Nicholette Zeliadt manages The Transmitters’s staff reporters and interns, and she commissions and edits news articles. She joined The Transmitter as news writer in 2014. Before that, she was a freelance writer and editor. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Scientific American, Nature Medicine, Science and The Scientist.

Education

  • Ph.D. in environmental health, University of Minnesota
  • B.A. in biochemistry, University of Iowa

Fellowships

  • AAAS Mass Media Fellowship

Explore more from The Transmitter

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.

By Calli McMurray
23 October 2026 | 8 min read
A crow looking at a screen showing a circle of white dots on a black background.

Crows have brains ‘in the fast lane’

The birds accurately complete decision-making tasks twice as fast as primates, although their endbrains look considerably different.

By Sarah Thau
22 October 2026 | 4 min read
A boy manipulates blocks at a table while sitting across from a woman taking notes.

Prevalence of profound autism declines with new definition

The updated, more precise definition used in a CDC study includes adaptive scores.

By Brianna Abbott
22 October 2026 | 5 min read