Sam Giles

Please read and consider signing this open letter to UKRI regarding their initial and future responses to Michelle Donelan: docs.google.com/document/d/e...

Michelle Donelan’s letter to UKRI and her tweet that reads: “Academic freedom & free speech are totally sacrosanct. But Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation. This is outrageous from a public body. See my letter to @UKRI_News”

This is the same “protect free speech” government that blacklisted me for retweeting Parody Liz Truss, so colour me unsurprised.

I’m not surprised, but I’m still disappointed 😔 But yeah, seems like even the tiny steps forward they’ve made are completely hollow

Screenshot of UKRI’s tweet promising an immediate investigation after Michelle Donelan wrote to the CEO about tweets by external members of a UKRI EDI advisory board

It took weeks, or months, or more than a year for UKRI to respond to EDI concerns around lack of funding to Black researchers and bias in how doctoral funding is awarded. But this gets an response within hours - on a Saturday afternoon, no less - and promise of an immediate investigation. Shameful.

Woke up with a migraine on day 1 of field teaching THINGS ARE GOING GREAT 🫠

UK govt minister, in the last hour, ordering the national academic research funding body to censor the members of its expert panels, for unacceptable sympathy with Palestinians.

That’s tough. I spend most of my time (that I’m not in the field/asleep) doing stuff around students on the trip, so I don’t really have time to deal with emails relating to things not about the trip! And it wipes out two weekends, so then spending work days getting through the backlog is impossible

Out of office on for field teaching! Are you a ‘I’ll get back to you ASAP on my return” or a “Email me again when I’m back if necessary” kind of person?

CURSED

Photo of a laptop open on a coffee table next to a latte.

Last week my kids complained that I picked them up too early (!) and they didn’t get their after school club snack, so this week I am treating myself to a leisurely coffee first 😋

Pride in STEM statement about the shortlisting of Helen Joyce for the Maddox Prize Pride in STEM is wholeheartedly disappointed in the decision taken by Sense About Science to shortlist Helen Joyce for the Maddox Prize, with the following motivation:  “Helen Joyce has been shortl...

It is shameful that the #MaddoxPrize shortlist includes an 'activist' who calls trans people ‘damaged’ and a ‘huge problem in a sane world' and stated that the NHS Rainbow scheme is worse than Andrew Tate.

Here is our statement:
prideinstem.org/2023/10/24/p...

An unconventional advice for those on TT market: Consider negotiating a set of funds to help others. I + others have negotiated $$ to host diversity-related events at conferences and for community outreach. We often think startup $ is just for our own research and lab, but I want us to think bigger.

Opinion | Running in a Body That’s My Own Athletes like me should get to compete as ourselves.

Please read this from Caster Semenya and remember the humiliating and degrading testing she's been put through is what Republican legislatures have endorsed in their attacks against trans people--up to and including coercive medical treatments forced onto young people whose bodies defy the binary.

I’m gonna need a sample along with that stick of rock 🫖

Simply cannot be true

Yeah, everything is underwater, so I have a lot of sympathy, but I also have a six year old and a ten year old o have to get home to…

Literally no trains back home and no replacement buses available so had to share an Uber with a bunch of other stranded people, I hate trains 🤪

my Likert Scale

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Lovert
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Likert
⭐️⭐️⭐️: Whatevert
⭐️⭐️: Dislikert
⭐️: Hatert

Screenshot showing all the trains through Cheltenham are cancelled

Screenshot showing even more trains through Cheltenham are cancelled

Made it to university only an hour and a half late (mostly because I gave up at New Street and got an Uber the rest of the way) but pretty sure I am never getting home 😂

I got on a train this morning and that was a BAD DECISION, please everyone wish me luck 😂

Figure in that graph should be 6-7% (which is using data from pre-2010) - here’s discussion from one of the report authors: twitter.com/jameswilsdon....

I have the more accurate figures in a presentation/email thread somewhere. I think it’s ~6%. Will check tomorrow!

Hello Blue Sky!! So happy to finally be here thanks to the encouragement of @davidho.bsky.social and @katharinehayhoe.com ! I'll be posting on ocean, climate solutions, mapping, GIS, and Hawaii to start with! But for now aloha from me and my dog Riley 🌺 (she/her)!

Selfie of Sam wearing a face mask with an ‘I’ve had my covid vaccination’ sticker on her coat

Boosted 💪

Oh, the hiring… Apparently I, a random academic palaeontologist, am the person responsible for carrying out Right to Work checks to determine whether any postdoc I want to offer a job to had the legal right to work in the U.K.? Sorry what?! As well as the other 4 million associated admin tasks.

A photo of a black cat cuddled against Sam’s arm

Pippi is definitely the best cat!

Photo of a black cat on a round grey dog bed

This one actually is my cat 🐈‍⬛

A photo of Sam’s six year old stroking a small brown cat on a footpath

Second of the day!

Photo of a large round dog bed with a small grey and white kitten on it

That’s my dogs’ bed. They don’t mind sharing it with my cat, Pippi. One problem: that’s not my cat 😂