DrTanyaMSmith.bsky.social

Dear @griffith.edu.au Social Media Team - best practice to look up and then tag the person you are writing about in your original post. In this case: @yinika.bsky.social

Every opportunity politicians provide for you to tell them about how chronic underfunding of research in Australia is affecting your particular fields, people, working conditions etc. is extremely important.

Fill out the form here: lnkd.in/g8A_PAZG

Very proud of @emmasudron.bsky.social ~ who spent years mastering the Geomagic Micromill to sample #NitrogenIsotopes from #teeth at a very impressive resolution. She also obtained competitive @ansto.bsky.social funding to run highly sensitive elemental analyses of modern and archaeological samples!

Australia's top universities seek changes to key environmental reform Australia's top universities have aligned themselves with oil and gas producers, miners and developers on a a key piece of environment legislation, drawing the ire of dozens of academics.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

Summers Will Not Finish Semester of Teaching as Harvard Investigates Epstein Ties | News | The Harvard Crimson Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers will immediately leave his role as an instructor at Harvard while the University investigates his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey E. Epstein.

#BREAKING: Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers will immediately leave his role as an instructor at Harvard while the University investigates his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Dhruv T. Patel and Cam N. Srivastava report.

Plus all elemental maps are available here: research-repository.griffith.edu.au/items/50ed65...

New #OpenAccess paper building on studies of
#TraceElements in #Primate #Teeth just out in @archaeometry.bsky.social:

Tace Element Patterns in Juvenile Wild #Chimpanzee Dentitions

#TLDR version: metals are highly variable in wild chimpanzees and dietary sources appear to obscure nursing records

As an English speaking country (with nice beaches to boot) for the cost of a small tax on fossil fuel exports or high incomes Australia could invest in science, recruit researchers fleeing the US and become the knowledge powerhouse of the 21st Century. Instead we're doing this.

MAJOR UNION WIN 🥳 The federal government will implement a new set of university governance principles to strengthen accountability, transparency and public trust following recommendations from the Expert Council on University Governance.

Read more: nteu.info/majorwin
@alisonbarnes.bsky.social

Promotional image from the Australian Academy of Science featuring a portrait of Professor Chennupati Jagadish against a blue background with the text: "Fundamental research is the 'D' without 'R'. Professor Chennupati Jagadish AC PresAA FRS FTSE, Australian Academy of Science.

The Strategic Examination of Research and Development (SERD) issues papers have failed to address declining investment in fundamental research, instead implying research is only important if it can be commercialised by industry.
Read our response: https://bit.ly/4hhDZZJ
https://bit.ly/4nWaEXu

One of our Research Office staff told me 'unlikely October, hopefully November...'

University Administrations: Reject Trump's "Loyalty Oath" Compacts The Trump administration is trying to blackmail schools to let him and his unqualified bureaucrats run our schools. They want to dictate what schools teach, who they admit and hire, what researchers s...

NO LOYALTY OATHS IN HIGHER ED!

Trump's attacks on our universities are an attempt to consolidate power. This loyalty oath directly undermines our right to academic freedom & goes against every democratic principle our country should uphold.

Please click below, sign, & share.

#DefendHigherEd

This week, Australian policymakers heard about the real and growing problem of climate misinformation. Stopping it would mean regulating the PR industry.

👉 theconversation.com/pr-firm...

RIP to Jane Goodall, who opened the world's eyes to our closest relatives. (Photo by NatGeo's Hugo Van Lawick)

Please for a *leisurely* visit to your favourite ex-pat?! With some advance notice I'll pop up a tent for you on 'the farm' and you can glamp with owls, possums and sugar gliders. A big echidna has been visiting lately too and digging up my native tree plantings. 🤨

New #SSRN #Preprint on #OxygenIsotopes and #TraceElements in Ancient #Teeth led by the amazing @jnavila.bsky.social and funded by @griffith.edu.au & #AustralianResearchCouncil #FutureFellowship.

