Seattle (and I) am lucky that all these hills lead to good views 😅. New route meant new hill challenges, but a bonus new vantage point on downtown 😍

A rare day when an email task sparks joy:

The best advice I saw on learning to love running was to use it as a chance to experience your city like a tourist. I feel spoiled getting to do that in Seattle 😍

I think I might be a runner now, not just "someone who runs". At least I am for races like this where fuel stations are stocked with cake and Nutella, and it's all about fun! My first #halfmarathon race in the books. #ibeattheblerch

Excited to hear from my community and our representative (Jayapal) about the current state of our government's relationship to supporting academic research, and what we can do to keep the US a leader. Kudos to the local academic unions for organizing!

We are on a bullet train to the end of US science, and possibly the country as a whole, when political appointees are reviewing every scientific grant submitted to NIH to determine if The Regime finds the science acceptable.

Need data to help talk to your friends and family about the impacts of current US government policies on science? AIMBE @aimbe-official.bsky.social released a great survey that paints a clear picture. The Bioengineering research & training that create new therapies are coming to a grinding halt:

New favorites in my"places I've eaten PB&J sandwiches" photo album* #pnwlife #sorrynotsorry *Real album of mine.

It took me a while to learn that expert Seattle folks take winter vacations, not summer. This is why #pnwlife #sorrynotsorry

Looking for a good place to find a survey of the latest in neurotech to treat neural disorders? I suggest this new book chapter: link.springer.com/chapter/10.1... Such a pleasure to collab w/ some of the best in the field on this: Elvira Pirondini, Marco Capogrosso, Rob Gaunt & Sergey D. Stavisky🤩

I've been online less recently because I'm struggling to find value in it lately. I can't unsee all the unhealthy co-adaptation we're doing w/ algorithms. But then things like this come along to remind me the internet can generate good: kitty neuroscience via youtube 😍 www.cell.com/current-biol...

🧠 Join the JNeuro Early Career Advisory Board! 🧪 A great way to learn about the world of publishing and support other early career researchers by sharing your perspectives! Apps due July 18 www.jneurosci.org/content/ecr-...

Deeply compelling journalism that makes the impact of science, and the current administrations attacks on science, so tangible: www.cbsnews.com/video/saving... I, for one, am going to do my best to make sure all my family & friends see this. Folks need to fully understand what's happening.

Broke the seal on summer hiking. Ike, our dog, was beside himself with excitement when he saw the backpacks come out 😂 Warning there will probably be a lot more posts like this to come this summer #sorryNotSorry #PNWlife Nature like this helps keep me sane. We must protect our parks!

The thing I did not fully prepare for as I started running more often and longer distances: in Seattle, that means you just have to accept hills. They're unavoidable 😅🫠 At least the scenery is pretty? Drawbridges also add a surprise chance to catch your breath 🤣

📆Save the date! 📆 Women in Neural Engineering (WINE) will be hosting another panel & social along-side the IEEE NER and SfN meetings. Saturday November 15th, 2025, 6:30pm Come discuss how researchers can use our voices to advocate for ourselves & our work, and meet fellow neural engineers!

AIMBE has launched our new Citizen Advocate for Science Letter: takeaction.io/aimbe/scienc... We ask the broader scientific community to widely share this letter (✍️ <1 minute) with friends, family, and other concerned citizens to urge their elected officials to protect biomedical research funding 👇

Great afternoon lab potluck! Current times have me keenly focused on the things I like about this job, and the people I get to work with are top of that list!

It's a very celebratory week in the lab as Pavi, Si Jia, & Emily walked in the @uwbioe.bsky.social graduation! So proud of all their accomplishments, and it's an honor to work with them!

And...it's here. UW announced tenure clock extension options for junior faculty last week. Leadership frames this as part of their deep support to junior faculty. But how, exactly, is more time (& delayed promotion) are meaningful support in response to reduced & uncertain research resources?

Leaving Banff excited about the state of Brain-Computer Interfaces, and rather smitten with Banff. Thanks, #BCI2025 !

