Stefanie Robel

My quote of the day

Be true to yourself. Make each day a masterpiece. Help others. Drink deeply from good books. Make friendship a fine art. Build a shelter against a rainy day.

John Wooden
UCLA basketball coach
National Champions 1964, 1965, 1967-1973, 1975
Longest winning streak 88 games

I am sorry to hear that. Terrible times but we’ll get through this! 🤗

The massive list of suspended UCLA grants came out today: 300 NSF and 500 NIH grants. I am miraculously not on the list, but this is devastating. Science will be lost, progress will be frozen, people will lose jobs, and careers in science and medicine are being destroyed. This is not ok.

NIH director Bhattacharya denies banned word list in meeting with staffers Bethesda Declaration signers insist that a list exists and further criticize new policies

#NIH PIs, start emailing Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya and tell them what you are experiencing. CC Dr. Jon Lorsch and your ICO Director of Extramural Activities. Get them to talk with each other. #defendresearch

From left to right, Dr. Albert Mulenga, William Tae Heung Kim, Dr. Thu Thuy Nguyen, Dr. Alex Kiarie Gaithuma, Dr Hassan Hakimi and Emily Bencosme Cuevas. Kim is a Texas A&M researcher who was detained in San Francisco last Monday despite being a permanent resident of the United States and a green card holder. COURTESY OF TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

I NEED to tell you the story of Tae Heung “William” Kim.

He's a graduate student at Texas A&M where he's working on a vaccine for Lyme disease.

He's a *legal permanent resident* of the United States.

And he's been in ICE detention for 12 days & counting, transferred Tuesday to South Texas.

What are your thoughts on these options proposed by NIH for covering publication costs? I am all for limiting what NIH covers to return to reasonable costs ($10k/pub is ridiculous). But does that disadvantage NIH-funded researchers? grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

#Botany2025 ECR attendees may be interested in this opportunity (and can increase the representation of plants!).

Have you benefited from a medical treatment or know someone who has? This one man wants to shut it all down. It sounds nonsensical and mad. And it is. But Russell Vought is head of the OMB, wants to and can do it. Call your members of Congress. Get rid of Vought, not medical research.

From my own academic research, even pre LLMs there was a huge danger of zombie factoids that begin in a respectable publication by mistake and then get reprinted for decades because no one is backtracing to the original source. Once bad info gets into the system it can take years to clear it out.

🚨Job Alert: My department in UNSW Sydney is recruiting a teaching-only Lecturer in Biophysics. The lecturer will play a key role in the pedagogical development and delivery of courses and practicals in the new undergraduate (BSc) major in #Biophysics that we are launching from 2026. #AcademicBsky 🧪

Everyone call tomorrow. Vought needs to be outed as the extremist he is. Chances are those 14 republicans already knew this was coming when they addressed the letter to HIM last Friday asking him to use the appropriated funds for FY2025.

Trump Administration Puts New Chokehold on Billions in Health-Research Funding The National Institutes of Health can’t award grants to outside researchers under a new White House restriction.

This is a catastrophe. There is nothing else to be said.

Also?

It’ll be a space full of smart, generous people who care deeply about science and each other.

That’s rare. And right now, necessary.

If you’re a new PI and this speaks to you, DM me or reply and I’ll send you the details.

You're not alone.
#NewPI #ResearchLeadership #FacultySupport

We’ll talk about:

🔹 How to do more with less
🔹 How to get your team working independently (even when it’s small)
🔹 How to stay strategic with grants, papers & goals
🔹 How to protect your energy & lead in uncertainty

It’s free. It’s practical. It’s not fluff.

🗓 August 11
⏰ 10am–2pm ET
💻 Online

And it’s for you if you’re trying to figure out how to lead with clarity, stretch your budget, build a team, and not burn out in the process.

So we’re doing something about it.

I’m hosting a special edition of the New PI Success Workshop w/ @glia-leadership.bsky.social—specifically for folks who are starting their labs in the middle of all this uncertainty. And others who also need support.

You deserve support. Not just pressure.

When I started my lab, I was full of vision. Determined to build something meaningful.

But right now? Even new PIs with startup funds and momentum are stepping into one of the hardest environments we've seen.

It’s the dream job you signed up for. But it doesn't feel like a dream right now.

This week has been rough.

Our university asked departments to cut spending to 50% of last year’s funding. Morale is low. Some of my smartest, most resilient colleagues are wondering if their research will survive.

And I’m wondering how we lead through this.

Being an academic right now feels like riding in a car that has the check engine and low fuel light on, and you know you there isn't a gas station for at least the next three years.

How long before it stalls in the middle of the rode?

How long before you get off?

How long before we all get off.

Need call scripts? DM. We email a new science & health related call script each week.

A functional perspective on astrocyte heterogeneity Astrocytes are glial cells of the central nervous system (CNS) that perform an array of diverse functions that are essential for brain activity. Studies on the functional diversity of astrocytes sugge...

We have a new review out in TINS!

A functional perspective on astrocyte heterogeneity

www.cell.com/trends/neuro...

And so it begins... NIAID has issued 20 R01s with 4 year budgets (i.e. Multi-year funded) since 7/7/25. These are almost unheard of in the past.

Sell mice, rats, zebrafish as pets 🐭

what I want to know is where the 50% of funds are that were appropriated but not paid out.

ChatGPT advises women to ask for lower salaries, study finds A new study has found that large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT consistently advise women to ask for lower salaries than men.

Study finds A.I. LLMs advise women to ask for lower salaries than men. When prompted w/ a user profile of same education, experience & job role, differing only by gender, ChatGPT advised the female applicant to request $280K salary; Male applicant=$400K.
thenextweb.com/news/chatgpt...

Yeah. Contractors who are expected to operate like employees. Annoys me to no end.

Yes, I misremembered the number. I said this because Friday we celebrated level NSF funding and even thanked our AL senator on the committee. Then that changed to a 23% cut on Monday, which is huge. We’ve just lost all perspective because of the even larger number in the BBB.

This somehow has not been included in the news cycle of late. Judging from conversations I’ve had with non-scientists of late, people don’t know about this and about the 50% funds not paid out by NIH/NSF this year. 🦋 is great but more importantly talk to the people outside of our bubble.

Maybe I am not getting it. But that doesn’t mean level finding. It’s 23% less, correct?

When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up, you have to do something. ~ John Lewis ~

#GoodTroubleLivesOn

“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” #JohnLewis

#Pinks
#ProudBlue