Usha Lee McFarling

Usha Lee McFarling is a national science correspondent covering health disparities and the intersection of race with science and medicine for STAT, which produces trusted and authoritative journalism about health, medicine, and the life sciences.

In 2023, McFarling featured work by UCLA Center for Health Policy Research director Ninez Ponce in a deeply reported story about Asian American health disparities, and earlier this year she was awarded the Victor Cohn prize for excellence in medical science reporting and the Bernard Lo, MD award in bioethics.

She previously reported for the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, and the San Antonio Light, where she covered killer bees, bat rabies outbreaks, and cases of leprosy linked to armadillo taxidermy. 

Her work on the diseased state of the world's oceans earned the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism and her coverage of health disparities has earned an Edward R. Murrow award, and awards from the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association.

“Without careful disaggregated data like Ninez and her team collect and analyze, my reporting on these topics wouldn't be possible,” says McFarling. “I'll add that these stories received hundreds of thousands of views and won numerous journalism awards, so the data was able to be shared widely to a large audience who might not have been aware how deep and long standing these disparities are.”