Nora Bradford

Full-Time Lecturer, Critical Writing Program, UPenn. (2025–present)

• Develop course materials for three sections of first year writing seminars on clinical neuroscience and animal cognition
• Guide 48 students as they decide on a research topic and find relevant literature
• Instill self-editing and peer-review skills in students throughout six drafts of white papers and op-eds

Science Writer, Freelance. (2022–present)

• Write news and feature stories on science-related content for outlets like Scientific American, Science News, Discover, WIRED, National Geographic and Quanta Magazine

News Intern, Scientific American. (2025)

• Wrote news stories on topics ranging from microbiology to social psychology
• Kept track of newly-published and embargoed papers, and pitch multiple story ideas to relevant editors every week

Graduate Writing Consultant, Writing Center, UC Irvine. (2024–2025)

• Provided feedback during one-on-one consultations with graduate students at various stages of the writing process for manuscripts, grant applications, and job materials
• Researched and created resources on topics such as procrastination and PhD statements
• Developed and facilitated writing workshops on writing for the public and crafting op-ed stories

Teaching Assistant, UC Irvine (2020–2024)

• Prepared and delivered discussion sections, lab sections, and review sessions for the following courses: Human Memory, Experimental Psychology, Principles of Learning Theory, Consciousness and the Brain, Perception Research, and Introduction to Psychology
• Evaluated exams, homework, and papers from over 1000 students

Assistant Writer, PBS Terra Hungry Planet. (2023–2024)

• Researched topics related to food, science, and culture
• Collaborated with lead writer to create digital video scripts for the seven episode series, resulting in over 60,000 views on most episodes
• Pitched, developed, and wrote seven video scripts for TikTok shorts

Summer Science Writer, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. (2022)

• Interviewed scientists and attended research seminars to identify seven budding science stories to highlight on institute website
• Pitched, wrote and edited feature stories, press releases, and Q and As and regularly used WordPress to effectively display stories

Science Writing and Communications Intern, The Broad Institute, MIT & Harvard. (2022)

• Researched, reported, and wrote at least one news story per month as well as Q and As and funding announcements
• Wrote a weekly research summary for the internal Broad Institute newsletter
• Collaborated with designers and team members to create infographics, videos, and social media content

Graduate Student Researcher, Cognitive and Neural Computation Lab, UC Irvine. (2020–2025)

• Created new analysis technique for metacognitive research in real-world settings
• Planned, coded, and conducted online experiments on perceptual metacognition, leading to presentations at multiple conferences
• Initiated and led a collaborative, inter-university project studying metacognition in a variety of types of tasks
• Aided multiple collaborative research projects, developing cognitive tasks and survey questions and organizing Institutional Review Board materials

Data Research Intern, McGraw Hill Plus, Online Learning (2023)

• Analyzed data from online math learning tools to explore predictive validity both within and between products
• Created data summaries to inform assessment recommendations for students in middle and high school
• Collaborated with and presented findings to stakeholders from marketing, customer experience, data science, and academic development teams

Research Associate/Lab Manager, University of Pennsylvania (2019–2020)

• Conducted neuroscientific and behavioral research on child math learning and adult numerical reasoning
• Recruited both child and adult participants for multiple simultaneous large-scale studies
• Organized and analyzed behavioral data and supervised 10 undergraduate researchers

Mentor, NASW David Perlman Mentoring Program. (2026)

• Led student mentor through writing a news piece and pitching it to outlets
• Offered general career advice

Mentor, Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research Program, Penn. (2026)

• Taught undergraduate students scientific writing skills related to literature reviews and application materials
• Led students through presentation preparation and peer review

Cognitive Sciences Representative, Campus Diversity Council (DECADE), UC Irvine. (2022–2024)

• Developed department-wide climate survey, analyzed results, and shared findings with the department
• Collaborated with fellow representatives to host inclusion-focused events, such as an introduction to conference attendance and reimbursement

Writing Mentor, Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, UC Irvine. (2024)

• Advised seven undergraduate student researchers throughout the summer
• Provided guidance and feedback on PhD application materials including statements of purpose and personal statements

Writing Coach, National Science Policy Network. (2024)

• Guided ten student writing projects—including policy briefs, journal papers, and popular science pieces
• Led “Kickstarting a SciCom Career” workshop for an audience of over 30 students

Organizer, ComSciCon, Science Writers Conference. (2023 and 2026)

