Umble Master Class: Dan Charles and Brigid McCarthy

Dan Charles is a science writer and audio producer. He was a correspondent on NPR’s science desk from 1993-1999, and again from 2011-2022. He also worked for NPR as an editor and freelance reporter. He has contributed to podcasts such as Planet Money, Short Wave, The Sporkful, and StartUp. He’s a contributing correspondent for Science, and has written books about the invention of genetically modified crops, and a biography of the German Jewish chemist Fritz Haber. He was a Fulbright scholar in Ukraine and a communicator-in-residence at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig. He grew up on a dairy farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, lives in Washington, DC and is married to audio producer Brigid McCarthy. They have two daughters.

Brigid McCarthy has been producing and editing radio shows for more than 35 years. She spent nearly two decades at NPR, as a producer on Morning Edition and Weekend Edition Saturday. Most recently, she was senior editor of the psychology podcast Hidden Brain. She was previously a senior editor of Vox Media’s daily news show, Today, Explained. She also edited BackStory, a radio show and podcast about American history produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. She got her start in radio as producer of The Diane Rehm Show, a daily news and public affairs call-in show in Washington, DC,. She has reported from Ukraine and Russia for NPR and PRI’s The World. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, is the youngest of 11 children, and is married to journalist Dan Charles.