Christine Herman

Side effects public media

Christine Herman is a Ph.D. chemist turned audio journalist. Her reporting has received awards from the Illinois Associated Press Broadcasters Association and has aired on national programs including All Things Considered and Here & Now. Christine is a mother of three and aspiring aerial artist. She’s a recipient of the 2018-2019 Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism and has been working at Illinois Public Media since 2015.

From this contributor

Spectrum

By Christine Herman

11 January 2019

11 min read

Mom Toni Hoy with ah photograph of her adopted son.

Parents forced to trade custody for children’s mental-health care

Each year, dozens of families in Illinois give up custody of their children to help them get mental-health services.

Spectrum

Parents forced to trade custody for children’s mental-health care

By Christine Herman

11 January 2019 | 11 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Neuro’s ark

By Calli McMurray

30 September 2026

7 min read

Illustration of pipa frog showing nerves in fingertips.

How the pipa frog hunts prey by touch

Each of the frog’s eight fingers branches into 16 ultra-sensitive tips, which together function as a fovea—potentially the first demonstration of this type of sensory structure outside of mammals.

Neuro’s ark