on chocolate chips.  

Mike Seely

Producer

Mike is a Digital Media Producer for KQED Science and Post Production Coordinator for Deep Look. Prior to his work at KQED, he worked independently for 15 years as a director, producer and cinematographer of documentary films about art, science, and social issues, collaborating with independent directors, corporate clients, non-profits, digital and broadcast networks. Previous to filmmaking life, he majored in biology as an undergrad at Oberlin College, and worked as a wildlife biologist on bird and seal population studies in California. He also holds an M.A. in Documentary Film Production from Stanford University.

Paul Rogers

Managing Editor, Science

Paul worked as managing editor for the KQED Science team from 2005 to 2020. Paul also works as the Natural Resources & Environment Writer at the San Jose Mercury News, where he has covered climate change, oceans, air pollution, energy, water policy, endangered species, toxics, parks and other issues. Paul was part of the Mercury News team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Paul also has taught environmental journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and at the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication Program. From 2001 to 2010, he served as chairman of the Institutes of Journalism and Natural Resources, a nonprofit group that provides training to reporters of all backgrounds to improve environmental and science journalism.

Peter Arcuni

Reporter

Peter reports radio and online stories for KQED Science. His work has also appeared on the The California Report morning show and KQED News. His production credits include The California Report, The California Report Magazine and KQED's local news podcast The Bay. Other credits include NPR's All Things Considered, WNYC's Science Friday, WBUR's Here & Now, WIRED and SFGate. Peter graduated from Brown University and earned a master's degree in journalism from Stanford. He's covered everything from homelessness to wildfires, health, the environment, arts and Thanksgiving in San Quentin prison. In other lives, he played rock n roll music and studied neuroscience. You can email him at: parcuni@kqed.org

Polly Stryker

Editor

Polly Stryker is a former editor for KQED's Science desk. She and reporter/host Rachael Myrow produced the KQED podcast, Love in the Digital Age. Polly has worked for a variety of news and public affairs programs, including most recently as editor of The California Report.  She also edited The California Report's “Health Dialogues.” Before that, she was a producer on AirTalk with Larry Mantle on KPCC radio, and These Days on KPBS. Polly’s work has won  awards from the Radio and Television News Directors Association of Northern California, the Society of Professional Journalists (Southern California and Northern California chapters), the Radio and Television News Association. She's also won a Taste Award. She considers herself to be a citizen of the world, having grown up in Cairo before coming to the United States. Polly speaks Arabic and can say, "I’d like a martini, please" in Swahili.

Rosa Tuirán

Digital Video Producer

Rosa Tuirán is a PBS Accelerator Fellow for Diverse Voices and a video producer for KQED's web science video series, Deep Look. Originally from Mexico City, she studied International Relations for her B.A. After graduating, she pursued her passion for underwater photography in South Africa and later worked as a video journalist for BuzzFeed News in New York City. In 2020, she received her Master of Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley with a focus on documentary filmmaking. During the pandemic's early stages, she was a part of the COVID-19 California reporting initiative with The New York Times and the Investigative Reporting Program. Her work has been featured on PBS Frontline, PBS NOVA, CBS News, National Geographic, The Guardian and The New York Times.