kacummings.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Just standing here, asking reviewers for fellowships to double check when an assistant professor started their lab and ask, 'well what might have happened early on in that process that could have slowed down publications?'

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

#NEURAL2025 panel on Enhancing Training in Neuroscience is 🔥🔥🔥 #LeadingwithExcellence

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Loving the session on Imposter Syndrome at #NEURAL2025! #LeadingwithExcellence

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Principal Investigator submitting grant proposals for federal funding Circa June 2025

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

happy pride month to bluesky, a platform that is successful today because of the trans and queer users who made it a cool place to be. love y’all 🩷❤️🧡💛💚💙

submitted 14 days ago • 11 comments

Trump’s cuts to research programs directly harms scientists from working class backgrounds. Bridges built between the blue collar and ivory tower are collapsing in front of us.

submitted 18 days ago • 2 comments

Welp, looks like this is happening--officially Chair of my department as of July 1. Can't believe they tried to kick me out and now we're here.

submitted 18 days ago • 46 comments

My quote of the day We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. Elie Wiesel

submitted 19 days ago • 2 comments

Between review/publication delays, cuts to grants, and broader financial insecurity and uncertainty, every institution should revise its promotion criteria (if it hasn’t recently). We’re in a new environment, and even criteria written 5 years ago are less applicable now.

submitted 28 days ago • 3 comments

"NIH funding is gone, so you should pivot to private foundations for funding" Meanwhile, private foundations:

submitted 29 days ago • 4 comments

I honestly feel incredibly aggrieved for those like me who learned they are losing their NIH funding, but also for everyone who gave their all to their application only for it to be dismissed and not even given the time of day.

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

Whose responsibility is it to fight for the future of science if not elite organizations? HHMI thinks they are too special to get their hands dirty.

submitted 30 days ago • 3 comments

Disappointing (but not surprising) to see well-resourced institutions just continually drop the ball and fail to live up to the most basic expectations.

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

Just got news that @hhmi.org decided to not review Hanna Gray fellowship applications. I am sorry but that’s fucked up. People spent months working in those. So now you disadvantaged these candidates even more. They could have used the time to advance their research instead.

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

I’m excited to share a new paper from the lab. The study led by Xiaowei Gu reveals how the mPFC encodes complex emotional memories, using an internal model to infer emotional associations and memories via projections to the amygdala. a🧵(1/8) rdcu.be/el19t

submitted 32 days ago • 10 comments

I am thinking a lot today about how heavy things feel in my world of faculty doing scientific research. There's the immediate chaos and panic about our ability to pay people and continue our research. But there's also a deeper grief at watching everything get bulldozed for no reason

submitted 32 days ago • 25 comments

"Women are PIs on 58% of the canceled grants, although they are PIs on only 34% of all active NSF grants. Similarly, Blacks are PIs on 17% of the terminated grants, although they make only 4% of the total pool. Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities were twice as likely to lose a grant."

submitted 33 days ago • 32 comments

Had a fantastic time visiting my PhD alma mater, SUNY Buffalo, and was honored to give a talk at the annual Biochemistry Research Day! It was so nice to catch up with those who shaped me into the scientist I am today and to see the next generation thriving! 🧪🔬👩‍🔬

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

Our latest work extends ketamine’s antidepressant action and highlights the importance of a specific form of synaptic plasticity in the effects www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

submitted 37 days ago • 1 comment

Just a regular old science post - I was delighted to write the Preview piece to accompany a new paper in Neuron by Jose Morón's lab, which finds estrogen/dopamine interactions can mediate sex differences in pain-driven fentanyl taking. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

submitted 39 days ago • 2 comments

🚨HEY DORKS, WE NEED YOUR HELP🚨 We preparing for a BIG fight against Trump's attack on science and we won't stop until we win! We are grassroots and run on donations. Whether it's $5 or $500, every little bit counts in the fight to save science. #standupforscience actionnetwork.org/fundraising/...

submitted 43 days ago • 7 comments

🧪 What the f is going on with NSF right now??? 🚨🚨🚨 There's been so many NSF updates within the past 48 hours that it's hard to keep track. It feels like an onslaught. It is an onslaught. But it's still vital to remain focused, organized, and strategic. So here's my recap of past 48 hours...

submitted 44 days ago • 8 comments

The average American has three friends

submitted 44 days ago • 1 comment

The average American has three (and a half) friends

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

Pause for a minute to appreciate the valiant Program Officers still at NSF, who are doing their utmost to preserve what they can. They’re in the stinking rotting belly of the beast, laboring on our behalf. ❤️❤️❤️❤️ to them

submitted 44 days ago • 7 comments

"I would not have dared to dream that metastatic melanoma would become a treatable disease in my lifetime. Yet here we are today, with 43% of people diagnosed with metastatic melanoma living 10 years or more, due to treatments that we broadly refer to as cancer immunotherapy." Barry P. Sleckman, UAB

submitted 46 days ago • 4 comments

“MOSAIC awardees were chosen using a definition of diversity beyond race, gender, and disability. It includes those who grew up in poor households or rural areas or were raised by parents who do not have college degrees.” 🧪

submitted 48 days ago • 4 comments

Losing my grant doesn’t make me worried that having it on my resume will hurt my career. Rather, I worry about what it means for science, I worry about it means for the active work I do and will KEEP doing to uplift, I worry about what it means for upcoming and future scientists.

submitted 48 days ago • 3 comments

This is America.

submitted 49 days ago • 14 comments

Catching up with colleagues and I feel like "have any of your grants been terminated yet" is the new "have you had COVID yet" from 2022 and I hate it.

submitted 50 days ago • 9 comments

🚨 Well fuck… 1. DOGE has finally setup shop at NSF this week. (everything that’s happened at NSF thus far has largely been without direct DOGE meddling) 2. NSF is halting making new awards across all directorates to rereview proposals for alignment with exec orders.

submitted 60 days ago • 8 comments

The quoted thread is a really important perspective. If I can add some unsolicited thoughts and advice -

submitted 63 days ago • 1 comment

This is such an important thread for academics on the tenure clock AND those of us who will be in positions to evaluate tenure dossiers in the coming years. We simply cannot hold people up to the standards of better times.

submitted 63 days ago • 1 comment

Of all the reasons I didn't change my name when I married, I never thought it would be because I would want to use my birth certificate to vote and my name would have to match exactly.

submitted 66 days ago • 13 comments