Erica Goode writes about human behavior for the New York Times. Before coming to the paper in 1998, she was an assistant managing editor at U.S. News and World Report and the editor of the news magazine's Science and Ideas section. She took up editing there after spending 8 years as a senior writer, covering the behavioral sciences as well as national and international news.

Ms. Goode was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and graduated from the University of Michigan magna cum laude in 1974. She received a masters of science degree in social psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1978, and passed her candidacy orals with high distinction in 1979.

In 1980, Ms. Goode was a mass media fellow in the program sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and spent the summer working at the San Francisco Chronicle. She left graduate school when the newspaper offered her a job, and spent six years there as a general assignment reporter and a science writer specializing in psychology and mental health. She also spent a year on an invited fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Ms. Goode has freelanced for a variety of publications, including Vogue, Self and Mirabella. She has won awards from the National Mental Health Association, the American Psychiatric Association and other mental health organizations.