Gotta soak up these warm early fall days when we can. Our Sleep and Circadian Rhythms neuroscience class was held outside today.

I'm a sleep scientist, daughter of a space physicist, who studied Latin, and married an artist: of course I need this print!

I've been teaching about HD in my undergrad neuro classes for 20 years, and it's usually one of the most heart breaking units we cover. THIS IS AMAZING NEWS!!! #StandUpForScience

Cancelled Disney+ and now thoroughly enjoying the @criterion.bsky.social collection. Our porch orb-weaver approves notes they have an excellent October lineup. #1A

This is worse than the McCarthy era.

My Very Own Bed is a Twin Cities nonprofit that gets beds and bedding to families indeed. Students in our Neuroscience of Sleep class volunteered this week assembling bed frames. MVOB has delivered over 10,000 beds to local kids in need. Good health starts with good sleep. www.myveryownbed.org

AAC&U Transforming STEM education is one of my favorite conferences. Thank you for this year's theme: THIS AIN'T OVER!!!

In our First Year Experience course today, the topic was sleep! I love that sleep health is part of every first year's formal education. To get more circadian morning sun, I asked the students spend 15 minutes of class on our beautiful @uofstthomasmn.bsky.social campus & send photo proof.

This week, I've talked to students who were previously considering PhDs, but no more over funding, outstanding students who are only looking for grad schools in Europe, Australia & Canada, and now jobless former students who have lost their NIH/NSF grad/postdoc funding. The #BrainDrain is real.

Glad to provide commentary about the new PNAS modeling article by @laraweed.bsky.social about how permanent standard time vs. permanent daylight saving time vs. biannual switching impacts population level health by county. @savestandard.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/nixi...

"“The biggest link to happiness, and the biggest link to depression, is sleep — always,” Twenge said." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/w...

As a sleep researcher in Minnesota, one of my joys is to find insects who fall asleep in their food on chilly evenings.

Wow! Neuroscientist and visual artist Greg Dunn has the most amazing images-- free for use in talks with citation too! www.gregadunn.com/self-reflect...

I’m thinking about fall semester and the ubiquity of generative AI use. Notice the dip in use over weekends and over summer holidays. What does meaningful learning look like in this context?

Honored to write this piece, which takes a historical lens at women's sleep and mental health during menopause. Anybody else's great-grandmother sent to an insane asylum for hot flashes and insomnia? Sleep Is a Feminist Issue: Why Women’s Rest Is Political msmagazine.com/2025/08/01/w...

Excellent reflection from my colleague Dr. Buffy Smith on the federal budget risks to the TRIO programs, which support veterans, rural students, and low-income students getting into college and navigating college once they're there. www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/arti...

Wait-- I'm at a writing retreat in rural Minnesota and not checking the news much... but the entire NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION was evicted from the building? All 1800 employees with no notice, not plan? eos.org/research-and...

Family responsibilities kept me away from #SLRCH2025 this year, but I'm so proud of students from my Sleep & Circadian rhythms course who attended!

I'm researching perimenopause and sleep and it's let me down a rabbit hole of often involuntary psychiatric institutionalizations for "climacteric insanity" ("dreamy and unrefreshing sleep", "hot and cold flushes" "headache and irritable manner" and a tendency to "commit the unpardonable sin").

Our Twin Cities and university communities include so many negatively impacted by this travel ban 2.0. I'm thinking of a software engineer who can no longer visit her Persian mother with cancer. An amazing Eritrean pre-med research student rethinking what practicing in US would mean for her family.

I was pregnant during the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, and was so grateful to receive vaccination. We know the enhanced risk of COVID-19 for fetal and maternal health. It's outrageous that Trump administration HHS is limiting access of vaccinations to pregnant women. More miscarriage and stillbirth to come.

Advising whether premed students should apply this year or next used to be about MCAT scores & relevant experiences. This year, it's "Depends on whether GOP Congress guts federal grant overhead rates & cuts Medicaid / Medicare so badly hospital and medical training systems collapse."

Excellent essay on Inclusive Excellence in science education by David Asai, former director of the HHMI IE program. I'm grateful we were able to complete our six year grant, but heart broken for the hundreds of colleges whose grants were cut short. issues.org/inclusive-sc...

I'm so honored to be named by my colleagues as this year's Professor of the Year. It's been my joy to co-create our first neuroscience major in 2008; champion successful STEM Inclusion grants and programs & center sleep health. Grateful for amazing students and colleagues! youtu.be/1OnYGw1dLFE

I love Harvard's redone website! I hope other universities follow suit showing the benefits to society of research investments.