I've seen folks talk about how "in four years" they'll be able to get back to their planned projects and I really don't think that's going to work out. People & projects losing funding now will not be able to hit pause and come back once funding is restored. Hard-won progress & capacity will be lost

Turns out my morning run pace is a little slower when I have to add in time to take in the views 😍 #BCI2025

Probably very niche, but I have to vent: After watching for a while, it's so clear to me that FitBit folks who designed their algorithms to say if you are hitting fitness goals (over/under training etc) have not thought about adaptive algorithms and co-adaptive systems enough 😅🫠

I'm in a deadline crunch phase. These are always overwhelming. Not, in principle, something new for me. But I'm finding there's something uniquely difficult to navigate now. All the tasks overwhelming me assume the world isn't on fire. But, uh, it very much is. Such an odd cognitive dissonance 🫠

UW announced today they will pause processing of new NSF awards with 15% indirect costs. What a complicated new world. My career was so shaped by an NSF GRFP. It's hard thinking of the amazing science that won't happen & brilliant folks who will leave the field without NSF support. 💔 #withoutnsf

More balanced living visiting NYC: longer run in central park and then indulging pastry nerdom with a bakery crawl.

Congratulations to Adrienne Fairhall, Prof. of Neurobiology and Biophysics, Adjunct Prof. of Applied Mathematics, and Adjunct Prof. of Physics, who has just been elected to the National Academy of Sciences! 🍾 🎉

Went to a delightful concert this weekend where guitar legend Bill Frisell played sets with UW faculty and students. It was a wonderful example of how universities enrich their local communities in so many ways!

Just had my first wellness checkup post-40. The tone of this appointment became noticeably more morbid very suddenly. Wow.🫠😂

The challenges of living life with a beard.

Pushing through the last few years to come into this new dumpster fire is quite an experience. My tank's feeling pretty empty lately, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Take care of yourselves, folks.

🚨Via NABR: "Today, in a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy [announced] “Today we announced a dramatic reduction in animal testing at NIH and FDA. We’re going to switch over to AI...” " www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSdQ...

Seattle is united and resisting 💪

Always excited to have chances to apply principles of learning to my day to day tasks. My favorite as a PI: Be sure to practice a key part of your talk several times the night before. Without fail, I present it more clearly and ~10-15% faster the next morning. Sleep consolidation is amazing.

Hot off the presses: big update to our work looking at how adaptive decoders influence neural representations. We added heroic analyses to show in both experiments & models that the structure of what the brain learns is altered by adaptive decoders. Check it out: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I may be tired and a little hoarse, but as I said again and again on the Senate floor, this is a moment where we cannot afford to be silent, when we must speak up.

Peak bloom on UW campus never gets old. #sorryNotSorry

Had an eye opening day on Capitol Hill with my @uwbioe.bsky.social colleagues. We advocated for science by explaining how federal investment in research advances healthcare & trains our workforce! 💪 Bonuses: rode the Senate train TWICE 🚂 👀 many offices carefully decorated with UW & WSU gear 🏈

Travel win: jogging to get donuts. It's all about balance. 😅

Excited to be at AIMBE to learn from leaders in bioengineering and advocate for the importance of research on Capitol Hill with many of my UW colleagues 💪

Call me associate, not assistant* *starting 9/16/25

I got to see an experiment with a new participant in BCI clinical trials while at CWRU. Amazing reminder of how research improves folks' lives! That reminder makes me even madder about our government's divestments & attacks on research. Progress on these life-altering treatments will slow/stop 💔

The difference in tone and topics of conversations with faculty in my seminar visit this week vs. a month ago are striking. It's clear the stress/fears are rising and the realities of the new era are sinking in much more 🫠 Take care of yourself. Here's a doggo if you need it.

It's taking a lot of restraint to not ring the doorbell to the cwru radio station to take a peak at one of my favorite places as an undergrad 😂

Excited to be on my way to CWRU, my undergrad alma mater, to give a seminar in the BME department. Rather surreal to think about giving a talk about my lab's work to many profs who helped train me and shaped my career 😳

New achievement unlocked: overleaf told us there are too many tracked changes on this document and it can't add to our history any more. The joys of collaborative writing with a great and engaged team 😂😅

I'm already hearing rumblings from academic leaders that tenure clock extensions may be part of how early career researchers weather this new storm. A reminder that clock extensions are not the easy solution some think them to be: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... We must do better by junior faculty.

Dogs sure can channel our moods, huh? ... it's only Tuesday 🫠

The 3/14 deadline to finalize the FY2025 budget is fast approaching! ⌛ AIMBE has developed a new advocacy letter (<1 min to send) for the scientific community to urge Congress to support our federal science agencies, including NIH, NSF, FDA, ARPA-H, CDMRP, and more 👇 takeaction.io/aimbe/suppor...