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Erika Beras

Erika Beras is an award-winning journalist based in Pittsburgh. She’s a regular contributor to public radio programs and Scientific American podcasts as well as other networks and shows. She was previously a reporter at WESA and The Miami Herald.

A woman sits on sofa across from man and woman, who each hold infants in their arms. Papers on the table.

Residents fled gun violence at a Pittsburgh public housing project. But refugees are still moving in.

Conflict

Former residents of Northview Heights in Pittsburgh remember marching bands and days at the recreation center. But that was before shootings and drugs became commonplace for some 1,600 residents of the public housing project.

Monica Ruiz and her foster son Bartolo

It took a health emergency for this Guatemalan boy, who crossed the border alone, to see a US judge

Global Politics
Residents of Oberwil-Lieli outside Zurich, Switzerland

A Swiss town is divided over whether to take in refugees

Global Politics
The Hill District is the largely green area visible above downtown Pittsburgh in this aerial photo.

How Pittsburgh remembers a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright

Arts
Pradip Upreti

Refugee-run grocery stores help bring healthy fare to a food desert in Pennyslvania

Food
Marta Sam

Refugees in Pennsylvania keep musical traditions alive with kids’ songs

Culture

A folklorist at the Erie Art Museum dreamed up the idea: Helping refugees gain work skills while working with them to preserve their songs.

Heidy and Gregoria prepare dinner, rice and eggs

As Cuban migration surges, a woman in Pittsburgh offers shelter to her compatriots

Global Politics

When we think of Cuban exiles we think of Miami, but new Cuban migrants are looking elsewhere for work and housing. In Pittsburgh, one Cuban woman opened her house to more recent arrivals to help them get settled.

Several young people wearing gloves and helmets work in a park, one digs with a shovel

For these families in Pittsburgh, teens’ summer jobs make more than just pocket money

Finance

It’s not a new phenomenon for young people to work summer jobs to make money and gain skills. For children who came to the US as refugees, there’s a bit more at stake though. These families get three months of assistance when they arrive — and then they’re mostly on their own.It’s not a new phenomenon for young people to work summer jobs to make money and gain skills. For children who came to the US as refugees, there’s a bit more at stake though. These families get three months of assistance when they arrive — and then they’re mostly on their own.

Burundi

How a choir in Pittsburgh keeps hope for Burundi alive

Music

As violence escalates back in their home country, Burundians in Pittsburgh keep up a tradition of prayer and song born in refugee camps

10 Questions for Allen Bard, Father of Modern Electrochemistry

Long-time chemist Allen Bard doesn’t aspire to become a household name; he cares more about mentoring young scientists. But fame has found him anyway—some scientists might know him as the father of modern electrochemistry. A half-century ago, Bard pioneered research in electrogenerated chemiluminescence (also called electrochemiluminescence), a process that harnesses the energetic transfer of electrons […]