I enjoy my life, I go about my business, but I never forget the security I lost, and how quickly I lost it. I think a lot about grief, and in my quiet moments I mourn for the country I thought I was living in, and for the freedom and safety I had until so recently.

My life has changed from what it was before Trump took office. Being in Massachusetts is protective, but not perfectly. And the biggest mindfuck is that other Americans don't seem to know it. My sky has fallen and they tappa-tap on their keyboards like "Why is Erin Reed making trans people panic?"

Of course this week, the week that I'm "working from home" with baby while daycare is closed for vacation, she drops from 2 naps to 1 nap/day. Even though it's 3-6 months early for this. 🙃

Oh my gosh Isabel's website is a true delight analopezmurillo.github.io

The White House is openly saying they want to eliminate a minority group and people still want to say this is about sports.

You know, I'm graduated with a PhD now, and this is *my* paper, so I don't need to conform to other people's opinions about "data set" vs. "dataset". The space needs to be there!

🔭 I'm looking for a post-bac to work on opacity models for the ISM and protoplanetary disks. Please spread the word! careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

Daycare is closed this week and the extra time with Baby has totally ruined me. Her dad took her on errands so I can work, and I'm like 😭😭

Was washing some berries today and I accidentally created a holiday display.

Hey everyone! Our AAS committee, SGMA, wrote a 'comment' article for Nature Astronomy -- now published just in time for Pride! You can access it free via this link: rdcu.be/fplJd We also wrote an accompanying Q&A article to profile a few of our committee members: rdcu.be/fpk42 🧪🔭🌈

The idea here is to hold the grad fair before the app deadlines, as opposed to at the January meeting after the deadlines. The AAS's write-up in the link is pretty interesting! Love the transparency.

Subtly dressed my baby in some pride colors today 😎

On my way back from Cool Stars Japan with my new friend Large Plushie Pikachu! 🐣✈️

Hanging out with new friends and said something about birth, then oh shit I can see from their faces that they had no idea. I can see the gears turning. Coming out is kind of fun but also I'm so tired. It's never the last time. (but yes also I signed up for this) 🏳️‍⚧️

🔭 🧪

Cool Stars poster is up! In Japan!

Oh I *LOVE* the @planetarysociety.bsky.social's dashboard of OMB proposed rule changes. The clarity of their thematic clusters is great, but the insertion/deletion tracked changes is outstanding. I hope everyone prepping comments makes great use of it. dashboards.planetary.org/rules-change...

The liner notes for this cassette tape include a tiny Dolly Parton paper doll! How novel.

Took my 10-month-old to a bluegrass jam and after 1 song she started literally dancing around. A few songs later I had to take her out because she was having too much fun (screaming). So she just naturally likes bluegrass?! Feel like I won the lottery here.

The White House Office of Management and Budget is moving to take more control of billions of dollars in federal grants. Critics say the proposed change would jeopardize the integrity of U.S. science. n.pr/4uNA78T

Finishing up a paper now that I started writing a year ago when I was 7-8 months pregnant. And let me tell you, when I read those sections now it feels like a stranger wrote them. I have no memory at all of composing those words. (It's not bad writing, though)

Of all the harm this administration has done to US science, today's proposed changes to the way federal grants are awarded and administered is the most damaging yet. The text of the federal register document is impenetrably tedious by design, so here's an excellent summary of what it says.

If your document/paper/presentation/etc. needs or has a table of acronyms, you have too many acronyms. This is an accessibility issue. People read *words*. They don't need the extra step of thinking about what acronyms mean or frequently going back to a reference table. Stop using acronyms!

If Charlie's wife hands him a sandwich every day through the train window, why doesn't she just include a nickel too so he can get off the train?

Celebrating Mother's Day the only way we know how around here: by taking so long to get ready that we hit the next naptime.

I really really wish I could get my fellow co-authors on this paper to make their comments in the Overleaf. Instead, they're all annotating their PDF copies as usual. 🔭🧪 We are probably all marking the same things! We could be saving so much time! We could be responding to each others' comments!

