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In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer • Episode 315 • Melanie D.G. Kaplan

Frank Schaeffer In Conversation with freelance journalist Melanie D.G. Kaplan exploring her life and work covering travel, science, and animals.


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Melanie D.G. Kaplan is a long-time freelance journalist who covers travel, science and animals. She has written more than 100 travel stories for The Washington Post and has also contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, People and National Parks. She is a 2021–22 MIT Knight Science Journalism Project Fellow and 2022 Vermont Law School Media Fellow. 

As a third-generation Washingtonian, Melanie loves biking and paddling around the nation’s capital, but she also really digs a good road trip. She began driving cross-country in 2007, with her beagle Darwin. She and her beagle Hammy—who spent the first four years of his life in a research lab—have made that coast-to-coast trip several times, visiting almost all of the lower 48. When they're not on the road, they live in an 11-foot-wide house in Washington, D.C.