happy Vanderbilt Brain Institute retreat!! 🧠✨

HAPPY FIT’NG !! so excited to be here !! 👶🧠💻 #fitng2025

shoutout to everyone who indeed came to hang. grateful for some fantastic conversations with some phenomenal people that gave me some great ideas!! 🥰🥰🥰 #flux2025

come hang !! F38 right now !! 🥰🧠 #flux2025

HAPPY FLUX DAY 2!! I’m so excited to discuss some ideas I’ve been pondering recently… come chat with me at poster F38 4:30-6:00 today! 🥰🥰 #flux2025

favorite conference, favorite city. could not be more excited to be at @FluxSociety 2025 in DUBLIN, IRELAND🥹🥰☘️✨🇮🇪 #flux2025

immaculate vibes in lab today✨ #phdlife (for better or worse, i am the “you” 😂)

SSSR 2025: ✅ learned a lot, co-chaired a symposium, gave a talk, saw some old friends, made some new friends… and line danced !! yeehaw !! 🤠 can’t wait for next year already🥰 #SSSR2025 🧠📚🤓

Ireland launches global talent fund! www.researchireland.ie/funding/glob... If you're a neuroscience professor (assistant/associate/full) and would consider relocating to the vibrant and booming city of Dublin, please get in touch!

they can hike a mountain (literally. this is at the top of sulphur mountain in the canadian rockies) but can they science?! come find out at Macleod E1 at 10:30 am today - we’re co-chairing a symposium on all things white matter & reading!! 🤓📚🧠 #SSSR2025

its happening!! tomorrow!! eeeep!! i’m co-chairing and giving a talk as part of a symposium at SSSR !! 10:30 am in Macleod E1!! see you there!! 🧠📚 #SSSR2025

achievement unlocked: my symposium talk is on saturday, but today, i was 2nd author on not one but TWO posters across TWO universities!! it is truly just the coolest thing to get to be involved in several reading related research projects with diverse methodologies. #SSSR2025

phenomenal “day 1” (preconference) at SSSR 2025!! made some friends, learned a lot, so excited for tomorrow!! 🤓📚🧠 #SSSR2025

SO excited to have made it to calgary for SSSR 2025 - and for the next few days of science, fun, & friends!! 🤓🧠📚 #SSSR2025

went to a ~fantastic~ seminar (as part of the VUIIS seminar series) on white matter across the lifespan by dr. kurt schilling today !! the MASI lab has created some really neat white matter development charts (a la height/weight growth charts for infants & toddlers) !! 🤩🤩🤩

NERDY ‘25 was the best… it’s not every day that you get to spend your entire day discussing reading research with so many reading research rockstars !! 🤓🧠📚 additionally, i had the opportunity to give my very first official conference talk (!!) & see many friends !! 🥹🥰

happy NERDY ! 🤓🥹🥰🧠📚

i had the absolute best time at CNS 2025 !! i learned so much & made a whole host of new friends !! see you all next year ?! 🥰🧠📚✨ #CNS2025

i’ve been reading dr. marie banich’s work for years, and today at CNS i finally got to hear her talk about it in the context of her career in her “CNS distinguished career contributions award” lecture. it was amazing! 🧠📚✨🤓 #CNS2025

CNS people: come by my poster at #CNS2025 about morphological processing (D121) in the pediatric brain and let’s talk some language in this methods poster session!

one of my favorite parts of every conference is listening to some very established scientist talk about the entire scope of their career, and today’s george miller prize in cognitive neuroscience lecture was certainly no exception.

we !! did !! it !! 🤸🏻‍♀️💃🏻 so, so grateful for the scientists who stopped by, the conversations we had, & the future directions generated 🥰🤓🧠📚 #CNS2025

here we go !! 🤪🧠📚✨ #CNS2025

attending CNS ? want to yap about white matter & executive functioning during development? OMG wow what a coincidence - ME TOO !! see you at poster A77 at 3 pm today 🥰📚🧠✨ #cns2025

cue “shipping up to boston” - see you soon, CNS & NERDY!! 🧠📚✨

proud best friend alert! alisha gave her forum talk today, and it was AMAZING !! 🤩🥳 (also wow what a phenomenal topic!! 🧠📚)

UPDATE: I FINALLY SUBMITTED IT TODAY, YAY (deep sigh of relief)

had a great time at the Vanderbilt University graduate school honors banquet tonight !! 🤓🧠📚✨

1. For the past thirty years I've had the best job in the world. 
I've had the opportunity to follow my curiosity; explore the workings of nature and society; mentor students and junior colleagues in the same process; and teach generations of students about it all.