🔭 A cautionary tale for undergrads (and above!) using AI for #astro plots: our BSc student wanted to make a "quick" HR diagram showcasing M-dwarfs & thought some chatbot could make one and... well... ...extra credits are now offered to students who can correctly find all errors on cursedHR.png 🫠 🧪

Smith College is now under investigation by the Department of Education for admitting trans students. archive.ph/Zn90w

Our daughter still doesn't crawl, but she has finally figured out how to scoot around on her butt... backwards, anyway.

How the night sky is being ruined. This 10 minute exposure to image a comet, which is only visible just before sunrise, has been completely overwhelmed by the trails of satellites (the majority of them Starlinks) passing across the field of view.

We need to make a "rain plan" for student thesis presentations this week -- not because they're outdoors, but because it's currently raining inside our building! 🙃 (pipe burst)

YouTube music keeps doing crap like putting Death Cab in my '80s country queue, so I finally bought a cassette player for my car. Excited to no longer be sharing my data for $20/month!

When Einstein developed general relativity the closest thing to a practical application that could even be imagined at the time was a slightly more precise description of where to look for the planet Mercury in the sky, and yet now we’d all be literally lost without it. Anyway: fund basic research.

This week, NASA announced it had shut down one of that spacecraft's remaining science instruments — not because the mission has failed, but to keep it alive a little longer. n.pr/41HfdLS

Packing to leave for a conference tomorrow and suddenly realized I'm supposed to GIVE A TALK the morning I arrive. A literal nightmare -- seriously, a nightmare I've actually had many times before -- almost came to life right there, oh boy.

Our REU renewal was funded! We found out today so we are accepting applications now! Like right now! Application review is going to happen swiftly as we know we’re are late in the typical cycle. pa.msu.edu/undergraduat... #reu #physics #astronomy #research

Finally Hampshire College is closing for real. As someone who attended another weird hippie school (Reed), I feel so much affinity with Hampshire. I'm co-advising a Hampshire Div III project (i.e. thesis) right now and it's been so cool to get insight into their world.

On the plus side lately, my first honors thesis student is finishing up their impactful project, and soon my 12 observational astro students will be finishing their mini-research projects on SO MANY cool topics. This is the best part of the semester.

Parenting is turnout to be ridiculously, terribly incompatible with my "early-career academic" schedule. If I'm out of town for a talk, conference, observing, etc., someone needs to pick up my daughter from daycare each day and watch her until my spouse gets home. How can I say yes to anything? 🧪🔭

The President's Budget Request proposes a 47% cut to NASA Science, a 55% cut to NSF, and a 13% cut to the DOE Office of Science. AAS President Dr. Dara Norman sent a call to action to AAS members via email today. Urge your members of Congress to reject these cuts now! aas.org/reject-2027-...

"A slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing" -- this is exactly the problem. This should be required reading for everyone in our field, especially those earliest-career students.

Rocket launches are always inspiring on such a deep level. We watched it together. :) 🔭

Hi astronomers 🔭 -- we have a couple openings this year on SGMA, our LGBT+ AAS committee. Please consider applying! It's fun work!! :) Deadline is April 18, and the application is a google form (see the post below).

Teaching Baby to crawl using all her favorite objects: electrical cords, fingernail clippers, TV remote, cell phone. (their illicit nature is a draw, apparently)

Once upon a time, you'd go to give a talk at another university and a nice administrator would hand you a W-9 to sign and they'd send you a check in the mail for the honorarium. Now you have to spend a half hour entering data on a Special Contractor Website that was designed in a lab by sadists.

#AAS248 The Society's FAMOUS Travel Grants program helps members from historically underrepresented groups attend AAS meetings. Grant requests for the summer meeting (14-18 June 2026) are due by 16 April. aas.org/grants-and-p... 🔭

Spring break 2026: two days of blissful, uninterrupted work, five days of being a human sofa because Baby is sick again. 😭

Visiting MIT Kavli today to give a talk. Today started rainy but I guess it's getting brighter!

The other day someone referred to me as Baby's mommy, and today someone else assumed I'm a straight cis man. Gender is made up lol

This morning it's 48 degrees and misty and my heart says this is how the air is supposed to feel, just perfect and connected to the world seems pretty clear we need to move back to Oregon