Dr Saher Ahmed

🚨NEW FUNDING: Introducing the 2025 Round of the @wellcometrust.bsky.social Accelerator Awards! 🚨

Our funding scheme for researchers of Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani applications has reopened.
 
💰 £200,000 per researcher
🗓️ Up to two years
✅ Apply by 15 July 2025
⤵️https://lnkd.in/e6PT-TQR

I'm so honoured to be starting as a Visiting Scholar at @cambridgeuni.bsky.social 😊Excited to grow my work in research equity, ethics and inclusion; learn from brilliant minds, and be part of such a thoughtful community 🤩 If you're working in this space—or just curious—I'd love to connect 😀

Oh no 😢 I hope you're still recovering well - sending all of my best wishes ❤️

KLAXON 🚨: Indie SAGE has come out of retirement to release a new short report standing up for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the sciences!

DEI is not just the right thing to do, it *improves* the quality of the science. Please read and share.

independentsage.org/wp-content/u...

1/2

I said: "I believe that far from stepping away [from EDI], the UKRI and the UK scientific establishment more broadly should see the current situation as an opportunity to step up, to show global leadership in maintaining momentum towards a fairer and more effective innovation ecosystem."

Trump’s DEI crackdown ‘could block US-UK research collaborations’ ‘No academic friend of mine is not deeply worried about this,’ says scholar

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/trumps-...
"Building a more diverse scientific community is – in my opinion – a question of fairness and justice.." “It’s also a question of what is good for science and innovation." @profrachelgan.bsky.social 👐🏽

Last night I found out that the NSF math postdoctoral fellowship I applied for is being deleted because it does not comply with Trump’s executive orders on DEI in the federal government. I’m going to answer some FAQs and share some thoughts about this ordeal in this thread 1/n

American chaos: standing up for health and medicine Withdrawal from WHO and the Paris Agreements. USAID shuttered and aid halted, ceasing health programmes globally. A freeze on US$3 trillion worth of federal grants and loans, jeopardising the function...

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Today I am giving a lecture at Sheffield Hallam funded by @roysocchem.bsky.social exploring my life and times in chemistry, including a bit of our research alongside what it means to be an LGBT+ scientist.
It is possible to register for online attendance:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/catalysing...

Cool, cool, very cool. Not nightmare fuel. Not at all. Just some wicked cool spiders. Very cool.

Goodnight, interwebs. Sleep tight. Don't let the bigger, more venomous species of the Sydney funnel-web spider bite.

Our paper on nurturing a #PositiveResearchCulture within your #research #team published by @wellcometrust.bsky.social gives useful tips for your lab. As well as making you a good team leader, nurturing culture pays off in building your science: 1/11

wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/9-3...

Picture of life sized M&Ms walking happily. They are green, purple, brown and yellow

Selfie of Saher and a happy green M&M

Hopefully we can troop out of our offices soon ( like these happy M&Ms... 🤣) and have a bit of R&R. Happy holidays 🥳💚

Closing the scissor-shaped curve: Strategies to promote gender equality in academia Gender inequality in STEM fields remains pervasive and undermines the ability for talented individuals to excel. Despite advances, women still encounter obstacles in pursuing academic careers and reac...

Reading the paper in Cell about how to close the scissor plots in gender representation at senior academic positions, I feel just a touch of pessimism. Having reached a level of seniority (middle management) I didn’t think I ever would, I read these great ideas wanting more, much more /1.

I'm also someone who advocated and to some extent continues to advocate for a data driven approach to EDI. However, I didn't originally set out to be an advocate for data. I started out asking a simple question that I hoped would prompt targeted intervention & which happened to need data to answer.

Food for Thought: the year-end feast — www.thehighergood.net You could be forgiven for worrying that many key debates in higher education rarely seem to move on, and that 2025 will bring the same old talk. We shouldn’t accept that this is inevitable! The perfec...

www.thehighergood.net/articles/foo...
Lots to think about here 🤔

The second edition of the Research Excellence Awards is now OPEN to applications. @blackinplantsci.bsky.social in partnership with @aabiologists.bsky.social are unlocking this prize to celebrate talent of Black and Black heritage working with plants in UK. Apply at blackinplantscience.org

**Black UK PhD students**

Fully funded PhD study - fees and stipend

-Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences
-Faculty of Health and Life Sciences

**Tell everyone**

www.bristol.ac.uk/study/postgr...

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Point of View: An annotated introductory reading list for neurodiversity A collaboratively developed annotated reading list expands upon core themes in neurodiversity, aiming to enhance understanding and to promote rigorous, destigmatizing, and inclusive practices in resea...

📖 Excited to share our new article, out now in @elife.bsky.social: elifesciences.org/articles/102... Our annotated readling list on neurodiversity is a result of the collaborative efforts of a fantastic, multidisciplinary & neurodiverse team

Triggered partly by John Lewis Christmas ads and partly by a conversation I had today…why do some people still think that marginalised people are now unfairly over-represented in positions of power and/or on TV, when all the data I’ve seen suggests this isn’t the case…?

**Black UK PhD students**

This is the programme you want! It is all the bells and whistles, full fees and stipend, any subject, industrial experience offered, 50 other Black scholars already on board and administrated in an environment of care.

**Tell everyone**

Agenda for the Munich for Women in Science event

Photo of Ele, Shomari and Saher, wrapped up in winter coats, standing outside. They are covered in a light dusting of snow.

Clip of snow surfers on the river. The banks are covered in a thick layer of snow

A photo of a snowy Christmas market

This time last year I was thrilled to be invited to speak at the first Munich for Women in Science Event 😊 Huge thanks to Ele Zeggini and @www.helmholtz-munich.de for the invitation 🙏🏽The snow then came and I got stuck in Munich 😅 Remember the adventures @shomarilw.bsky.social 😆

Artist in Residence | Royal Society We invite expressions of interest to participate in a Royal Society Artist in Residence scheme in 2025.

Love this @royalsociety.bsky.social 🤩 Further details 👇🏾
royalsociety.org/about-us/wor...

A big ginger and white cat looking in through some bi-fold windows, staring angrily at a smaller black and white cat. Cat standoff

Strange cat in the garden - Cruella the Cat is not happy 😾

go.bsky.app/PyBGpg8

Opportunities | BlackinCancer

Fabulous Post-Doc Fellowship opportunities 😍 Information on how to get in touch below 👇🏽
www.blackincancer.com/opportunities
Black in Cancer (not on BSky I think)

Interesting paper 👇🏾

Photo of an inside of a shop with lots of people crowding round Christmas gifts, tea, coffee, chocolates, biscuits. Lots of Christmas trees are visible. Interior of Fortnum and Masons, London

Selfie of me smiling to the camera, next to brightly decorated Christmas trees. Interior of Fortnum and Masons in London

Christmassy songs on the radio, Christmas trees and hustle and bustle in shops🌲 Eek- too soon 🫣

Thank you 🤗

a teddy bear with the words dude it 's a little different on the bottom Alt: A teddy bear saying 'dude it's a little different'

5 years ago I wrote a 'Twitter 101 blog' post. This was before Twitter turned into X and a raging dumpster fire. Just replace the word 'Twitter' with 'Bluesky' in that post and a large chunk of it is still relevant. stuartcantrill.com/2019/11/28/t...