#ArchaeologicalScience #BiologicalAnthropology & #EarthScience for the win!

dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

#talesteethtell #biologicalanthropology #teeth | Tanya M. Smith Looking forward to sharing some #TalesTeethTell next week for the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research! All are welcome for a short and accessible introduction to #BiologicalAnthropology a...

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Opinion | Stephen Colbert just modeled how to take a political stance without anger What we need right now are examples of people who understand the strength in empathy and the power of fair and even-keeled discussion.

"I think the solution is going to come from the people, from us: community action, collective service, connection and empathy. What we do need are examples of people who understand the strength in empathy and the power of fair and even-keeled discussion."
www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Is this Australia’s climate wake-up call? Official report reveals a hotter, harder future if we don’t act now The sobering assessment is a national call to action. The sooner Australia mitigates and adapts, the safer we will be.

Is this Australia’s climate wake-up call? Official report reveals a hotter, harder future if we don’t act now
theconversation.com/is-this-aust...

Great to see Senior Sergeant Donna MacGregor receiving the serious respect she deserves. We are lucky to have her as a member of the @aushumanbiology.bsky.social community!

Has meritocracy gotten the better of our universities? Why events at ANU are grounds for hope - ABC Religion & Ethics It’s not every day that the students and staff of a university succeed in forcing a vice-chancellor from office — that’s what happened last week at ANU, but why did change take so long when it was cle...

"If we want democratic universities then...When meritocrats consult, we must deliberate. Where meritocrats cherish distance, we need to seek proximity. If meritocrats show contempt, we ought to foster dignity—talk and listen respectfully, observe and act deliberately."
www.abc.net.au/religion/anu...

‘Publish or perish’ evolutionary pressures shape scientific publishing, for better and worse Scientists write papers to share their results – and gain prestige and advance their careers. In this competitive field, selection can favor AI-written papers, citation cartels, paper mills and more.

theconversation.com/publish-or-p...

How to be a scientist in a post-journal world When we created this site to write about things in science that need to be fixed, we chose not to start with publishing, even though it has been our preoccupation for decades.

Some interesting ideas here ~ would love to see the end of journal dominance, particular the pay-to-play ones!

How to be a scientist in a post-journal world
open.substack.com/pub/thescien...

Here's a #GiftLink for those who want to read the full NYT obit of historian of science & gender, Margaret Rossiter. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/s... #histSTM 🧪🗃️

Teeth record the hidden history of your childhood climate and diet The balance of different varieties of atoms inside a person’s teeth can reveal a week-by-week record of rainfall and protein consumption during their infancy.

Very sorry about this, as we didn't record it. Much of the content and articles are linked in this piece: theconversation.com/teeth-record...

2025: Environmental Futures Seminar - Tanya Smith - University of Wollongong – UOW Teeth as Proxies for Understanding Water Inputs and Past Seasonality

Looking forward to returning to the University of Wollongong tomorrow to talk about #Teeth as Proxies for Understanding Water Inputs and Past #Seasonality. #ArchaeologicalScience #BiologicalAnthropology #HumanEvolution #WomenInSTEM

Zoom link for 12:30pm AEST talk:
www.uow.edu.au/events/2025/...

Grateful to @science.org.au for creating the 2020 STEM Women Changemakers program, and giving three of us a chance to reunite five years later at #SAGE2025breakingsilos! Awesome to see Ruwangi Fernando & Mary McMillian and to meet Anna-Maria Arabia. Onwards!!

Universities have lost their way, but cost-cutting and consultants are not the answer Last week in Sydney, we saw a melodrama acted out that could stand in for the state of Australian universities more generally.

Timely article as I storm Sydney for the #SAGE2025 conference to reunite @science.org.au 2020 STEM Women Changemakers & push for systemic change in Australian #DEI / #EDI work.

Universities have lost their way, but cost-cutting and consultants are not the answer
theconversation.com/universities...

Deeply appreciated and identified with your personal story. Thank you for not hiding who you are!

Look forward to reading your book too.

Incredible courage from @drdemography.com - so needed this powerful example in our sycophant post-truth world.

(Please DM me if you ever make it to the Gold Coast so the @nteunion.bsky.social can celebrate you here too!)