Jon Hamilton
Jon Hamilton is a correspondent for NPR's Science Desk. Currently he focuses on neuroscience and health risks.
In 2014, Hamilton went to Liberia as part of the NPR team that covered Ebola. The team received a Peabody Award for its coverage.
Following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Hamilton was part of NPR's team of science reporters and editors who went to Japan to cover the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
Hamilton contributed several pieces to the Science Desk series "The Human Edge," which looked at what makes people the most versatile and powerful species on Earth. His reporting explained how humans use stories, how the highly evolved human brain is made from primitive parts, and what autism reveals about humans' social brains.
In 2009, Hamilton received the Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award for his piece on the neuroscience behind treating autism.
Before joining NPR in 1998, Hamilton was a media fellow with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation studying health policy issues. He reported on states that have improved their Medicaid programs for the poor by enrolling beneficiaries in private HMOs.
From 1995-1997, Hamilton wrote on health and medical topics as a freelance writer, after having been a medical reporter for both The Commercial Appeal and Physician's Weekly.
Hamilton graduated with honors from Oberlin College in Ohio with a Bachelor of Arts in English. As a student, he was the editor of the Oberlin Review student newspaper. He earned his master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, where he graduated with honors. During his time at Columbia, Hamilton was awarded the Baker Prize for magazine writing and earned a Sherwood traveling fellowship.
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New research finds that African-Americans who grow up in harsh environments and have many stressful experiences are much more likely to develop Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. -
A survey of more than 3,500 people caring for family members with dementia finds that many are spending down personal savings and cutting into their own basic needs to meet their loved one's expenses. -
A Canadian researcher finds that taking antidepressants while pregnant may increase the risk of having a child with autism spectrum disorder. But others say the real culprit may be depression itself. -
By assessing the strength of certain connections in the brain with an MRI test, researchers were often able to tell whether children and adolescents had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. -
People with Parkinson's and related forms of dementia improved in a small study when they took a leukemia drug called nilotinib. Researchers say the drug seems to help brain cells eliminate toxins. -
A lack of sleep can increase the risk of traffic accidents, heart attacks, diabetes and maybe even Alzheimer's disease, research suggests. Yet most people with sleep disorders don't get treatment.
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A doctor-scientist's long quest to help children with a rare form of brain cancer has led to the discovery that high levels of brain activity can make glioma tumors grow faster. -
Scientists are still better than computers at assessing a neuron's health by looking at its shape. But an effort that includes an international series of hackathons could help speed the process. -
The brain's cerebellum helps shape thinking and emotion, as well as physical coordination, research shows. Could stimulating that part of the brain help ease some aspects of autism and schizophrenia? -
Jonathan Keleher is one of a handful of people known to have lived their entire lives without a cerebellum. His experiences are helping scientists show how this brain structure helps shape who we are.
