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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Host Tom Hall had some parting reflections as he brought today's final edition of Midday to a close. -
City Council President Zeke Cohen joins host Tom Hall on this final edition of Midday to talk about some key city issues, including a ban on data centers, proliferating smoke shops and a welcome hike in salaries for city employees. -
Each week here on Midday, it has been our practice to read the names of the people who have lost their lives to violence in Baltimore City. -
Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott joins Tom in Studio A for the final edition of Midday with the Mayor, their monthly conversations about key issues facing City Hall and the people of Baltimore. -
Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, in her last Midday review, spotlights Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, the final production of retiring Everyman Theatre founder, Vincent Lancisi. -
Midday at the Movies dives into next week’s 2026 Maryland Film Festival, which will showcase more than 170 independent features and shorts. -
Kim Wehle, University of Baltimore Law professor and constitutional expert, joins Tom to analyze today's arguments at the Supreme Court over President Trump's challenge to birthright citizenship. -
Baltimore Public Media’s Program Director, Maxie Jackson, joins Tom to discuss Midday’s cancellation April 2nd, and new programs to come at WYPR. -
Sharon Mashihi, the daughter of Jewish Iranian immigrants to the US, talks with Tom about exploring the diaspora’s conflicted wartime emotions — in her podcast and in her own life. -
Aaron David Miller, Mideast policy analyst and Senior Fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, joins Tom to discuss what an end to the US-Israeli war on Iran might look like.
