Elizabeth Shogren
Elizabeth Shogren is an NPR News Science Desk correspondent focused on covering environment and energy issues and news.
Since she came to NPR in 2005, Shogren's reporting has covered everything from the damage caused by the BP oil spill on the ecology of the Gulf Coast, to the persistence of industrial toxic air pollution as seen by the legacy of Tonawanda Coke near Buffalo, to the impact of climate change on American icons like grizzly bears.
Prior to NPR, Shogren spent 14 years as a reporter on a variety of beats at The Los Angeles Times, including four years reporting on environmental issues in Washington, D.C., and across the country. While working from the paper's Washington bureau, from 1993-2000, Shogren covered the White House, Congress, social policy, money and politics, and presidential campaigns. During that time, Shogren was given the opportunity to travel abroad on short-term foreign reporting assignments, including the Kosovo crisis in 1999, the Bosnian war in 1996, and Russian elections in 1993 and 1996. Before joining the Washington bureau, Shogren was based in Moscow where she covered the breakup of the Soviet Union and the rise of democracy in Russia for the newspaper.
Beginning in 1988, Shogren worked as a freelance reporter based in Moscow, publishing in a variety of newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, The Dallas Morning News, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post. During that time, she covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and the peaceful revolution in Prague.
Shogren's career in journalism began in the wire services. She worked for the Associated Press in Chicago and at United Press International in Albany, NY.
Throughout Shogren's career she has received numerous awards and honors including as a finalist for the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting, the National Wildlife Federation National Conservation Achievement Award, the Meade Prize for coverage of air pollution and she was an IRE finalist. She is a member of Sigma Delta Chi and the Society of Professional Journalist.
After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Russian studies at the University of Virginia, Shogren went on to receive a Master of Science in journalism from Columbia University.
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As climate change brings more drought and flooding, food prices are expected to keep spiking. Such spikes affect the poor the most, but especially the poor in Africa and the Middle East, says a new Oxfam report. -
Wind and solar get lots of attention, but another kind of renewable power creates more energy in the U.S. — wood. Massachusetts decided these plants aren't green enough to get some special breaks.
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What could be worse than a ruptured pipeline of crude oil? A ruptured pipeline of tar sands oil — a thick, sticky substance. Cleanup of a 2010 spill in Michigan's Kalamazoo River took much longer and was far harder than anyone had anticipated. It's now a cautionary tale for people in the middle of the new Keystone pipeline's path. -
South America's Chinchorro people lived in an extremely dry desert region where the dead turned into mummies naturally. But at some point, they stopped leaving the process to nature. Now, scientists say the Chinchorros began mummifying their dead as their climate grew wetter. -
Don't swat away that buzzing wasp. It may help spread the yeast that starts the fermentation process in grapes while they're still on the vine. The yeast carried by the wasp give wine its complexity, scientists say. -
NASA may have retired its shuttles, but it has its sights on sending astronauts deeper into space than ever before. The agency wants to set foot on asteroids, but the first step is a soggy one. -
Four years ago, an atmospheric scientist near Boulder, Colo., stumbled on surprising air pollution data: The region's levels of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, were far higher than anyone would have expected. What was going on? The search for an answer led straight to the natural gas and oil fields of northern Colorado. -
Hundreds of thousands of natural gas wells have sprung up across the country. In Garfield County, Colo., the drilling rigs are so close to homes that some people call them "Close Encounters." When the gas boom began a decade ago, residents began asking: Is it safe to live this close? Their quest for answers became too polarizing to pursue. -
New EPA rules would control air pollution coming from wells being drilled by the oil and natural gas industries. The rules are a result of a lawsuit by an environmental group that sued the agency to clean up the drilling industry after communities in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming complained about air pollution. -
The federal rules announced Wednesday will, among other things, soon require oil and natural gas drillers to limit air pollution from drilling operations. Though the requirements stand to save companies money long term, producers say pollution regulations should be left to the states.
