Cherish Ardinger, PhD

On official UC letterhead: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA James B. Milliken President Office of the President 1111 Franklin Street Oakland, CA 94607 universityofcalifornia.edu CAMPUSES Berkeley Davis Irvine UCLA Merced Riverside San Diego San Francisco Santa Barbara Santa Cruz MEDICAL CENTERS Davis Irvine UCLA San Diego San Francisco NATIONAL LABORATORIES Lawrence Berkeley Lawrence Livermore Los Alamos DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES November 18, 2025 Dear Chancellors: I'm writing with regard to the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP) and the program's associated faculty hiring incentive. As you know, for more than 40 years, PPFP has provided postdoctoral research fellowships, professional development, and faculty mentoring to scholars in all fields whose research, teaching, and service advance the academic and research missions of the University of California. Since 2003, UC campuses that hire current and former PPFP fellows into ladder-rank positions have been eligible for a hiring incentive funded by the University that provides support for newly hired fellows for five years. Since the creation of the incentive, more than $162 million has been invested by the University to support PPFP faculty hires. This commitment has enabled our campuses to successfully recruit and retain outstanding faculty across a range of disciplines. Given the myriad challenges currently facing UC - including disruptions to billions of dollars in annual federal support, as well as uncertainty around the state budget- reasonable questions were raised in recent months about whether the University could maintain the commitment to current levels of incentive funding. After considering a recommendation to sunset the incentive program due to these significant fiscal constraints, I consulted with all of you as well as faculty and campus academic administrators and systemwide Academic Senate leadership. [continued on next image]

After learning more about the history and success of the program and weighing the thoughtful perspectives that have been shared, I have concluded that barring extraordinary financial setbacks, the PPFP faculty hiring incentive program will continue while the University continues to assess the program's structure as well as its long-term financial sustainability. As a result of our continuing consultation and review, there may be consideration of some changes to elements of the program including the total number of incentives supported, a number that has fluctuated significantly over the years, and how the awards are distributed among campuses. In the meantime, the University will continue to fund the PPFP faculty hiring incentive program and campuses may continue to take advantage of these incentives. We will have an opportunity to discuss any potential changes prior to adoption. As we look to the future, I will continue to engage with faculty leaders, program stakeholders, and UC community members about this important program. I especially appreciate the thoughtful perspectives shared in recent weeks by Academic Council Chair Palazoglu and Vice Chair Scott, the Council of Graduate Deans, UC faculty members, and you as our campus leaders. Sincerely, James B. Milliken President

WE JUST KEEP WINNING. (UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program RESTORED!!!!)

Estrogen modulates reward prediction errors and reinforcement learning - Nature Neuroscience Dopamine encoding of reward prediction errors naturally fluctuates over females’ reproductive cycles with estrogenic signaling due to reduced expression of dopamine reuptake proteins.

Thrilled to share our new paper, out now in @natneuro.nature.com, uncovering how estradiol, the most potent estrogen, modulates reinforcement learning and reward prediction errors across biological levels. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#blueprint 1/7

[just a little reminder that feminism and trans rights are part of the same fight for a better, fairer world for everyone]

I must’ve been a postdoc at MIT or a new-ish engineering professor when I first heard the story of how Ben Barre overheard colleagues talking about how his research was so much better than his ‘sister’ Barbara’s.

We have at least TWO postdoctoral fellowship openings on our @unm.edu @casaa.bsky.social T32 NIAAA Training Grant, best consideration date for applications is Nov 15 2025. Join our phenomenal community and enjoy incredible quality of life in beautiful New Mexico. casaa.unm.edu/training/ins...

Our Behavioural Brain Research special issue on Ultrasonic Communication in Rodents is growing, rapidly – and actually a lot faster than I manage to post about it. Nine new manuscripts got accepted since my last post. Quite impressive work. Check it out:
www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

The President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, PPFP, has been a jewel in the crown for faculty development and recruitment at the University of California for years and the results have been an expanded faculty with almost 100% tenure rates — unprecedented success.

How does drinking alcohol shape the aging brain? @neuronikki.bsky.social studies how heavy drinking impacts neurons as we age.

Research has shown that alcohol use disorder (AUD) in middle age increases the risk for developing Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia - but how?

Or microsoft word spell check still exists and has been fine, it's odd that folks use LLMs for grammar and spell check. The old tools are more efficient and don't sass back.

