Allan Coukell's Bio

Allan Coukell came to radio in 1998 as the founding producer and host of Radio New Zealand's weekly Eureka! science program. Before "he found it", Allan studied pharmacy in Canada and worked in print, dashing off such light fare as "Polyethylene glycol-liposomal doxorubicin: a review of its pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties and therapeutic efficacy".

A little more trippingly-off-the-tongue, Eureka! made use of everything from studio interviews to highly-produced documentaries. During his four years with the program, Allan won awards for science and medical reporting, documentary work, and hosting.

While with Radio New Zealand, Allan became "mildly obsessed" with the European and Australian "acoustic feature" tradition -- a sonically rich, but often narratively oblique approach to radio. And indeed he has an ear for featuring acoustics -- his "Hungry for Justice, a refugee chronology" was judged best feature documentary in New Zealand last year, and his "Grey Ghost" was a finalist at the most recent Third Coast International Audio Festival.

And speaking internationally, besides Radio New Zealand, Allan has contributed to the BBC World Service, BBC Radio Four, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Radio Netherlands International. On this nation's public radio waves, his work has aired on Soundprint, Living on Earth, Pulse of the Planet, and The Weather Notebook. His print articles and features have appeared in The New York Times, The Economist, and New Scientist magazine. And recently he served as the narrator for a series of four documentaries broadcast on Discovery.com's "Health" cable television channel.

Allan has worked as a news and current affairs producer in both New Zealand and the US. He moved to Boston last June and recently began working for Here and Now, a nationally-syndicated midday news magazine produced by WBUR.

Audio
  Antarctica: the base [excerpt] (03.29). Download: MP3 [2.3mb]