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

Illustration of a sheet of paper with many holes punched out of it.

Let’s teach neuroscientists how to be thoughtful and fair reviewers

Blanco-Suárez revamped the traditional journal club by developing a course in which students peer review preprints alongside the published papers that evolved from them.

By Elena Blanco-Suárez
6 March 2026 | 6 min read
Megaphone with many different shapes and textures emanating from it.

New autism committee positions itself as science-backed alternative to government group

The Independent Autism Coordinating Committee plans to meet at the same time as the U.S. federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee later this month—and offer its own research agenda.

By Angie Voyles Askham
5 March 2026 | 5 min read
Patrik Ernfors and David Ginty.

Two neurobiologists win 2026 Brain Prize for discovering mechanics of touch

Research by Patrik Ernfors and David Ginty has delineated the diverse cell types of the somatosensory system and revealed how they detect and discriminate among different types of tactile information.

By Helena Kudiabor
5 March 2026 | 4 min read

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