Vlad Chituc shares strategies for navigating academic writing norms for neurodivergent grad students
This is the second part of a special 2-part episode of The Write In, featuring Dr. Vlad Chituc. Vlad doesn’t shy away from brain topics, and why would he? As a psychologist and recently minted PhD, Vlad thinks deeply about human cognition and behavior. But, also, Vlad reflects deeply on his experience as a neurodivergent graduate student and how he learned to work with his brain, not castigate himself, to get good research writing done. We talk about how academic writing culture can sometimes be too narrow in terms of upholding certain ways of writing and meeting deadlines that can impact the kinds of brains—and ideas—that propel both innovation and rigor. Reclaiming agency in the form of radical self-acceptance, and working out a writing process that works for Vlad, can be a model for anyone who isn’t a “15-minutes a day” kind of writer.

Bio:

Vlad Chituc is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, where he works with Michael Frank and Ben Domingue as part of the LEVANTE project. Psychologists often ask people to rate their subjective experience — on a scale from one to ten, how happy are you? how wrong would that be? how strongly are you feeling that emotion? His research draws from sensory psychophysics and information theory to understand what those numbers actually mean. Vlad completed his PhD at Yale University, and his dissertation was advised by Brian Scholl. This work was awarded the Glushko Dissertation Prize from the Cognitive Science Society. [Dissertation] [Glushko Prize Talk @ CogSci 2025]. Vlad has written publicly for outlets like The New York Times, The New Republic, and The Daily Beast. Explore his website here: https://vladchituc.com/