Rob Sivak
Interim senior producer, MiddayRob Sivak was Midday's senior producer from 2016-2023. In August, 2025, he was called out of retirement to assist the Midday team during Baltimore Public Media's search for a new executive producer.
Rob first joined WYPR in 2015 as senior producer of Midday host Tom Hall's previous show, Maryland Morning, which aired its final broadcast in September, 2016.
Before coming to WYPR, 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 Washington DC, New York City, United Nations and Los Angeles bureaus, Rob spent two decades covering global food, farming and nutrition issues for VOA's then-360-million-strong worldwide audience, and created and hosted several popular VOA science shows. At WYPR, he continued to pursue his passion for radio and his abiding interests in science, public health, technology and politics.
Rob grew up as an ex-pat "oil brat" in Dhahran, 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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The Banner's criminal justice reporter Ben Conark talks with WYPR's Scott Maucione about efforts to block the opening of a DHS immigrant detention center near Williamsport. -
Healthcare journalist Dan Gorenstein and REACH Health Services' medical director Dr. Malik Burnett discuss the unique treatment options for opioid-addicted seniors. -
Midday theatre critic J. Wynn Rousuck reviews "Really Quite a Lot of Mechanisms," a darkly satirical puppet show at Baltimore's Theatre Project. -
Conductor Eun Sun Kim joins us to talk about her twin concerts this week, leading the BSO on “A Hero’s Journey” of music by Strauss and Schumann. -
Vincent Lancisi launched Everyman Theatre in October 1990. He talks with Tom about why he’s retiring in June and the legacy he has built for theater arts in Baltimore. -
Josh Panepento and Trevor Gomes, students at UMd's Povich Center for Sports Journalism, discuss their new documentary about the history of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. -
Transportation Security officer Robert Williams describes the challenges at Baltimore's busy BWI airport, where a TSA workforce has gone a month without pay. -
Each week here on Midday, it is our practice to read the names of the people who have lost their lives to violence in Baltimore City. -
WYPR reporter Wambui Kamau, who has covered the Key Bridge story, updates us on rebuilding plans and efforts to support families and communities hurt by the collapse. -
"On the Record" author Anna Harwell Celenza joins Tom to discuss the songs that have been social and political catalysts throughout American history.
