Natalia Mesa

Reporter
The Transmitter

Natalia Mesa is a reporter for The Transmitter, covering funding trends, neurogenetics and neural coding. Before joining The Transmitter in 2025, she was a fellow at High Country News and freelanced for National Geographic, Science, The Scientist and elsewhere.

From this contributor

Systems neuroscience

Finding neuroheterogeneity’s sweet spot

By Natalia Mesa

20 October 2026 | 7 min read

Headshots of Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel.

Optogenetics

How Nobel Prize-winning optogenetics has revolutionized neuroscience

By Claudia López Lloreda, Calli McMurray, Natalia Mesa, Madeline Shaw

5 October 2026 | 11 min read

The State of Neuroscience in Latin America

Revealing how crabs make their escape

By Natalia Mesa

28 August 2026 | 0 min watch

The State of Neuroscience in Latin America

Discovering how butterflies choose their mate

By Natalia Mesa

28 August 2026 | 0 min watch

Scientists with giant animals: Frog, butterfly, electric fish and a bird.

The State of Neuroscience in Latin America

La biodiversidad de Latinoamérica impulsa avances en comportamiento social y cognición

By Natalia Mesa

28 August 2026 | 2 min read

Education

Ph.D. in neuroscience, University of Washington
B.A. in biological sciences, Cornell University

Explore more from The Transmitter

Evolution

By Calli McMurray

23 October 2026

8 min read

Barbara Finlay looking at a glass jar with a brain.

Remembering Barbara Finlay, ‘maverick’ of evolutionary neuroscience

Finlay, who died on 12 September, championed the idea that developmental constraints dictate how evolution sculpts brains, a concept she used to model the timing of hundreds of events and align them across mammalian species.

Evolution