Allie Sinclair

Every reputable expert I know considers mRNA vaccine technology to be one of the most revolutionary advances in medicine in our lifetimes. Its inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023. Shutting it down now is pointless self-harm to humanity.

Many thanks to the incredible interdisciplinary team who made this work possible! @joshuasweitz.bsky.social, @falklab.bsky.social, @ellenpeters.bsky.social, @angiefagerlin.bsky.social, @malar0ne.bsky.social, @dcosme.bsky.social, Colin Cooke, and Clio Andris 8/8

We scaled these insights by creating a public website, where people can learn about how cuts to science funding will impact their local area. Data from website users offers converging evidence of effectiveness in terms of changing approval and motivating sharing. 7/8

scienceimpacts.org

The interventions decreased approval of the funding cuts across the political spectrum, though we also see strong main effects of political ideology. 6/8

The interventions led to some striking changes in approval of the funding cuts! Among people who were initially unsure what to think of the funding cuts, nearly half disapproved post-intervention. Among people who initially approved of the cuts, 26% disapproved post-intervention. 5/8

The interventions also motivated action to oppose the cuts: Participants reported greater intentions to contact their congressional representatives, talk to others, and share information online. Interventions w/ active engagement (quizzes, dynamic maps) were more effective at motivating action. 4/8

Overall, relative to a Control condition, the interventions decreased approval of NIH funding cuts, increased self-reported knowledge, and led to more negative perceived local impact. 3/8

In two pre-registered online experiments (with politically balanced U.S. samples), we tested the effectiveness of text, quiz, and map-based interventions that communicated how cuts to NIH funding will harm research and lead to economic losses in communities nationwide. 2/8

📣 New preprint from the SCIMaP team!

Across three studies, we show that communicating the economic impact of NIH funding cuts—especially with interactive quizzes and maps—decreases approval and motivates action to oppose the cuts, across the political spectrum. 🧵 1/8
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Home | Social Connection Lab The Social Connection Lab ("SoCoLab") at USC investigates what helps people feel socially connected to one another.

🚨We are recruiting a lab manager who will spend 80% of their effort in my lab and 20% of their effort in @leorhackel.bsky.social's lab. Please share widely!

Apply at usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange... with:
completed questionnaire (socolab.org/lab-manager-application), CV & Cover Letter!

Great work and great thread!

New preprint for the SCIMaP project: we show how accounting for commuter flows reveals the broad extent of economic losses that will result from NIH funding cuts

Optimistic people have functional MRI commonality of neural processing for imagining the future (whereas pessimists have a diverse pattern)
www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

✊ Sign your support for all three here⬇️

NASA: actionnetwork.org/forms/suppor...

EPA: act.standupforscience.net/forms/epa-ad...

NIH: act.standupforscience.net/forms/add-na...

In scathing letter, NASA workers rebuke ‘rapid and wasteful changes’ at agency | CNN Current and former NASA employees have co-signed a declaration protesting changes at the agency that some say pose a grave risk to astronauts.

Hundreds of NASA employees have sounded the alarm.

They took the risk. Now it’s your turn. Stand with NASA employees calling out corruption and dangerous cuts.

Sign your support for the brave #NASA employees here➡️ zurl.co/X4CZT

zurl.co/Ob1wt

#StandUpForScience
#VoyagerDeclaration

A decision with consequential scientific impacts, including the potential that decisions of expert panels are *commonly* ignored or superseded when misaligned with 'agency priorities', e.g.,

rejection of grants recommended for funding

and/or

approval of grants not recommended for funding.

Grant terminations have grabbed the headlines and have seen legal action, but even more damaging to the US research enterprise has been the massive decrease in number of research grants issued by federal agencies

NIH has seen a decrease of 57% in the number of awards & 63% in value compared to FY24

We will eventually put out calls for study participants, too!

PhD student and lab manager!

Shoutout to @owlstown.com for the great and easy-to-use website builder for academics!

Sinclair Lab The Learning & Behavior Change Lab at Rice University, directed by Dr. Sinclair

Excited to share my new lab website!

The Learning & Behavior Change Lab will launch at Rice in July 2026. I’ll be recruiting over the next year! @ricesocsci.bsky.social

www.sinclairlab-rice.com

And thanks also to Robert Hornik for the feedback on our letter.

Thanks to the author team: @falklab.bsky.social @michaelemann.bsky.social @dcosme.bsky.social @diegoreinero.bsky.social @curse10.bsky.social

The comment by Dablander at al.: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Our reply:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Our prior paper:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

In this letter in @pnas.org, we respond to a comment on our recent paper.

Although multiple factors shape whether we act on our intentions, intentions are valuable precursors of behavior that can guide the iterative development of behavior change interventions.

www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....

We also tested a similar text vs quiz impact literacy intervention but didn’t find decreases in efficacy beliefs. (Carbon Footprint interventions did have some null to weak backfire effects, though.)

Behavioral interventions motivate action to address climate change | PNAS Mitigating climate change requires urgent action at individual, collective, and institutional levels. However, individuals may fail to act because ...

Great work! We have some results (about misperceptions of impact and feasible behaviors) that closely align with yours, from formative surveys that guided the choice of the behaviors targeted in our recent interventions. I also used the Ivanova paper for impact estimates
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

What a great #scicomm #scipolicy panel this week with @ellenkuwana.bsky.social @cdelawalla.bsky.social @standupforscience.bsky.social @drkiki.bsky.social @abankston.bsky.social @asinclair.bsky.social watch the video & see resources we discussed here: biotechnetworks.org/sos

#scimap #NIH #NSF

Economic loss due to NIH budget cuts by congressional district, scienceimpacts.org/fy26

The #SCIMaP team announces a major update: an analysis of the economic impacts of the White House's NIH FY26 budget.

Bottom-line, we estimate $46B in total economic loss, 202K lost jobs, and impacts in communities nationwide.

Interactive map and shareable report:
scienceimpacts.org/fy26

a 🧵