Barbara Van Woerkom

Barbara Van Woerkom is a researcher and producer with the Investigations team. She is a master at digging up documents, finding obscure people and answering all manner of research questions. Van Woerkom has been a part of several award-winning series, including "Guilty and Charged," which focused on excessive fees in the criminal justice system that target the poor; "Lost Mothers," an examination of the maternal mortality crisis in America; and "Abused and Betrayed," which brought to light the high rate of sexual assault on people with intellectual disabilities. She also won a Peabody Award for a series on soldiers who were deliberately exposed to mustard gas by the U.S. military during World War II, locating hundreds more affected veterans than the Department of Veterans Affairs was able to find.

Van Woerkom began as a news research librarian at NPR, helping reporters, producers, and editors across all desks and divisions track down information. She got her start at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, where she worked with national and international journalists based in the DC bureaus.

Trump's airbrushed version of Jan. 6 distorts history. See the evidence for yourself

Tom Dreisbach, Barbara Van Woerkom, Connie Hanzhang Jin, Sanidhya Sharma, Emily Bogle, Barrie Hardymon, Alyson Hurt

NPR's Jan. 6 archive brings together reporting, video, documents and testimony to show what really happened during the Capitol riot. Explore the timeline, cases and evidence behind the attack.
Trump gave pardons to hundreds of violent Jan. 6 rioters. Here's what they did

Carrie Johnson, Tom Dreisbach, Ari Shapiro, Barbara Van Woerkom

On his first day in the White House, President Donald Trump gave commutations and pardons to every defendant charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Many assaulted police.
Former police chief turned yoga teacher sentenced to 11 years over Jan. 6 riot

Tom Dreisbach, Barbara Van Woerkom

A retired police chief, who led pro-Trump protests and called for "traitors" in government to be "executed as an example," was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his role in the U.S. Capitol riot.
5 takeaways from the Capitol riot criminal cases, one year later

Tom Dreisbach, Meg Anderson, Barbara Van Woerkom

NPR has been tracking every criminal case related to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. One year after the riot, here are some of the key patterns that have emerged from the cases.
The Jan. 6 attack: The cases behind the biggest criminal investigation in U.S. history

Dina Temple-Raston, NPR Staff, Tom Dreisbach, Monika Evstatieva, Arezou Rezvani, Meg Anderson, Connie Hanzhang Jin, Barbara Van Woerkom, Austin Fast

More than 1,570 people have been federally charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. NPR tracked each case from the initial charges through sentencing.
Despite Early Warnings, U.S. Took Months To Expand Swab Production For COVID-19 Test

Meg Anderson, Sacha Pfeiffer, Barbara Van Woerkom

Widespread testing for COVID-19 is still not happening in the U.S. Although experts have been urging the federal government since February, it took until late April to ramp up production.
Small Business Rescue Earned Banks $10 Billion In Fees

Laura Sullivan, Graham Smith, Meg Anderson, Sacha Pfeiffer, Cheryl W. Thompson, Barbara Van Woerkom

Banks handling the federal government's loan program for small businesses made more than $10 billion in fees, while thousands of small businesses were shut out of the program.