I was honored to write the introduction for this book featuring stories of Minnesota's scientists and healthcare professionals who are also immigrants. St. Thomas students, alums, and faculty are featured. Watch the inspirational trailer! www.greencardvoices.org/stem-voices-...

I'm so excited for this Nerd Night SciCom event! Who injected bull semen and ground prostate glands directly into his body? Whose frequency and circadian rhythm of tweeting indicates pathological levels of sleep deprivation?

Great to see so many folks out at the HandsOff rally in Minnesota at the state capitol today!

Things I learned yesterday, segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond, whose 1957 filibuster record fell yesterday, at 23 impregnated a 15 yo Black cook employed by his family. Hear Essie Mae Williams-Washington's story in her own words. www.npr.org/2005/02/01/4...

It's advising season & I've had three conversations today w/ students trying to figure out how to get out of the US to continue graduate study in science or health professions programs. This is a disaster & GOP-controlled congress is doing NOTHING to stop destruction of CDC, NSF & NIH. #BrainDrain

Grateful for Cory Booker, fighting extreme sleep deprivation, holding the floor to do what is right. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCUK...

In 2019 in I was in the room where it happened-- the 1955 announcement of the polio vaccine at the University of Michigan. At the time, I got chills thinking about how powerful that announcement must of been. How can we get back to the point where voters & legislators understand #ScienceSavesLives?

Loved talking about Sleep, Brains, and Health on the Science Friday youtube livestream today connecting to K-12 classrooms across the nation! I am @standupforscience.bsky.social research and SciCom!

I don't know who needs to hear this, but you can call @thenapministry.bsky.social Nap Hotline at 833-588- 6277 to get a recording from Tricia Hersey, author of "Rest is Resistance" and "We Will Rest". To hear her say "Rest is a foundation for the liberated life" was the balm I needed today.

"(b) the National Institutes of Health and other health-related research funded by the Federal Government should prioritize gold-standard research on the root causes of why Americans are getting sick" But that conflicts with another EO on not researching "gender" "racism" "systemic" & "poverty".

Ooh I think I have the image I'm looking for for Sleep & Circadian rhythms exam piece on sleep deprivation, circadian rhythmicity, and emotional health.

Ramadan begins later this month, and coincides with midterm exams. Now is a great time to talk with students who observe about banking sleep and planning naps. Fig: A student's sleep schedule with Ramadan in purple, shared with permission.

Had a radio interview yesterday on sleep, teens, and digital media. When the reporter asked "What can be done to help teens?" I talked about the immediate need to fully fund the NSF and NIH, which has ongoing studies like the ABCD adolescent brain & cog. development. @altnih4science.bsky.social

This is SO HELPFUL! Thursday's lab is on science ethics, so this fits right in.

In Neuroscience of Sleep, I told the story of Hans Berger, the German psychiatrist who published 14 papers of the same title (re: EEG), was kicked out his lab when the Nazis took over, and died by suicide never knowing how important his work would become. www.medicalrepublic.com.au/hans-berger-...

Trump and Musk’s attacks on the civil service—from air traffic controllers to food and drug inspectors—aim to destroy Congressional power, which is the people's power. The real “Fork in the Road” is between democracy and autocracy. Don’t quit on American democracy.

Thank you!

NEW PAPER! "9.6% of women, 5.0% of men, and 34.9% of non-binary student athletes reported experiencing sexual violence in the last 12 months. Sexual assault ⬆️ insomnia symptoms and ⬇️ sleep duration both directly and indirectly mediated by mental distress and alcohol use." doi.org/10.1080/0744...

The insomnia plague in 100 Years of Solitude is really well done! How much about fatal familial insomnia did Gabriel García Márquez know? A fun differential diagnosis article by Dr. Alejandro Velásquez-Torres: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

I've long wanted to co-teach a course on Sleep & Art. I used Edward Munch's paintings in my dissertation defense on the non-image forming visual system. "At different moments you see with different eyes. You see differently in the morning than you do in the evening..." EM 1911 "The Sun"

Shout out to Grace (and her trainer Jess) at the St. Paul @americanredcross.bsky.social blood donation center who rocked her first ever vein poke. Ever since reading this brilliant memoir about anti-NMDAr encephalitis, I've tried to up my donations for antibody-based treatments.

I love end of the term reflective essays! "I have never met someone so passionate about sleep and after this semester of learning about how it really is the best thing for your body, I hope I am able to prioritize it more moving into the future."

Call for papers on Sleep & Trauma: www.apa.org/pubs/journal...

Wow! The Nu Rho Psi program at St. Thomas has now officially hosted a Forbes 30 under 30 speaker! Congratulations, @therealdrdukes.bsky.social! So well deserved! It's an honor to know you and collaborate! www.mprnews.org/episode/2024...

The AI-generated brain pictures are so scary.