RadioLab

Show Staff

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  Jad Abumrad – Host, Radiolab

  The son of a scientist and a doctor, Jad Abumrad did most of his growing up in Tennessee, before studying creative writing and music composition at Oberlin College in Ohio. Following graduation, Abumrad wrote music for films, and reported and produced documentaries for a variety of local and national public radio programs, including On The Media, Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, Morning Edition, All Things Consideredand WNYC’s “24 Hours at the Edge of Ground Zero.”

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  Simon Adler

  If my memory serves me, the first time I was asked the proverbial What do you want to be when you grow up? The answer was, “An astronaut.” Later it became a drawer. Then a guy who makes television commercials. By middle school I decided I wanted to be an environmental engineer, before stints hoping to be a photographer and then filmmaker. In high school, after dreaming of being a teacher, I was certain I’d be a professional jazz saxophone player. In college, I jumped from humanitarian aid worker, to psychotherapist, to indie rock musician. After graduating I wanted to be a writer. Now, I make radio. Email me at sadler@wnyc.org

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  Becca Bressler

  Becca is the production manager for Radiolab. She was born and raised in the Bay Area, where she graduated without honors from UC Berkeley. There, she studied cognitive science, worked on a documentary film, and obsessed over Mad Men. Before entering the world of radio, she worked in film production at Pixar Animation Studios. She spends much of her free time (and occupied time, frankly) thinking about her next meal.

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  Rachael Cusick

  Rachael is an assistant producer for Radiolab’s Special Projects Unit. She graduated from Cornell with a degree in food science and journalism. Before joining Radiolab, she worked as a cheese curd flipper, pastry chef, and egg scrambler. She also spent some time hanging out at NPR, Politico, and Slate. When she’s not writing about herself in the third person, she’s probably off baking something with peanut butter or pinching herself about getting to work at Radiolab.

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  David Gebel

  David provides administrative support for Radiolab, More Perfect, and The Takeaway.   He came to NYC decades ago as a singer and actor – which he was good at, and loved.  He then drifted into a corporate job – which he was not really good at, didn’t love, but it paid a lot.  He is now deeply grateful to have found the perfect middle ground at WNYC –happily handling invoices, contracts, and all kinds of organizing, while surrounded by creative, fun and interesting people.  He loves baking, factory tours, theatre, and biking the bridges of New York City.

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  Bethel Habte

  Bethel’s an assistant producer at Radiolab. She’s Texas-born and Virginia-raised with Eritrean roots. She graduated with a political philosophy degree from the University of Virginia. Then she worked for a society for bone scientists, quit to volunteer and travel in South America, enrolled at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, realized she could start making radio instead of just listening to it, went to learn more at the Transom Story Workshop with Rob Rosenthal & co., and then produced several podcasts for Reuters until arriving at Radiolab’s doors. She knows how to salsa (well) and boulder (very poorly).

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  Tracie Hunte

  Tracie Hunte is a reporter for Radiolab. She was born in Barbados, grew up in Miami, went to journalism school at the University of Florida and got her Masters in Media Studies at the New School in New York City. She’s often surprised by the fact that she still lives here, because she really loves and misses South Florida. Before Radiolab, she worked in WNYC’s newsroom as a local producer for All Things Considered and Morning Edition. She also worked for ABC’s news magazines 20/20 and Primetime, where she kinda, by accident won an Emmy. Her journalism heroes include Ida B. Wells, Katherine Boo and Christiane Amanpour. She lives in Brooklyn with her dog Luna.

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  Dylan Keefe – Director of Sound Design, Radiolab

  Still recovering from when Rolling Stone called him a “Rock n roll Judge Reinhold,” Dylan came to Radiolab after selling his soul at the crossroads of Marcy Playground Ally and Calle de WNYC. Carrying only a Fender P Bass and a shotgun microphone, Dylan was met at midnight first by Brooke Gladstone of On the Media, then John Hockenberry of The Takeaway and finally by a curly haired demon named Jad. All of whom detuned his bass and redirected his mic. Having actually wanted Carl Sagan to show up, Dylan decided the curly guy was close enough. Now he owes him his soul.

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  Matt Kielty

  Matt started at Radiolab as an intern. Now he works here. Around and in-between those two things, he lived in Minnesota, attended school in Arizona, tried to find himself, lived in Washington D.C., learned radio from Rob Rosenthal at the Salt Institute for Documentaries Studies, hung around This American Life, was awarded the Above the Fray fellowship to report in Uganda, and had a metal plate screwed into his wrist. He just realized this reads like Andy Mills’ bio. He doesn’t care.