You cannot negotiate with terrorists. If the Ivies give in to any regime demands, the goal posts will move. If the massive ivy endowments aren’t deployed to preserve institutional integrity and academic freedom, what on earth are they for?

if you thought you saw me sprinting across vandy‘s campus at 12:55 today because the MRI scan i was 500% sure was at 1:30 was actually at 1:00… ~ no you didn’t ~ 🙅🏻‍♀️💁🏻‍♀️(🥲) #phdlife

proud to have stood up for science today !! #StandUpForScience2025

Breaking news: Thousands of researchers and their supporters, including recently fired federal workers, have gathered across the U.S. in response to layoffs and funding cuts ordered by the Trump administration. scim.ag/41zlPv4

“am i a real academic now?” achievement unlocked: crushing guilt bc i have a paper review that’s 2 months overdue 🤦‍♀️🙈 (im so sorry @ authors) …..it’ll happen this week!!! for sure this time!!! 😅

YAYAYAYYY!! 🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️ + CNS, that’s like 10 days of fun & science in Boston. I’m so excited!! 🤓🤓🧠🧠📚📚

looking for (local to Nashville) volunteers!! the HBCD team at Vanderbilt is awesome & they'd greatly appreciate the help practicing!! please scan the QR code & fill out the interest form if eligible/available/interested. thanks so much!! 👶🍼😄

and that, my friends, concludes 3 talks in 3 days !! 🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️ now more than ever, i’m extremely grateful for these different opportunities to talk about various aspects of my science and discuss them with different groups of people !! (…also grateful for tea & a nap!)

for pity’s sake, I am BEGGING university leaders to stop framing this issue in terms of what this will cost the university. people dont care! EXPLAIN WHAT THIS WILL COST THE PUBLIC: closed hospitals and clinics, skipped treatments, loss of access to experimental drugs, unemployment, recession

It's annoying how clearly this is going to play out. They gut the FAA. Therefore, the FAA can't do its job well because it was gutted. Therefore, they say "The FAA sucks, we have to privatize it." which is what Project 2025 wants to do. They're manufacturing the crises for their end goal.

Happy to report that APA wrote this letter, gathered a coalition across science, and will now pay for ads for it to be disseminated in Science and Chronicle of Higher Ed to spread the word!! unitedsciencealliance.org

attended a great talk by @jeromeprado.bsky.social on automaticity in arithmetic across development today !! 🤩🤩🤩

the world might be on fire, but my lab just got sick sweatshirts!!!!! and i am so excited about them!!!!! catch me flaunting my new lab merch in cold conference ballrooms at CNS and SSSR and Flux soon !!! 🥶😂

This is what revisionist history looks like, in real time. And this also is why it might appear that archaeologists and historians have to dig deep to discover the existence of powerful women and marginalized groups -- because their legacies are so often erased.

This article--on the systematic dismantling of the NIH, NSF, and CDC--is a must-read not only for researchers and clinicians but for anyone who has ever gotten a vaccine, taken medication, read the results of a research study, or gotten tested for Covid, flu, or STIs. www.science.org/content/blog...

The price of eggs in the US is spiking, mostly due to #H5N1 bird flu. Solving the problem requires urgent, important communications from the CDC & FDA* and rapid development of research by the NIH** * Currently paused by Executive Order ** Grant reviews now all canceled www.kcur.org/news/2025-01...

Study sections are the review panels that allocate NIH research grants. They bring in experts from around the country and have to be scheduled many months in advance; they provide the funds that keep the nation's biomedical research going. It's hard to overstate the disruption this causes.

Scientific advancements aside, this is economically irresponsible Every $1 spent by NIH generates $2.46 For example, in 2023, $47B in NIH spending generated ~$93B Halting NIH spending will LOSE the US a lot of money (and talent)

This is not hyperbole. This is an unmitigated disaster for biomedical science and reflect how central to American life and productivity NIH funding is. This funding drives the economy and contributes to the health and wellbeing of the entire country.

THIS IS BAD