Rhaina Cohen
Rhaina Cohen is a producer and editor for NPR's Enterprise Storytelling unit, working across Embedded, Invisibilia, and Rough Translation.
Previously, she was a producer for Hidden Brain, where she brought together narrative journalism and social science research. Some of the most rewarding stories she worked on include those about why the #MeToo movement took off when it did, how American masculinity makes it harder for men to build close friendships and why we sometimes make decisions that baffle us. Cohen joined NPR as an intern for Planet Money.
She periodically writes for outlets such as The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The New Republic. Her article about people who make a friend their life partner was selected by Longreads as one of the best articles of 2020. She received some of her earliest journalism training as a research assistant for authors. She worked on the New York Times bestselling book All The Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation and the biography Michelle Obama: A Life.
Cohen was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, where she earned a master's in comparative social policy (and while there, competed in a dance style that hasn't yet taken off in the United States: acrobatic rock 'n' roll). She holds a bachelor's degree in American Studies from Northwestern University. As a 2018 FASPE fellow, she studied journalism ethics in Germany and Poland.
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Decades ago, a group of women accused a prominent playwright of sexual misconduct. For the most part, the complaints went nowhere. In 2017, more women came forward. This time, people listened.
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This week on the Hidden Brain radio show, we explore how the constantly evolving nature of languages can give us different ways of understanding ourselves as well as the world we live in.
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Violent crimes committed by Muslims are much more likely to be reported as "terrorism." And that has disturbing consequences for the way Muslims are perceived.
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A culture of racism can infect us all. On this week's radio show, we discuss the implicit biases we carry that have been forged by the society around us.
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Women in the Middle Ages were excluded from many realms: the law, universities, and surprisingly, from friendship. Clearly, that's changed — and Kayleen Schaefer's new book examines how and why.
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It can seem arbitrary the way certain people fascinate us. But researcher Elizabeth Currid-Halkett says celebrity has a formula. So does being part of any social group — perhaps even your own.
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From the time of Columbus until the 1900s, as many as five million Native Americans were enslaved. This week, we explore that history, and the psychological reasons it stayed hidden in plain sight.
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According to research, between 10 and 40% of kids who intend to go to college at high school graduation don't show up in the fall. This phenomenon, known as "summer melt," has puzzled universities.
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Pundits and prognosticators make predictions all the time: about everything from elections, to sports, to global affairs. This week, we explore why they're often wrong, and how we can all do better.
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In the last five years, 12 percent of terrorist attacks in the U.S. were carried out by Muslims and more than 50 percent by far right extremists. So why the media focus on "Islamic terrorism"?