While completing her Ph.D. in cognitive sciences at UC Irvine—studying how metacognition can be distorted and improved—Nora Bradford has also carved out a parallel path as a science writer. Her work has been featured in outlets like The Loh Down on Science, National Geographic, Scientific American, Science News, and UC Irvine’s own School of Social Sciences enews. Now, as she prepares to defend her dissertation this August, she’s gearing up for her next chapter: a science reporting internship at Scientific American. Below, the East Coast native—who holds undergraduate degrees in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy from the University of Chicago—reflects on her grad school journey and shares what’s next.

What made you decide to pursue cognitive sciences, and specifically at UCI? What interests you most about your work?

I was really interested in understanding what we know about our own minds and how we can become more accurate at self-assessment. Megan Peters had just joined UCI and was/is a leading expert on metacognition, so I decided to move across the country to work with her.

Tell us about your research. What problem will your findings help solve?

I study how metacognition (thinking about thinking) can be distorted and improved, both in tedious tasks in the lab and in learning new material in the classroom. I hope my work will help bridge the gap between the study of perceptual metacognition and metacognition in learning and memory.

What organizations have funded your research while you’ve been at UCI, and are there any activities, awards or accomplishments you’d like to give a shoutout?

The Templeton World Charity Foundation supported a workshop that I helped run that led to a short paper about the state of funding for consciousness research in the US. And the below awards gave small travel grants and the like.

This academic year, I’ve also worked at the writing center as a Graduate Writing Consultant, where I help other graduate students meet their writing goals. That experience has been incredibly rewarding and has helped me improve my editing skills.

A few selected accolades:

2025 Early Career Scientist Travel Grant, National Eye Institute
2025 Science in Real Life Grant, Skype A Scientist
2024 Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, Graduate Division, UCI
2024 AAAS Graduate Travel Fellowship, National Association of Science Writers
2024 WAC + WID Graduate Scholar, UC Irvine Writing Center
2023 Science Journalism Workshop Acceptance, Institute for Advance Study, Princeton, NJ
2022 Professional Development Award, DECADE
2022 Norman Weinberger Award, UCI Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
2022 Inclusive Excellence Award, UCI Graduate Division
2021 NASW Travel Fellowship, Council for the Advancement of Science Writing
2021 Award for Public Writing, UCI School of Social Sciences
2021 Graduate Innovation Fellowship, UCI Beall Applied Innovation
2020-21 Science Communication Fellowship, Loh Down On Science Podcast, NPR

Can you tell us about a professor or mentor who has had a major influence on your graduate school experience—and how?

Megan Peters has been my main faculty mentor. She has been incredibly supportive of my abnormal career path and has encouraged me to seek out opportunities and advocate for myself. I also have been mentored this year by my supervisor at the Writing Center, Hosna Sheikholeslami, who has helped me become a better writing consultant and identify career opportunities that suit me.

What are your post-Ph.D. plans? How has UCI prepared you well for this role?

I am joining the news team at Scientific American for a short internship. I’ll be covering the latest science news for the general public. I appreciated that the cognitive sciences department had such a focus on writing in my early years in the program. Working at the Writing Center and running writing workshops with GPS-STEM and UROP has helped me build my skills as a writer, collaborator, and communicator. The graduate fellowship at the Loh Down on Science was my first experience with science writing and showed me that science writing could actually be a career.

I’ve also been accepted to the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute as a storyteller where I’ll learn about the latest research in human, animal, and artificial intelligence and help researchers share their work.

Any other tidbits you’d like to share?

I’ve been building a career as a science writer since my first year of grad school when I was a writer for the Loh Down On Science. I’ve since done internships at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the Marine Biological Laboratory, and I’ve also regularly written for National Geographic, Scientific American, Science News, and other outlets throughout my time here. You can see all of that work at norabradford.com.