Grace Huckins

Former news intern
Spectrum

Grace Huckins is a former editorial intern at Spectrum. Her writing has been published in Scientific American, Wired and Popular Science. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience at Stanford University in California, where she builds computer models of brain dynamics. In 2020, she was the AAAS Mass Media Fellow at Wired. She previously studied at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom as a Rhodes scholar.

From this contributor

Spectrum

By Grace Huckins

5 December 2024

5 min read

Extra Y chromosomes are linked to autism

Data from people with more or fewer than two sex chromosomes could help answer questions around genetic protection and vulnerability.

Spectrum

Extra Y chromosomes are linked to autism

By Grace Huckins

5 December 2024 | 5 min read

Modeling

By Grace Huckins

29 November 2022

13 min read

Helen Willsey in her lab at the University of California, San Francisco.

How Helen Willsey broke new ground, frogs in hand

A young researcher faces down the skeptics.

Modeling

How Helen Willsey broke new ground, frogs in hand

By Grace Huckins

29 November 2022 | 13 min read

Spectrum

By Grace Huckins

11 February 2022

11 min read

Conceptual illustration of female brain versus male brain.

Searching for the biology behind autism’s sex bias

The fact that autism seems to affect more boys than girls is often attributed to diagnostic gaps, but the skew remains largely unexplained. Some scientists are turning to basic biology for answers.

Spectrum

Searching for the biology behind autism’s sex bias

By Grace Huckins

11 February 2022 | 11 min read

Spectrum

By Grace Huckins

12 July 2021

10 min read

Brain composed of legos with various legos scattered around

Patchwork mutations present a new frontier for autism research

Mosaic mutations, which affect only some of the body’s cells, play a small but meaningful role in autism. Though they are difficult to study, researchers are working to master their complexity.