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.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Piggy bank with blindfold.

Future remains uncertain for U.S. federal funding of behavioral, cognitive science

The National Science Foundation did not include any solicitations for its social, behavioral and economic sciences directorate in its latest round of funding opportunities, nor replace any outgoing program officers—which poses an existential threat for the program, says nonprofit executive Wendy Naus.

By Calli McMurray
26 August 2026 | 5 min read

How energy determines where proteins are produced in neurons

Tatjana Tchumatchenko explains how mathematical modeling elucidates whether ion-channel proteins are produced locally in the soma or in the dendrites.

By Gaute Einevoll
26 August 2026 | 104 min listen
A brown mouse between a red cube and blue cylinder looks curiously at the top of the cylinder, standing on hind legs.

Wouldn’t you like to know? A mouse would

Mice seek information for curiosity’s sake—and their desire for knowledge versus a payout is represented distinctly in the brain, new findings suggest.

By Sarah Thau
26 August 2026 | 5 min read