Maura Barrett has ten years of network news experience; her reel highlights her work in the field and in studio, covering breaking news and her enterprise reporting.
Coral reefs are critical for fisheries, tourism, protecting against coastal erosion — and they help develop life-saving treatments for leukemia. As warm water temperatures and toxic algae take their toll on the reefs, researchers in Puerto Rico are diving in and using young diadema sea urchins to save the vital resource. Maura Barrett reports for TODAY.
More than a third of trans youth live in states that have passed bans on gender affirming care, according to the Human Rights Campaign. We traveled to Missouri to learn how these bans are affecting one family: stockpiling medication, planning to drive 10 hours round trip to get care, & making adjustments for the mental health of the entire family.
Overdose deaths associated with fentanyl have surpassed those due to heroin or other opioids. In 2022, the DEA seized 50.6 million fentanyl-laced pills masquerading as regulated prescription pills like Xanax or oxycodone — so often times, people don’t even know what they’re taking contains fentanyl. But there isn’t a federal mandate that emergency rooms test specifically for fentanyl.
Maura Barrett goes off-roading with the team working on the largest dam removal project in the Klamath River on the California-Oregon border. A national push to "rewild" looks to restore natural environments that might help mitigate the effects of climate change.
Over summer break in 2023, angry people concerned about the “gay agenda” and gender ideology packed school board meetings, including many in California. Maura Barrett digs into how national groups are elevating school board candidates and policies, while local groups of parents attempt to push back.
It’s no secret that wildfire season isn’t just a season anymore: the threat is year round, as conditions are increasingly drier from warm temperatures & lack of rain and intense winds. It’s sparking demand for new solutions; for the Today Show, Maura Barrett traveled to Colorado where a former Hollywood special effects coordinator is adapting innovation from movie sets to help fight & prevent fires.
A theory known as pronatalism claims to want couples to have more babies to fight falling birth rates and has seen support from people like billionaire Elon Musk. But the idea also faces controversy with some critics saying the movement only wants certain kinds of babies. Maura Barrett met with a couple who follows the theory.