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  Robert Krulwich – Host, Radiolab

   

  Robert Krulwich is co-host of Radiolab, WNYC’s Peabody Award-winning program about ‘big ideas’ now one of public radio’s most popular shows. It is carried on more than 500 radio stations and its podcasts are downloaded over 5 million times each month. He is also the author of the “Curiously Krulwich” blog, featured on National Geographic, where he illustrates hard-to-fathom concepts in science using drawings, cartoons, videos, and more.

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  Maria Matasar-Padilla – Managing Director, Radiolab

  Maria is the managing director at Radiolab. Born in South America and raised in Miami, Maria is a recovering theatre person. She’s dissected literature at Harvard, trained as a dramaturg at Yale and studied law at Cardozo, but somehow ended up in television and film. After working on investigative news specials at ABC News with Peter Jennings, Maria co-produced an award-winning film series on the Constitution and landmark Supreme Court cases for The Documentary Group.  When she’s not at work she feels like she spends an inordinate amount of time doing laundry.

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  Annie McEwen

  Annie grew up in Dunrobin, Ontario, headed east for school and ended up in St. John’s, Newfoundland. It was there that she fell under the patient mentorship of Chris Brookes at Battery Radio who taught her about sound and tape. She furthered her studies in radio at the Transom Story Workshop and then, under a series of confounding and improbable events, she ended up at Radiolab. She loves it here. When she’s not cutting tape she likes to be outside.

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  Latif Nasser

  Latif Nasser is a longtime friend of the show. You’ve heard him numerous times on air or read his missives on our site: telling us stories about the lie of the perfect snowflake, how pigeons get home, the lie that is the meter, etc. Having just finished his PhD at Harvard in the history of science, he is our new Director of Research.  On staff he’ll be telling us more stories, infecting us with his enthusiasm and applying his formidable research skills to building out our editorial pipeline.  He’ll also be the primary point of contact for our fact-checkers and outside contributors.  He’ll also be standing at his desk like a meerkat.  A meerkat with glasses.

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  Arianne Wack

  Hailing from the Wisconsin woods, Arianne is a painter-cum-radio producer and is still a little baffled about that trajectory.  At the ‘lab she gets to call herself a Technical Producer which technically entails producing the weekly broadcast shows, premixing the podcasts, and reminding the Director of Sound Design, Dylan Keefe, that he is also the bass player from Marcy Playground. She is very good at almost all of those things. She considers herself more a story-listener than a storyteller and is thrilled to be among this list of incredibly talented, smart, story-conquering weirdos.

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  Pat Walters

  Pat is senior editor of the special projects unit. He started at the show in 2010 as a production assistant, eventually became a producer, and spent about five years on staff making stories about all kinds of things, from a brain tumor that may have turned a man into a pedophile to the greatest comeback in the history of basketball to the reason 90 percent of humanity is right handed. He left for a few years to edit Pop-Up Magazine, the world’s first “live magazine;” host a podcast at Gimlet Media called Undone; and help create another new podcast there about the Civil War called Uncivil. Pat’s delighted to be back at his radio birthplace.

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  Molly Webster

  Best described as someone who likes to “sit in the woods and stare,” Molly fell for science in the ponds, wildlife, and fields of Ohio. After focusing on biology in college, she began to pursue science journalism, and has written and produced (radio/podcasts) for outlets like Scientific American, Wired, Nature, NPR’s Science Friday, and National Geographic Adventure, as well as created live conversations at the World Science Festival, where she specialized in creating programs at the intersection of science, philosophy, and art. Her ability to comprehend and totally immerse herself in complicated issues has helped Radiolab investigate blood donation, drug prices, and one very special jar. She also had a hand in the pilot of Freakonomics Radio, where you can still hear her voice at the top of every episode.

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  Soren Wheeler – Managing Editor, Radiolab

  Soren Wheeler is the Managing Editor at Radiolab, where he plays a variety of roles, including producer, editor, and reporter. He also oversees the development of future content. Before coming to radio, Soren spent 10 years working with science teachers and writing about how kids learn science. He was a project coordinator at the Association for the Advancement of Science, where he co-authored the book Atlas of Science Literacy. He then went on to get a Master’s degree in science writing at Johns Hopkins University. Soren has won awards for production on radio pieces about coincidence and statistics, the periodic table, and the story of a woman waking up from a coma.