Headshot of Kat McGowan.

Kat McGowan

Contributing Editor
The Transmitter

Kat McGowan is a freelance writer and editor based in the Bay Area. She edits Deep Dive articles for The Transmitter.

Previously a special projects editor at Discover magazine and a senior editor at Psychology Today, she writes for a range of digital and  print publications, most recently Wired, Nautilus, Aeon, Genome and Slate. She writes about neuroscience, genetics, psychology and other ideas about who we are as people and as a species. Her Discover cover story about the failures of memory, “Out of the Past,” was selected for “Best American Science and Nature Writing” in 2010.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Piggy bank with blindfold.

Future remains uncertain for U.S. federal funding of behavioral, cognitive science

The National Science Foundation did not include any solicitations for its social, behavioral and economic sciences directorate in its latest round of funding opportunities, nor replace any outgoing program officers—which poses an existential threat for the program, says nonprofit executive Wendy Naus.

By Calli McMurray
26 August 2026 | 5 min read

How energy determines where proteins are produced in neurons

Tatjana Tchumatchenko explains how mathematical modeling elucidates whether ion-channel proteins are produced locally in the soma or in the dendrites.

By Gaute Einevoll
26 August 2026 | 104 min listen
A brown mouse between a red cube and blue cylinder looks curiously at the top of the cylinder, standing on hind legs.

Wouldn’t you like to know? A mouse would

Mice seek information for curiosity’s sake—and their desire for knowledge versus a payout is represented distinctly in the brain, new findings suggest.

By Sarah Thau
26 August 2026 | 5 min read