Shaena Montanari

Former reporter
The Transmitter

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.

From this contributor

Social behavior

Neuropeptides reprogram social roles in leafcutter ants

By Shaena Montanari

11 July 2025 | 6 min read

Cell types

Nature retracts paper on novel brain cell type against authors’ wishes

By Shaena Montanari

9 July 2025 | 4 min read

Publishing

Authors correct image errors in Neuron paper that challenged microglia-to-neuron conversion

By Shaena Montanari

26 June 2025 | 3 min read

Raphael Yuste leaning on a bench in his lab. A red filter colors the scene.

Neural networks

Releasing the Hydra with Rafael Yuste

By Brady Huggett, Shaena Montanari

4 April 2025 | 10 min read

Methods

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

Explore more from The Transmitter

This paper changed my life

By Sidarta Ribeiro

14 July 2026

4 min read

Illustration of birdsong, bird brain, and DNA.

This paper changed my life: Embracing an early model for naturalistic neuroscience

A 1992 PNAS paper showed how birdsong upregulates the expression of an immediate early gene in bird forebrains. The work revealed to Ribeiro the importance of studying molecular responses in naturalistic contexts.

This paper changed my life