Shaena Montanari was a reporter for The Transmitter from 2023 to 2025. She was previously an investigative health reporter at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting in Phoenix. Prior to becoming a journalist, Shaena worked as a paleontologist.
Shaena Montanari
Former reporter
The Transmitter
From this contributor
Neuropeptides reprogram social roles in leafcutter ants
By
Shaena Montanari
11 July 2025 | 6 min read
Nature retracts paper on novel brain cell type against authors’ wishes
By
Shaena Montanari
9 July 2025 | 4 min read
Authors correct image errors in Neuron paper that challenged microglia-to-neuron conversion
By
Shaena Montanari
26 June 2025 | 3 min read
Releasing the Hydra with Rafael Yuste
By
Brady Huggett, Shaena Montanari
4 April 2025 | 10 min read
Plaque levels differ in popular Alzheimer’s mouse model depending on which parent’s variants are passed down
By
Shaena Montanari
4 February 2025 | 0 min watch
Education
- M.A. in investigative journalism, Arizona State University
- Ph.D. in comparative biology, Richard Gilder Graduate School at the American Museum of Natural History
- B.S. in geological sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Fellowships
- AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship
- AAAS Mass Media Fellowship
- Royal Society Newton International Fellowship
Articles
- “Cracking the egg: the use of modern and fossil eggs for ecological, environmental and biological interpretation” | Royal Society Open Science
- “Pliocene paleoenvironments of southeastern Queensland, Australia inferred from stable isotopes of marsupial tooth enamel” | PLOS ONE
- “Dinosaur eggshell and tooth enamel geochemistry as an indicator of Mongolian Late Cretaceous paleoenvironments” | Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
Explore more from The Transmitter
When autistic kids grow up
An autistic researcher’s paper called attention to a huge disparity in autism funding research between children and adults. It nearly derailed her life.
When autistic kids grow up
An autistic researcher’s paper called attention to a huge disparity in autism funding research between children and adults. It nearly derailed her life.
By
Brady Huggett
18 June 2026 | 2 min listen
When autistic kids grow up, Chapter 2: “You need to go to college”
With just a high school equivalency degree and struggling as a single mother, Tempest McDonald is forced to shift her priorities.
When autistic kids grow up, Chapter 2: “You need to go to college”
With just a high school equivalency degree and struggling as a single mother, Tempest McDonald is forced to shift her priorities.
By
Brady Huggett
18 June 2026 | 28 min listen
When autistic kids grow up, Chapter 1: Those people
What leads an autism researcher to publish an intentionally inflammatory paper accusing the NIH of discrimination?
When autistic kids grow up, Chapter 1: Those people
What leads an autism researcher to publish an intentionally inflammatory paper accusing the NIH of discrimination?
By
Brady Huggett
18 June 2026 | 24 min listen