Megan Peters

Associate professor of cognitive sciences
University of California, Irvine

Megan Peters is associate professor of cognitive sciences at the University of California, Irvine, a fellow in the Brain, Mind and Consciousness program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Her work uses behavior, advanced neuroimaging techniques and computational modeling to investigate the relationships among perception, metacognition and conscious awareness, with a focus on understanding how our brains build, evaluate and use representations of the world and of ourselves. Prior to joining the University of California, Irvine’s faculty, she was assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Riverside. She received a B.A. in cognitive science from Brown University and previously taught English in Japan before completing her Ph.D. and postdoctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her science has been continuously funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Young Investigator Award), the National Institutes of Health and private foundations, including the Templeton World Charity Foundation, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. She is also known for her role as co-founder and President of Neuromatch, an international nonprofit organization delivering democratized and accessible education in computational neuroscience and related disciplines to about 20,000 students worldwide.

From this contributor

Explore more from The Transmitter

Research image of portions of the adult dentate gyrus.

Machine learning spots neural progenitors in adult human brains

But the finding has not settled the long-standing debate over the existence and extent of neurogenesis during adulthood, says Yale University neuroscientist Juan Arellano.

By Claudia López Lloreda
3 July 2025 | 7 min listen

Xiao-Jing Wang outlines the future of theoretical neuroscience

Wang discusses why he decided the time was right for a new theoretical neuroscience textbook and how bifurcation is a key missing concept in neuroscience explanations.

By Paul Middlebrooks
2 July 2025 | 112 min listen
Overlapping speech bubbles.

Memory study sparks debate over statistical methods

Critics of a 2024 Nature paper suggest the authors failed to address the risk of false-positive findings. The authors argue more rigorous methods can result in missed leads.

By Katie Moisse
2 July 2025 | 5 min read