Rebecca Ramirez
Supervising Producer, Short Wave
Rebecca Ramirez (she/her) is the founding producer of NPR's science podcast, Short Wave. It's a meditation in how to be a Swiss Army Knife, in that it involves a little of everything — background research, finding and booking sources, interviewing guests, writing, cutting the tape, editing, scoring ... you get the idea.
Ramirez's journey to radio producer was a happy accident. At the University of Southern California, she pursued a double major in history and neuroscience. It was fun and engaging, but with no obvious career path. She answered an ad for an internship while playing an NPR podcast, and got hired! After graduation, she began an internship for Invisibilia, NPR's podcast about the unseeable forces that control human behavior. From there, she dove head-first into a completely different job - producing daily news on Morning Edition, NPR's daily morning news magazine. After a year, she jumped at the chance to help start a new NPR podcast. Aside from the joy of the hard work, Ramirez is involved in increasing NPR's diversity, both in its journalism through source diversity efforts and on staff as a leader of the Marginialized Genders and Intersex People of Color (MGIPOC) Mentorship Program.
Ramirez hails from Florida and lives in Washington, D.C.
