Nate Hegyi

Nate Hegyi tells complex stories about the environment and how people live with the natural world, using narrative audio reporting as host and senior producer of New Hampshire Public Radio’s podcast and radio program Outside/In. His coverage ranges from playful explorations of animals and ecosystems to investigations that connect climate, industry and government power, with a consistent focus on clear science and strong characters.

Outside/In and the natural world

At Outside/In, Hegyi leads a show built around curiosity about the environment and how people use and shape it, blending reported features, interviews and sound-rich storytelling. The program is explicitly framed as a podcast and radio show about the natural world and the impacts of climate change on different people and places, as well as the ideas driving the environmental movement. Episodes like “Outside/In: Big porpoise energy” dig into overlooked species such as porpoises, using humor and vivid description to explain metabolism, speed and life history while tying in the conservation story of the endangered vaquita. In “Outside/In: That’s so raven,” he turns a familiar bird into a lens on intelligence and perception, arguing for a more nuanced view of an animal often dismissed as a nuisance.

Across these pieces, Hegyi uses accessible narrative and tightly structured scenes to bring ecology and animal science to listeners who may not normally seek out environmental reporting.

Hegyi’s environmental coverage also encompasses human choices and consumer culture, not just wildlife and landscapes.

In “Outside/In: A Dry Hot American Summer,” he interviews author Geoff Williams about a historic heat wave that reshaped American life, using past disaster to illuminate what it means to live in a hotter world today. “Outside/In: A Righteous Gemstone” examines the environmental and ethical tradeoffs of different ways to source diamonds and other gems, weighing mined stones against lab-grown options and alternative gemstones. These episodes show him using individual decisions and historical case studies to make large-scale climate and resource issues tangible without losing scientific detail.

Investigations at the intersection of environment and power

Before joining New Hampshire Public Radio, Hegyi reported on public lands, federal agencies and tribal affairs for the Mountain West News Bureau, building a track record on policy and the people affected by it.

His broader professional bio highlights reporting trips across the country, including work on the hidden history of the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico and an investigation into shady competitive dogsledders in Alaska. This background in on-the-ground, policy-adjacent reporting feeds into his current investigative work, where environmental stories frequently intersect with law enforcement, prisons and corporate power.

“NHPR Presents: Operation Night Cat” is a multi-part series where Hegyi serves as host and lead reporter, starting with a hunting investigation and following it into potential crimes tied to New Hampshire’s State Prison for Men.

The project sits at the edge of wildlife enforcement and criminal justice, and the description makes clear that he spent a year digging into the story, suggesting sustained investigative reporting rather than a single feature. In another vein, “Outside/In: Scientists spoke up against a de-extinction company, then the smears began” traces how researchers who challenged a high-profile de-extinction firm were targeted by smear campaigns, linking scientific debate to corporate reputation management and online attacks.

These pieces show Hegyi moving beyond natural history and climate explanation into accountability reporting, where environmental questions are inseparable from institutions, private companies and the justice system.

Listener questions and live storytelling

Hegyi’s work with Outside/In includes formats designed around audience participation and live performance, which shape how he approaches topic selection and tone. The recurring Outside/Inbox series answers listener questions about the natural world, with Hegyi and the team responding every other Friday. In “Outside/Inbox: Are there any real-life zombies?”, he takes a sensational question and uses it to explore how parasitism and other biological phenomena map onto the cultural idea of zombies, bringing careful reporting to a playful hook. This strand of his work highlights his ability to translate niche scientific topics into short, approachable segments that still rest on expert sources.

Hegyi also works in live settings, as in “Outside/In: Goats, Ghosts and Roadkill (Live from Portsmouth),” where he gathers storytellers on stage to mark ten years of Outside/In.

The event celebrates the show’s blend of curiosity, the outdoors and oddball stories, with Hegyi acting as host and organizing force. Live episodes demand material that can land with an in-person audience and on air, suggesting an emphasis on vivid scenes, strong pacing and stories that balance environmental substance with entertainment.

Together, the listener-driven segments and live storytelling show that audience connection is a structural part of his work, not an add-on.

National reach and long-form audio reporting

Hegyi’s reporting extends beyond New Hampshire Public Radio, with his work airing on national and international outlets including NPR, the BBC and CBC. He is described professionally as a public radio journalist and frequent NPR contributor, underscoring that his stories are built to travel beyond a single station’s local audience. Over nearly a decade in public radio, he has received multiple national awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for a project in which he rode a bicycle hundreds of miles across several western states ahead of the 2020 election to listen to small-town America.

That project and his later work at Outside/In share a through-line: sustained reporting trips, attention to everyday voices and a willingness to frame environmental and political questions through intimate, personal narratives.

Across beats and formats, Hegyi’s distinguishing traits are his focus on the environment as lived experience, his preference for sound-rich narrative and his tendency to embed science and policy inside character-driven stories. For stories that touch climate change, wildlife management, outdoor culture or the ethics of new technologies, he is positioned to bring both explanatory depth and a strong sense of place and people.