Geoff Brumfiel
Geoff Brumfiel works as a senior editor and correspondent on NPR's science desk. His editing duties include science and space, while his reporting focuses on the intersection of science and national security.
From April of 2016 to September of 2018, Brumfiel served as an editor overseeing basic research and climate science. Prior to that, he worked for three years as a reporter covering physics and space for the network. Brumfiel has carried his microphone into ghost villages created by the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan. He's tracked the journey of highly enriched uranium as it was shipped out of Poland. For a story on how animals drink, he crouched for over an hour and tried to convince his neighbor's cat to lap a bowl of milk.
Before NPR, Brumfiel was based in London as a senior reporter for Nature Magazine from 2007-2013. There, he covered energy, space, climate, and the physical sciences. From 2002 – 2007, Brumfiel was Nature Magazine's Washington Correspondent.
Brumfiel is the 2013 winner of the Association of British Science Writers award for news reporting on the Fukushima nuclear accident.
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Scientists have recorded a song coming from a volcano. They think the musical notes may someday be useful for predicting dangerous eruptions. (Story aired on All Things Considered on June 6, 2022.)
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For decades, U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts have lived side-by-side aboard the International Space Station. Now some are wondering whether that partnership can withstand the war in Ukraine. -
An NPR analysis of security footage and photos following the attack on Europe's largest nuclear power plant shows that many of the plant's critical safety systems were in the field of Russian fire.
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A fire at Europe's largest nuclear power plant is out — it had been attacked by Russian troops in Ukraine. The U.S. Department of Energy activated its nuclear incident response team as a precaution.
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An anti-vaccine group known for spreading medical disinformation is writing prescriptions for unproven COVID-19 treatments, with the help of a doctor whose medical license was revoked in Alabama.
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Researchers who have been studying the volcano since 2015 say it was likely caused by seawater flowing into a chamber filled with magma.
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The new research affirms what many individuals had reported. But it also shows the changes to the menstrual cycle are mostly minor and brief, more akin to a sore arm than a dangerous reaction.
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As the U.S. heads into midterm elections next year, the political right and the anti-vaccine movement are drawing ever-closer together — potentially at the cost of thousands of American lives.
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An analysis by NPR shows that since the vaccine rollout, counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump have had more than twice the COVID mortality rates of those that voted for Joe Biden.
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A few years back, a telescope picked up a radio signal that seemed to be coming from a nearby star. One possibility? Aliens! The story on how this real-life hunt for ET unfolded.
