Emily Kwong
Emily Kwong (she/her) is the reporter for NPR's daily science podcast, Short Wave. The podcast explores new discoveries, everyday mysteries and the science behind the headlines — all in about 10 minutes, Monday through Friday.
Prior to working at NPR, Kwong was a reporter and host at KCAW-Sitka, a community radio station in Sitka, Alaska. She covered local government and politics, culture and general assignments, chasing stories onto fishing boats and up volcanoes. Her work earned multiple awards from the Alaska Press Club and Alaska Broadcasters Association. Prior to that, Kwong produced youth media with WNYC's Radio Rookies and The Modern Story in Hyderabad, India.
Kwong won the "Best New Artist" award in 2013 from the Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition for a story about a Maine journalist learning to speak with an electrolarynx. She was the 2018 "Above the Fray" Fellow, reporting a series for NPR on climate change and internal migration in Mongolia.
Kwong earned her bachelor's degree at Columbia University in 2012. She learned the finer points of cutting tape at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in 2013.
-
NPR's Juana Summers talks with Regina Barber and Emily Kwong of Short Wave about squid-inspired fabric, the growing height of Mount Everest, and new research into the mystery of how lightning forms.
-
NPR's Juana Summers talks with Regina Barber and Emily Kwong of Short Wave about "scuba-diving" lizards, a trick to turn a mouse's skin transparent and whether finger counting helps kids' math skills.
-
Hurricane season is heating up: Hurricane Francine hit Louisiana last week and dumped rain across the South, and forecasters expect more stormy activity in the Atlantic in the next few weeks. A big factor in this stormy weather is our extremely warm oceans. Scientists know climate change is the main culprit, but NPR climate correspondent Rebecca Hersher has been following the quest to figure out the other reasons. Hint: They may involve volcanoes and the sun. Read more of Rebecca's reporting on this topic. Questions about hurricanes or other weather disasters? Email us at shortwave@npr.org – we'd love to hear your ideas! -
The origin of supermassive black holes has stumped scientist for a long time. They now have the answer to this question: very massive seeds.
-
Have you ever scrolled through a TikTok without finishing it? Switched between YouTube videos halfway through one or the other? Pressed "fast forward" on a Netflix episode that just wasn't holding your interest? That habit is called "digital switching" — and it might be causing the exact thing you're trying to avoid: boredom. Emily and Regina break that and more of the week's news down with the help of All Things Considered's Ailsa Chang. Read this study on digital switching and boredom in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. Interested in hearing more psychology news? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. -
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks to Regina Barber and Emily Kwong of NPR's Short Wave about an ancient magma ocean on the moon, the snake problem of Florida's Everglades, and why scrolling through video clips bores us.
-
For blind and low vision adults, the ability to read braille can be life-changing. Braille literacy is directly linked to higher rates of academic success and better employment outcomes for them. But there's a problem. The U.S. is facing a national shortage of qualified braille teachers and there's a lack of scientific research around braille overall. An interdisciplinary team led by linguist Robert Englebretson wants to change that. Read some of the team's work here: - Englebretson R, Holbrook MC, Fischer-Baum S. A position paper on researching braille in the cognitive sciences: decentering the sighted norm. Applied Psycholinguistics. 2023. - Englebretson, R., Holbrook, M.C., Treiman, R. et al. The primacy of morphology in English braille spelling: an analysis of bridging contractions. Morphology. 2024. Interested in hearing more linguistics stories? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. -
Space X’s highly anticipated Polaris Dawn mission is set to launch later this summer – with an all-civilian crew. And a big part of their mission is researching how space changes the human body.
-
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Regina Barber and Emily Kwong of Short Wave about chimpanzee "conversations," oxygen from the bottom of the ocean and how a computer program may warn of rogue waves.
-
NPR's Short Wave brings stories of lion brothers making a record-breaking swim in Uganda, the skincare trend among pre-teens that is worrying dermatologists, and a planet that smells like rotten eggs.