Scientists had to change more than 700 grant titles to receive NIH funding. Health disparities researchers fear what’s next The titles of more than 700 multi-year NIH grants have been changed this year, according to an analysis by Jeremy Berg, a former agency official

The NIH has insisted there are no banned words

But, an analysis by @jeremymberg.bsky.social found over 700 hundred grants changed their titles from '24 to '25

Some see it as a small price to pay to keep their grant, but others are worried about what comes next

www.statnews.com/2025/10/29/n...

🧠✨ Genetic Tools Atlas 3.0 is here!

The GTA now has an additional 750 datasets, including 80+ mouse whole-brain light sheet microscopy images as well as the first macaque datasets.

🔗 https://portal.brain-map.org/genetic-tools/genetic-tools-atlas

#neuroskyence

Maybe the thing that gives me a pulse-pounding throbbing headache is when I think of how techbros sold ChatGPT to universities as ‘revolutionizing’ higher education and our institutions just forked over money without even asking for actual evidence

Women are credited less in science than men - Nature The difference between the number of men and women listed as authors on scientific papers and inventors on patents is at least partly attributable to unacknowledged contributions by women scientists.

Anyone interested in learning about why journals make a proactive effort to increase women's participation in the peer review process should take the time look at some actual evidence about why this is needed. Ditto journalists covering such a story. Do some reporting! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Commentary by @needhibhalla.bsky.social et al. on the recent attacks on DEI in biomedical research. Data show that diversity in the science increases creativity & success in tackling challenging problems.
🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Want to make publication-ready figures come straight from Python without having to do any manual editing? Are you fed up with axes labels being unreadable during your presentations? Follow this short tutorial including code examples! 👇🧵

In about three years the entire university pivot to AI curricula and schools and programs is going to be so deeply embarrassing. We will all pretend it never happened and I will be standing there, looking at people with a mirror in my eyes. This is all so embarrassing.

Shame on IU

OSU spent many thousands of $$ on booth registrations for SACNAS earlier this year. Now they said they would rather take the financial loss than let us recruit at this meeting of >6000 scientists.

Regionally mapped astrocytic responses to cortical and white matter stroke show differential roles in astrocyte-induced vascular remodeling Stroke is a major cause of disability. Astrocytes respond to stroke in a gradated manner, but details of that response and its consequences for tissue…

Thrilled to share this work from my postdoc with Tom Carmichael, available online @ Neuron! Long story short: we find even more evidence that all reactive astrocytes are not equal, and we can take advantage of those differences to improve repair after stroke.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

SCIMaP job opportunity - https://umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UMCP/job/Research-Communications-and-Media-Outreach-Specialist_JR102577

Best consideration deadline, Friday Oct 10:

#SCIMaP (scienceimacts.org) seeks to hire a Research Communications and Media Outreach Specialist at U-Maryland to facilitate public engagement related to federal investment in science and health research.

umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UMCP/j...

YouTube video by Simons Foundation Nicole Rust - The representation of mood in the primate insula (May 6, 2025)

Please spread the word! I am recruiting a PhD student this cycle (Fall 2026 start) to join my team in a new venture: the neuroscience of mood.

If you are curious to learn more, this short talk provides a good overview of why, what and how.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjIK...

The new Wiley journal review system is an absolute nightmare. Editorial assistants have been replaced by a clunky, AI-enabled website that makes it harder to find and invite reviewers. Associate editor workloads have increased. I'm not convinced the invitations to reviewers are even going through.

Drug‐Related Engrams and Their Role in the Persistence and Recurrence of Drug‐Related Behaviors Memory is a cornerstone of human behavior, and addiction offers a compelling model of its persistence and plasticity. The scope of engram research has rapidly expanded to include addiction-related ph....

First lab paper out today! Student authors: Mikayla Cutler and Abhi Thati 🎉🤩

Hippocampus | Neuroscience Journal | Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Many of us come to study in the United States due to its commitment to freedom of expression & assembly -- rights that we in our home countries often lack. My own country would deport student protestors in a heartbeat. That the US used not to was a testament to its commitment to freedom.

I'm recruiting a PhD student to study how enkephalins affect cognitive processing in the rodent frontal cortex. The project uses pharmacology, multi-electrode recordings, and fiber photometry, and is funded by NIDA. Please share with trainees applying this cycle. Thanks!

We are looking for a new technician to join our lab and gain some hands on #zebrafish and molecular biology experience. Interested parties should apply here: jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/259... Happy to answer any and all questions about the lab! #STEMJobs

More NIH chaos.

NICHD, NIMHD and NIAID Directors are all dismissed.

Please join me in congratulating Woman on her appointment

The aftermath of my schools divorce

A work of art