Laura Sanders

About

I'm a senior writer covering neuroscience for Science News. I wrote Growth Curve, a blog about the science of raising kids, from 2013 to 2019 and continue to write about child development and parenting from time to time. I earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where I studied the nerve cells that compel a fruit fly to perform a dazzling mating dance. Convinced that I was missing some exciting science somewhere, I turned my eye toward writing about brains in all shapes and forms. I hold undergraduate degrees in creative writing and biology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where I was a National Merit Scholar. Growth Curve, my 2012 series on consciousness and my 2013 article on the dearth of psychiatric drugs have received awards recognizing editorial excellence.