Rob Sivak
Contributing producer, MiddayRob Sivak is a contributing producer for Midday, with host Tom Hall. Recently retired after a seven-year stint as Midday's senior producer, Rob joined WYPR in 2015 as senior producer of Hall's previous show, Maryland Morning (which aired its final broadcast on September 16th, 2016). Before coming to the station, Rob enjoyed a 36-year career at the congressionally funded global broadcaster, Voice of America. At VOA, he honed his skills as a news and feature reporter, producer, editor and program host.
After reporting assignments at VOA's New York City, United Nations and Los Angeles bureaus, Rob spent two decades covering international food, farming and nutrition issues for VOA's 180-million worldwide listeners, and created and hosted several popular VOA science magazines. At Midday, he continued to pursue his passion for radio and his abiding interests in science, health, technology and politics.
Rob grew up as an ex-pat "oil brat" on the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia, and studied and traveled widely in the Middle East, Europe and Africa. He attended Hofstra University in New York and Boston University's School of Public Communications. Rob and his wife Caroline Barnes, a writer, live in Silver Spring, Maryland, where they've raised three daughters.
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Playwright Jonathan Jensen and composer Rich Espey talk about their musical salute to the city's colorful former mayor. -
Baltimore's Rec and Parks Chief talks about what $41 Million in American Rescue funds could mean for the city's aging recreational facilities and parklands. -
The city's top cop discusses the investigation into last Thursday's fatal shooting of Timothy Reynolds, and the arrest of a 15-year-old suspect. -
Theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck gives us the lowdown on the Broadway musical version of Mean Girls that's now touring the country. -
The president of Coppin State U. discusses his priorities, after two years on the job, for the vaunted Baltimore HBCU institution. -
In a frank new memoir, the author and journalist reckons with a family legacy of slave ownership, and a life of white privelege. -
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott joins Tom for another in our monthly series of conversations about key issues facing the people of Baltimore. -
Deputy Mayor Faith Leach and Dr. Andrey Bundley, director of the Mayor's Office of African American Male Engagement, discuss efforts to help the city's young males find positive work alternatives. And we invite listeners to share their perspectives. -
The head of the Catholic New Ways Ministry talks about his group's advocacy for LGBTQ people, and his new biography of Father Mychal Judge, a renowned gay Franciscan and 9/11 martyr. -
The first transgender woman in the Baltimore mayor's cabinet join us to describe how the city plans to advocate for LGBTQ people.
