Sandy Keenan

Contributing Editor
Spectrum

Sandy Keenan edits Viewpoint and news articles for Spectrum. She is a New York-based journalist who has enjoyed a richly varied career — as reporter, editor and newsroom manager — with The New York Times and Newsday. She started out as a sportswriter for the Miami Herald, then moved on to Sports Illustrated and then Newsday, where she transitioned from covering Knicks, Mets and Yankees games on deadline into editing and over to news. She eventually became Newsday‘s assistant managing editor in charge of news, investigations and narrative projects. More recently, with the Times, she served as environment editor, deputy sports editor and a staff writer for the Home & Garden section.

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Photo collage featuring Tempest McDonald.

When autistic kids grow up, Chapter 3: Would there be data?

Tempest McDonald takes a postdoctoral position at Vanderbilt University. Researching her paper accusing the National Institutes of Health of discrimination threatens everything she has built.

By Brady Huggett
18 June 2026 | 27 min listen
Two infants.

Cousin comparison parses genetic effects in autism

The approach helps reveal whether maternal genes contribute directly to autism in children or have indirect effects on the prenatal environment.

By Charles Q. Choi
18 June 2026 | 4 min read
A white brain model is surrounded by bright, detached sensory organs mounted on colorful wires.

Single-neuron recordings zoom into ‘blurry map’ of human motor cortex

The motor cortex is organized into an "intermixed jumble of tiles" to generate meaningful movement.

By Claudia López Lloreda
17 June 2026 | 5 min read