Nadia Drake (born July 6, 1980) is an American science journalist and is the interim Physics Editor at Quanta Magazine.^[1] Previously, she was a contributing writer at National Geographic.

By 2002 Drake had earned an A.B. in biology, psychology, and dance at Cornell University,^[2]

She returned to Cornell for her Ph.D. in genetics and developmental biology in 2009.^[2] Her Ph.D. thesis is entitled Phenotypic consequences of imprinting perturbations at Rasgrf1 in mouse.^[3]

In 2011 she graduated from the University of California's Science Communication program at the Santa Cruz campus, with a Master of Science degree.^{[citation needed]}

Drake worked in a clinical genetics lab at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine while she was studying her Ph.D. in genetics.^[4]

During her residence at the UCSC's SciCom program, she was a reporting intern for the Santa Cruz Sentinel, San Jose's The Mercury News, and Nature.^{[citation needed]}

Afterwards she moved to Washington, D.C. for an internship at Science News, which turned into a job as the magazine's astronomy reporter.^{[citation needed]}

Drake then returned to the San Francisco Bay Area for a science reporting job at WIRED.^{[citation needed]}

She has been a freelance contributor to The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, WIRED, and other publications. ^{[citation needed]}

In 2024 Drake joined the board of directors of the SETI Institute as observer.^[5]

Drake is the author of Little Book of Wonders: Celebrating the Gifts of the Natural World (National Geographic Books, 2016).^{[citation needed]}

• In 2016 Drake received the Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism Award for her article "Scientists in Flying Telescope Race to Intercept Pluto's Shadow," which appeared July 3, 2015, on National Geographic's website.^[6]
• In 2017 she won the David N. Schramm Award for High Energy Astrophysics Science Journalism from the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society for "Found! Gravitational Waves, or a Wrinkle in Spacetime" which was published on National Geographic's website on February 11, 2016.^[7]

Drake is the daughter of SETI pioneer Frank Drake and Amahl Drake (née Shakhashiri).^[8]

• Official website
• No Place Like Home
• Nadia Drake on Twitter