First Hosts

Bill Cook

Reporter and Co-host of WHYY’s news magazine show, “First.” For more than a year he was Dover Bureau Chief for WHYY’s nightly newscast, “Delaware Tonight.”

As a broadcaster, Cook has reported stories for CNN and FOX News. He started his career as a Reporter/Anchor for WAGM-TV in Presque Isle before working as a reporter in Bangor, Maine. He covered the Oklahoma City bombing trial as a reporter for KWTV in Oklahoma City before working as a reporter with WOFL, FOX 35 News in Orlando, Florida.

Bill has also written extensively for various newspapers and magazines. Since moving to Delaware, the Philadelphia native has enjoyed introducing cheesesteaks and scrapple into the lives of his wife, Jessica, and two kids, Emily and Brendan. The Cooks live in Dover.

Mark Eichmann
Mark has been covering news in Delaware for ten years. After starting as a general assignment reporter for WILM News Radio in 2000, Mark worked his way up to Legislative Correspodent, Managing Editor, and eventually News Director.  He joined WHYY in 2008.  Over the last ten years, Mark has interviewed national political figures including Howard Dean and Wesley Clark, as well as sports legends like NASCAR’s Jeff Gordon, baseball’s iron man Cal Ripken, and Broad Street Bully Bob “the Hound” Kelly.  He lives with his wife (and high school sweetheart) Ivy and two sons, Drew and Landon.

Maiken Scott

Maiken Scott is WHYY’s Behavioral Health Reporter and covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from new treatments for depression to the impact of foster care on children to the portrayal of mental illness in pop culture. Maiken started working at WHYY in 1997. Her first job with WHYY was as producer for the weekly mental health programVoices in the Family with Dr. Dan Gottlieb. She still serves as the executive producer for the show. Some of the most memorable shows Dan and Maiken produced together featured interviews with actor Christopher Reeve, mathematician Dr. John Nash, and Mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn. Maiken has also produced and hosted several award-winning radio documentaries for WHYY; Growing up Big, In The Shadow of 9/11, Healing Healthcare, and Childhood Lost and Found for which she was honored with the prestigious Gracie Allen Award.

Taunya English

Taunya’s stories come from across the Philadelphia region. She also reports on health and energy policy from the Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa.

Before joining WHYY, Taunya was interim Bureau Chief for Public Radio Capitol News, the statehouse news service in Harrisburg, Pa.

For three years, Taunya worked as a freelance health reporter for Baltimore’s NPR affiliate, WYPR. Her stories gave attention to farmers in rural Maryland, working homeless people in Aberdeen and lay health workers in the Washington, D.C. suburbs. Taunya has also worked a newspaper reporter in Northern California and as a science writer in Washington, DC. She earned her graduate degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Kerry Grens

Kerry Grens is the senior health and science reporter at WHYY. Her stories span the beat, from the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals in goats to the role of fire in the New Jersey pine barrens to the culling of community hospitals. Kerry has been reporting for WHYY since February, 2008. She moved to Philadelphia in 2006, when she joined The Scientist as a staff writer. For more than a year the magazine sent Kerry on reporting trips around the country to write about discoveries in the life sciences. Her return to radio was a return to her first love. Kerry started in journalism through a AAAS science writing fellowship at KUNC, an NPR affiliate in Greeley, Colorado. Following that she spent two years as New Hampshire Public Radio’s health and science reporter. Kerry has a masters degree in biological sciences from Stanford University, where she did research in neuroscience, and a bachelors in biology from Loyola University Chicago. Kerry’s stories appear on WHYY-FM during Morning Edition and All Things Considered and on WHYY-TV during First.