GeneralLast Updated on 5 days by General
Vikki Valentine holds a pivotal role as a senior supervising editor on NPR’s science desk. She is responsible for overseeing the network’s coverage of global health and development across both broadcast and digital platforms. Before taking on this role, Valentine served as NPR’s climate change, energy, and environment editor, a position that earned her the prestigious 2012 DuPont Award for her outstanding coverage of natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania.
Valentine’s editorial leadership was most notably evident during her leadership of a team that won a 2014 Peabody Award for their on-the-ground reporting of the largest Ebola outbreak in history. This epidemic struck West Africa and affected nearly 30,000 people. Her team’s exceptional coverage received further recognition through the Edward R. Murrow awards, a Pictures of the Year International’s Award of Excellence, and by the Online News Association.
She also played a key role as the lead editor for the Gracie Award-winning series “#HowToRaiseAHuman” and “#15Girls.” In the 2018 series “#HowToRaiseAHuman,” her team embarked on a journey to remote parts of the world and explored human evolutionary history in search of lost secrets to raising children. The 2015 series “#15Girls” delved into the pervasive and deadly discrimination faced by girls in developing countries.
Valentine’s commitment to excellence extends to her winning the 2009 National Academies Communication Award for her year-long multimedia project, “Climate Connections.” This series garnered recognition from the 2008 National Academy of Sciences award, the Metcalf award for environmental journalism, the White House News Photographers Association awards, and the Webbys.
Before her tenure at NPR, Vikki Valentine served as a daily science news editor at Discovery.com and as a features editor and reporter at The Baltimore Sun. Her writing has been published in notable publications such as The New York Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian Channel, Marketplace, Science Magazine, and Washingtonian Magazine.
Valentine’s educational background includes a master’s degree from University College London’s Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.