First Person
"First Person" is On Point's radio diary series. Pitch your own story about life during the pandemic at onpoint@wbur.org.
First person: He was held hostage for 444 days
Barry Rosen says he can understand in some way what the hostages in Gaza are going through. Rosen was press attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979...
'I could not deliver the care my patients needed': A doctor's experience of moral injury
Health care professionals across the country say they're being forced to compromise the quality of care they give their patients in the name of profits.
First person: Why clownfish need darkness
Emily Fobert is a research fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia. In the lab, Emily studies how light pollution affects marine life.
First person: Behind a scientist's discovery of a tongue-replacing parasite
Professor Nico Smit specializes in aquatic parasitology at Northwestern University in South Africa. Many years ago, while working on his Ph.D., Smit ran across something special in the coastal waters...
First person: The book bans leaving Florida school bookshelves empty
In July 2022, Florida Governor DeSantis signed Florida House Bill 1467. It requires all schoolbooks to be reviewed by a district employee holding an educational media specialist certificate. Shortly after...
Advertisement
First person: Finding everyday awe in nature in Yosemite National Park
John Reynolds has lived in Yosemite National Park his entire life. In this 'First person' diary, he shares how living in nature helps him maintain a sense of awe.
First person: The fight to 'ordain women' in the LDS church
Currently, only men in the Mormon Church get to ascend the religious hierarchy. Kate Kelly founded the group Ordain Women roughly a decade ago to try to change that.
Earth's growing population: 'A direct affront to our own survival'
Elizabeth Hadly is a professor of biology at Stanford University, and director of the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve in California's Santa Cruz Mountains. For four decades, she's been an eyewitness...
First person: Faces of the 2020 'shecession' today
From February to May 2020, almost 12 million American women lost their jobs compared to 9 million men. But new analysis finds that gender was not the main driver behind...
First person: Leaving Russia to avoid war in Ukraine
Timothy Snyder says Russian President Vladimir Putin is vulnerable at home, as Russian men leave to avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine. Dmitry Grigoriev is Russian man living in...
First person: Thinking globally, acting locally to save the monarch butterfly
Jose Luis Alvarez, co-founder of Forests for Monarchs, and Martha Askins, a retired lawyer, discuss the beauty of the monarch butterfly, and conservation efforts to save them.
First person: A scientist's discovery puts space into focus
Robert Gonsalves is the creator of the phase retrieval imaging technique now being used by the James Webb Space Telescope.
First Person: Behind the wheel of a 'self-driving' Tesla
In a podcast special, we share what it's like behind the wheel when Tesla software is in action.
First Person: 'The shame did not belong to me. The shame belonged on him'
The suffering caused by domestic violence is emotional, spiritual and physical. But there's one aspect of that suffering that is almost invisible: brain injury. Survivor Freya Doe shares her story....
First Person: 2 Colorado residents on how Western wildfires have shaped their lives
Are cities in the West prepared for a perpetual fire season? 2 Colorado residents share how Western wildfires in Superior, CO and Louisville, CO have shaped their lives.
First Person: Reflections on COVID's impact on the food service industry
"It was nice to see the world recognize the food industry as essential workers. And our people stepped up, and they're still doing it months later."
Drugs were Katie Mack's connection to the world. Until she found real community in sobriety
An addiction-driven feeling of being loved adds to our understanding of why opioid overdose deaths soared 30% last year. When we say taking opioids can feel like love, what does...
First Person: Activist Tiana Caldwell on finding strength in the face of eviction
"I fought, I didn't just lay down. It makes you feel like you are not powerless."
First Person: A pastor reflects on how politics divide his congregation
"We have failed across the board in this country to help people in our congregations understand what it means to be Christian."
First Person: How climate change shapes the community of Kivalina, Alaska
Colleen Swan and the members of the indigenous Iñupiat community who live on Kivalina, climate change isn't a remote abstraction. It's an emergency that's threatening their lives now.