I’ve been supporting peace and democracy here in the Twin Cities through different avenues: education, legislative advocacy, mutual aid, coalition-building, but my favorite is delighting in immigrant-owned businesses.

It's the start of #BlackHistoryMonth and the new semester. Today, I'm grateful for the educational legacies of George Washington Carver Pauli Murray bell hooks Octavia E. Butler Charles R. Drew Ronald E. McNair James Baldwin What about you?

I needed to make an extra sign for yesterday’s neighborhood first amendment activities here in St. Paul, MN.

In December, I shared my Top 10 Sleep Threats on @drchriswinter.bsky.social Sleep Unplugged podcast. Here in these occupied but resilient Twin Cities, I stand by those rankings, but might temporarily switch #1 & #2.

Candles at 7 pm tonight.

Mourning VA ICU nurse snd beloved community member, Alex Pretti, murdered by ICE this morning in Minneapolis. This afternoon, the memorial sculpture, Let My Heart Be Open, by Gene Piersa at Normandale Community College calls to me. Mourn the dead, protect the living. #ICEOUT NOW

ICE just murdered another Minneapolis neighbor and observer. I am outraged and do not know how we can expect our students to learn in an environment of rampant state sponsored kidnapping and street executions. #ICEOUT NOW.

Protest still going

Grateful for the hundreds of clergy praying in -30 windchills and facing arrest for witnessing and protesting the human rights abuses. #ICEOUT uscatholic.org/articles/202...

One of the things I love about being a sleep researcher is the spontaneous conversations that arise. I'm at an airport bar now and another customer (a CPAP user for 10 years who talked about how life-changing it is) & I just got our fantastic (and sleepy) barkeep signed up for a sleep apnea test.

So incredibly happy for our Minnesota champion! Grateful for Lindsey for sharing about her experience recognizing and getting help for her insomnia. (Also, cheers to Olympic greats Simone Biles, Jessie Diggins & many others for being so open about mental health!) www.today.com/health/sleep...

A student was arrested at gun point at a campus near ours this week. This morning a 55 year old woman citizen observer was arrested outside her home. www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1... This is an abhorrent, cruel, authoritarian practice.

What to do as a faculty member when the president, in between cabinet meeting sleep attacks, uses horrifically offensive racist language and plans military force against a specific cultural group who are a major part of your academic and home community? How does this impact learning? Belonging?

Anecdotal evidence from advising meetings confirms this. The #BrainDrain is really, and disproportionally impacting women and genderqueer folks.

The @uofstthomasmn.bsky.social is in a great position to add to the lingual diversity of medical professionals, particularly in Hmong. After indigenous languages, Khmer is the most needed. Read alum surgeon's Kim Uy's bilingual graphic memoir. www.greencardvoices.org/product/hard...

I got up early this morning to watch the lights dance in St. Paul over the Big Dipper and stayed up late last night watching them too. :)

For me, this was epitome of Beaux-Arts glory, Fantasia come to life, transcendent choir and synesthetic splendor in one of the most magnificent buildings I've ever been in. For my Gen alpha tween: "Meh, I've seen better filters on Reels." www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1...

I found this to be a convincing argument. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/o...

Sleep capstone was a great discussion of maps, circadian health, and the legacy of imperialism. We compared the Peters projection vs. Mercator maps & noticed 80% of the world's population follows solar time. We listened to this podcast. On the Peters map, you can see AK 4 time zone width well.

This is fantastic-- I'm showing this in my classes this week.

Excited to stay at the home with the newmexicosundial.com while at the Mentoring Conference! How do we keep this clock on time? Permanent Standard Time.

I'm at a mentoring conference in New Mexico, and enjoying getting away from the light pollution. This photoperiod extending space mirror plan- brighter than the moon!- has so many risks for sleep health and ecology. @darkskyintl.bsky.social @savestandard.bsky.social www.space.com/space-explor...

No Kings! San Juan Co.

No kings! #NoKings

Observing Indigenous People’s Day on Wahpekute land in Minnesota, Dakota for “Sky-colored water”.

As a sleep researcher, I know Black and Indigenous (and queer folks) have more exhaustion & trouble relaxing into and maintaining sleep. During talks, white audiences will sometimes ask what it is genetically that accounts for the sleep disturbance. It's not the melanin; it's the oppression.

This reminds me of how much I loved @naomialderman.bsky.social's never-more-relevant novel "The Future". We studied her first novel "The Power" in our Neuroscience of Gender course. Any other #WomenInSTEM Alderman fans out there?

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...