• Evaluated applications from over 30 graduate students and selected 10 attendees
• Organized the two-day workshop followed by week long projects, including mentorship pairings, travel, logistics, and guest speakers

Symposia, Workshops, and Invited Talks

1. ComSciCon and Kavli Foundation, Stories of Ethics, Engagement, and Dialogue in Science Guest Talk, Jan. 2026.
2. UPenn Mindcore, Beyond Academia Panel, Jan. 2026.
3. Science Forward at CUNY, Research Writing Workshop, Oct. 2025.
4. Science Teaching Through Art at University of Rochester, Abstract Writing Workshop, Sep. 2025.
5. GPS-STEM UCI, Science Writing Mini Retreat, Feb. 2025.
6. GPS-STEM UCI, Science Writing for the Public, Nov. 2024.
7. Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, Funding and Sharing Consciousness Science, Tokyo, Jul. 2024.
8. SoundMind Collaboratory at Northeastern University, Science Communication Workshop, Jul. 2024.
9. National Science Policy Network, Kickstarting a SciCom Career, May 2024.
10. Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, Crafting an Abstract, Apr. 2024.
11. Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, Communicating Consciousness Science to Funders and the General Public, New York, NY, Jun. 2023.
12. Science Writers meeting, ComSciCon-SciWri Workshop, Memphis, TN, 2022.

Publications and Conference Proceedings

1. L. Montgomery, N. Bradford, and M. Lee, “The wisdom of the crowd with partial rankings: A Bayesian approach implementing the Thurstone model in JAGS”, Behavior Research Methods, 2024.
2. N. Bradford, A. Shen, B. Odegaard, and M. A. K. Peters, “Aligning consciousness science and U.S. funding agency priorities”, Communications Biology, 2024.
3. Y. Xu, N. Bradford, and R. Garg, “Transparency enhances positive perceptions of social artificial intelligence”, Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2023.
4. Y. Xu, D. Wang, M. Yu, D. Ritchie, B. Yao, T. Wu, Z. Zhang, T. Li, N. Bradford, B. Sun, T. Hoang, Y. Sang, Y. Hou, X. Ma, D. Yang, N. Peng, Z. Yu, and M. Warschauer, “Fantastic questions and where to find them: FairytaleQA—an authentic dataset for narrative comprehension”, Association for Computational Linguistics, 2022.
5. G. Grasselli, H. Boele, H. Titley, N. Bradford, L. van Beers, L. Jay, G. C. Beekhof, S. E. Busch, C. De Zeeuw, M. Schonewille, and C. Hansel, “SK2 channels in cerebellar Purkinje cells contribute to excitability modulation in motor-learning–specific memory traces”, PLOS Biology, 2020.

Selected Talks

1. N. Bradford, B. Maniscalco, and M. Peters, Model-based approach for extracting performance-independent metacognitive sensitivity from meta-learning data, New York, NY, Jun. 2023.
2. N. Bradford and M. Peters, Metacognition and learning: Bridging the gap between the lab and the classroom, 2023 International Conference on Learning and Memory, Huntington Beach, CA, Apr. 2023.
3. M. Lee, N. Bradford, and H. Tejeda, Using Thurstonian ranking models to find the wisdom of the crowd, European Mathematical Psychology Group Meeting, Rovereto, Italy, Sep. 2022.
4. N. Bradford and M. Peters, Effects of perceived numerosity on confidence, Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness Annual Meeting, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Jul. 2022.
5. N. Bradford and M. Peters, Investigating metacognitive sensitivity in online learning tool for undergraduates, Neuromatch Conference, virtual, Dec. 2021.

Selected Posters

1. N. Bradford and M. Peters, Investigating the domain-generality of metacognition among memory, perception, and intuitive reasoning, Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness meeting, Tokyo, Japan, Jul. 2024.
2. N. Bradford and M. Peters, Metacognition and learning: Bridging the gap between the lab and the classroom, 2023 International Conference on Learning and Memory, Huntington Beach, CA, Apr. 2023.
3. N. Bradford, E. Tao, V. Nguyen, and L. Kay, Testing piriform cortex inputs to granule cells as modulators of excitability leading to beta oscillations, Midwestern Psychological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, Apr. 2019.
4. N. Bradford, E. Tao, V. Nguyen, and L. Kay, Testing piriform cortex inputs to granule cells as modulators of excitability leading to beta oscillations, Midstates Consortium for Math and Science Undergraduate Research Symposium on Biological Sciences and Psychology, Chicago, IL, Nov. 2018.