Jennifer Schmidt
Jennifer Schmidt is a senior producer for Hidden Brain. She is responsible for crafting the complex stories that are told on the show. She researches, writes, gathers field tape, and develops story structures. Some highlights of her work on Hidden Brain include episodes about the causes of the #MeToo movement, how diversity drives creativity, and the complex psychology of addiction.
Since joining NPR in January 2014, Schmidt has also worked as an editor on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. She has put together pieces for various news desks, including a story about survivor goats from the California wildfires for NPR's health blog Shots and a piece on a new trend in C-sections in which women can watch their babies being born which aired on Morning Edition.
The recipient of numerous journalism awards, Schmidt has been awarded a PRNDI for feature reporting, a National Headliners award for breaking news, a silver CINDY, an EMMA for editing, and various other awards from the RTNDA, the Associated Press, and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Schmidt's reporting has taken her across both the country and the world, from KPLU in Seattle and WBUR in Boston to freelancing in South Africa and Mexico. After living abroad for almost a decade, Schmidt now lives on a small farm near the Chesapeake Bay with a menagerie of animals including a one-eyed cat from South Africa, chickens, horses, two dogs from Mexico City, and goats.
Schmidt graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Middlebury College and an M.S. from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
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The United States spends trillions of dollars on healthcare every year, but our outcomes are worse than those of other countries that spend less money. Why? Physician and healthcare executive Vivian Lee explains the psychological and economic incentives embedded in the American model of medicine, and makes the case for a different way forward. -
Some challenges feel insurmountable. But psychologist Emily Balcetis says the solutions are often right in front of our eyes. This week, as part of our annual series on personal growth and reinvention, Emily explains how we can harness our sight to affect our behavior. -
This week on Hidden Brain, research about prejudices so deeply buried, we often doubt their existence. We'll begin with police shootings of unarmed Black men. We also look at how biases affect judges. -
Far from being "the great equalizer," COVID-19 has disproportionately sickened and killed African Americans and Latinos in the U.S. Many of the reasons for these inequalities reach back to before the pandemic began. This week, we return to a 2019 episode that investigates a specific source of racial disparities in medicine and beyond—and considers an uncomfortable solution. -
A virus is more than a biological organism. It's a social organism. Historian Nancy Bristow shares the lessons about human behavior that we can take away from a century-old pandemic.
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What's the point of money? The answer might seem obvious: we need it to get paid for our work, and to buy the things we need. But there's also a deeper way to look at the role of money in our lives. This week we explore an anthropologist's take on the origin story of money. What if the cash and coins we carry are not just tools for transactions, but manifestations of human relationships? -
In a fit of anger or in the grip of fear, many of us make decisions that we never would have anticipated. This week, we look at situations that make us strangers to ourselves — and why it's so difficult to remember what these "hot states" feel like once the moment is over. -
What makes the mind of a human different from that of other animals? Psychologist Laurie Santos says we can't know the answer to that question if we only study humans. This week, we turn to Laurie's work with monkeys to understand which parts of human behavior are distinct, and which we share with other species.
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There's an event we were all invited to the day we were born. Attendance is mandatory. But we'd rather not think about it. On this week's radio show, the lengths we go to to avoid thoughts of death. -
Last week, we spoke with psychologist Sheldon Solomon about the fear of death and how it shapes our actions. This week, we pivot from psychology and politics to religion and history as we explore how people have tried to resolve these fears. We talk with philosopher Stephen Cave about the ways we assure ourselves that death is not really the end.
