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Robert Benincasa

Robert Benincasa is a computer-assisted reporting producer in NPR's Investigations Unit.

Since joining NPR in 2008, Benincasa has been reporting on NPR Investigations stories, analyzing data for investigations, and developing data visualizations and interactive applications for NPR.org. He has worked on numerous groundbreaking stories, including data-driven investigations of the inequities of federal disaster aid and coal miners' exposures to deadly silica dust.

Prior to NPR, Benincasa served as the database editor for the Gannett News Service Washington Bureau for a decade.

Benincasa's work at NPR has been recognized by many of journalism's top honors. In 2014, he was part of a team that won an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award, and he shared Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards with Investigations Unit colleagues in 2016 and 2011.

Also in 2011, he received numerous accolades for his contributions to several investigative stories, including an Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, an Investigative Reporters & Editors Radio Award, the White House News Photographers Association's Eyes of History Award for multimedia innovation, and George Polk and George Foster Peabody awards.

Benincasa served on the faculty of Georgetown University's Master of Professional Studies program in journalism from 2008 to 2016.

  • Brooklyn Fisher rolls down the ramp on the playground named for her in Pocatello, Idaho. The playground was built using accessible features so children of all abilities could play alongside each other.
    For Kids With Special Needs, More Places To Play
    Robert Benincasa
    Parent advocates and a new federal law making accessible play areas a civil right are changing the landscape for public playgrounds.
  • An evening view of the Exxon Mobil oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Baton Rouge, La.
    Baton Rouge's Corroded, Overpolluting Neighbor: Exxon Mobil
    Elizabeth Shogren
    The Standard Heights neighborhood sits next to the nation's second-largest gasoline refinery. Recently, residents learned a new truth about the plumes of exhaust they see every day: Exxon Mobil's aging refinery and petrochemical facilities — like many others — are pumping out far more pollution than the law allows.
  • Ketchum Marsh, a high school senior from Massachusetts, walks back to the dugout during a May 21 intrasquad game at IMG Baseball Academy in Bradenton, Fla., where he trains and goes to school.
    A Baseball School For Big League Dreamers
    Robert Benincasa
    For more than a century, countless Americans have dreamed of playing Major League Baseball. Few ever make it, but there is a place in Bradenton, Fla., that nurtures those dreams. IMG Academies takes students as young as 11 and mixes intense baseball training with an academic education.
  • A currency template is used to check that security features, such as a watermark of Andrew Jackson's image, are in the right place.
    Where Dollars Are Born
    Robert Benincasa
    A behind-the-scenes tour of the factory where paper for U.S. currency has been made since 1879.
  • Should We Kill The Dollar Bill?
    Robert Benincasa
    Last month, a Washington, D.C. subway station was plastered with posters of giant dollar bills. One of them said: "Tell Congress to stop wasting time trying to eliminate the dollar bill." The $70,000 ad blitz was part of a small lobbying war over the fate of the dollar bill.
  • Dollar coins gathering dust in the Fed's Baltimore brach.
    White House Kills Dollar Coin Program
    Robert Benincasa
    More than 1 billion coins are sitting unwanted in government vaults. Ending the program will save an estimated $50 million a year.
  • Interactive: 2012 Campaign Cash, Week By Week
    Peter Overby
    An NPR analysis of contributions week by week found that itemized contributions to Texas Gov. Rick Perry dropped 60 percent during the week following his first appearance in a GOP presidential debate, on Sept. 7. That same week, Romney's itemized contributions went up 50 percent. Compare the candidates' weekly fundraising totals in an interactive graphic.
  • Study: Traffic Incidents Top Cause Of Police Deaths
    Robert Benincasa
    Of the 116 police officers who were killed last year, 51 died in traffic incidents, the largest cause of death for the last 12 years, according to data. Guns, meanwhile, killed 49 officers.
  • Basil Rynestead, 17, sits in the driver's seat of his Toyota pickup truck. New federal government numbers confirm that male drivers are still having twice as many fatal crashes as females. And the boys are more likely than the girls to have been speeding or drinking.
    Teenage Boys More Likely To Be In Fatal Car Crashes
    Robert Benincasa
    The number of teenage drivers involved in fatal car crashes has dropped dramatically in the past decade. But in those wrecks, male drivers still outnumber females by more than 2 to 1. For Basil Rynestead of Fauquier County, Va., it's a battle against peer pressure and inexperience to stay safe on the road.
  • Basil Rynestead, 17, sits in the driver's seat of his Toyota pickup truck. New federal government numbers confirm that male drivers are still having twice as many fatal crashes as females. And the boys are more likely than the girls to have been speeding or drinking.
    Teenage Boys More Likely To Be In Fatal Car Crashes
    Robert Benincasa
    The number of teenage drivers involved in fatal car crashes has dropped dramatically in the past decade. But in those wrecks, male drivers still outnumber females by more than 2 to 1. For Basil Rynestead of Fauquier County, Va., it's a battle against peer pressure and inexperience to stay safe on the road.