Health Reporting
Heather has a master’s degree in science journalism from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Graduate Program in Science Writing.
She worked at The Frederick News-Post, where Heather led coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Heather also wrote about recently published journal articles, taking national and international studies and finding a local angle. She completed the Association of Health Care Journalist’s National Cancer Reporting Fellowship.
Heather also writes about neuroscience, aiming to make it more understandable and accessible to the public through her reporting. She also previously covered PCBs, PFAS and psychological effects of natural disasters.
She studied psychology while at American University, where she focused on abnormal psychology, specifically schizophrenia. During her time at AU, she helped with research on language and the autism spectrum scale, as well as conducted her own research on stigma against people with bipolar disorder as part of a class.
Majority of Frederick County’s COVID-19 cases clustered in four ZIP codes
The majority of COVID-19 cases in Frederick County can be found in five ZIP codes. The ZIP codes making up...
Read More
State, county COVID-19 numbers often in dispute
The Frederick County Health Department reported its 100th death from COVID-19 Friday afternoon. But those looking at the statistics released...
Read More
Not everyone works from home: How COVID-19 has added extra stress to essential workers
In one way, Alasdair and Jill Storer consider themselves lucky. Their two children, Evie and William, are old enough to...
Read More
‘CHALLENGING. GUT WRENCHING. FRUSTRATING’
Health care workers describe life during COVID-19 For health care workers, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed daily life. Work requires...
Read More
May 13, 2020 / COVID-19, The Frederick News-Post
Majority of Frederick County COVID-19 deaths from long-term care facilities
About 85 percent of Frederick County’s deaths from COVID-19 are residents of nursing homes, according to newly released data. Frederick...
Read More
May 11, 2020 / COVID-19, The Frederick News-Post
Losing a loved one from COVID-19 without a final goodbye
The phone rang at 5:30 a.m. When Dawn Zimmerman picked up, a nurse at Frederick Health and Rehabilitation Hospital was...
Read More
May 8, 2020 / COVID-19, The Frederick News-Post
Front-line moms: Balancing family and the dangers at work during COVID-19
reported with Jeremy Arias and Erika Riley This Mother’s Day, many moms across the world are working on the front...
Read More
The unknown: How the Maryland Department of Health’s transparency differs by disease
Since announcing the first cases of COVID-19 in Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration has touted its transparency, going as far...
Read More
As Trump, China trade barbs, a Fort Detrick laboratory finds itself in the middle
Where the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 first originated is a question on many minds, from officials in the United...
Read More
High number of COVID-19 cases at nursing homes leads to universal testing
There are 11 long-term care facilities in Frederick County reporting cases of COVID-19, including some with multiple deaths from the...
Read More
The unknown: How the Maryland Department of Health’s transparency differs by disease
Since announcing the first cases of COVID-19 in Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration has touted its transparency, going as far...
Read More
May 23, 2019 / Science reporting, The Frederick News-Post
Scientists grapple with monitoring water contaminants too small to detect
By Samantha Hogan and Heather Mongilio There are tens of thousands of potential chemicals in U.S. waters, and — despite...
Read More
March 5, 2019 / Brain Science, Domestic Violence, Health reporting, Science reporting, The Frederick News-Post
New study suggests intergenerational effect of witnessing intimate partner violence in childhood
Witnessing intimate-partner violence as a child may have an intergenerational effect, a new article in journal Stress suggests. A set of four...
Read More
Frederick company to expand on Fort Detrick fish biomonitoring system
Terry Collins, cofounder and CEO of Blue Sources, was at a tech transfer in 2014 when a device caught his...
Read More
Study: Opioids factored into 16 fatal crashes in Frederick County over 10-year period
By Heather Mongilio and Jeremy Arias As opioid-related deaths continue to soar in Frederick County and across the state, the...
Read More
Brain repository sits an hour from Frederick
One of the largest repositories of brains sits approximately an hour away from Frederick. Located on the Johns Hopkins University...
Read More
Frederick National Laboratory, Duke partner to fight brain cancer
It took at least 10 years for the poliovirus PVSPIRO, first created by Dr. Matthias Gromeier, of Duke, to be...
Read More
USAMRIID study finds hemorrhagic fever disease persists in monkeys
A new study out of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases offered insight on how filoviruses, a...
Read More
July 30, 2018 / Environmental Health News, Science reporting
Bringing back natural water filters in Maryland and beyond
Maryland is the latest state to take steps toward bringing back freshwater mussels ELLICOTT CITY, Md.—Under the waters of the...
Read More
Fishermen disregard New Bedford Harbor’s lingering toxic past
Officials keep dredging up PCBs and posting signs at New Bedford Harbor—but studies suggest anglers are eating too much of...
Read More