Katie Witkiewitz

Vacation is great, but the incredible friends who support you on vacation are priceless! Sometimes it takes a village for an anxious dog. Huge thanks to @lcornelas.bsky.social, and @cassie-boness.bsky.social for being so amazing. 😻 🐕🐾❤️ and thanks to Amazon for same day dog bed delivery. 🤦‍♀️

The NIH budget will INCREASE by $400 million — not slashed by 40%, as Trump proposed — according to a proposal by Senate appropriators, says Sen Murray.

"Some have asked if there will even be an NIH by [2029]. The commmittee's resounding message is yes—Congress has your back", she says.

Thanks, Melissa! It's very much a lot of ups and downs over here. Holding onto hope for now.

Welcome to ABQ and UNM @drcolintmahoney.bsky.social!! La Cumbre for the win @katiew.bsky.social! And that’s my dog Max, refusing to look at the camera 🙄

Call these 14 senators.

Thank them for supporting #NIH.

Remind them that supporting NIH is meaningless if NIH cannot function.

This stay would:

1) Enable censorship of science.

2) Disrupt NIH’s ability to fund any research.

We are just finalizing RPPRs that were automatically due because our reinstated grants had RPPRs due July 1. We are also in the middle of re-allocating a ton of funds/rehiring, etc. This is utter chaos and such a horrible waste of GMS time at NIH and PI/research admin time at our institutions.

And I should add that I am one of the lucky ones that got grants reinstated due to the lawsuit (that will potentially soon be overturned by the Supreme Court). There are all of the folks out there who never had their grants reinstated in the first place, and that also continues to be horrific.

1. April-May: Grants terminated, scramble to shut down research and save personnel with other funding
2. June-July: Grants reinstated, scramble to write required progress reports, restart research, move personnel back to funding
3. And coming soon... August: Grants terminated again, scramble again.

This is absolutely horrific for science and for early career rising stars in our field. And for those of us with terminated grants that were for a moment reinstated, here is a timeline of the extra labor, pain, and hardship imposed by this chaos (cruelty seems to be the point):

We just got a NIAAA NOA for a new competing renewal, and they have made other new 01 awards recently. Its been a very slow trickle, which you can follow on Reporter. Still a lot of folks I know waiting for awards (including competitive and non-competitive).

So many questions, not a lot of answers.

True dat! And every IC is underfunded and decimated now, so it is unclear and very concerning why NIAAA has been so much slower in getting grants out the door.

NIAAA seems to be particularly behind and staff decimated, and they were already an underfunded and understaffed IC. It is heartening to see them starting to get new awards out the door, which wasn't happening - at all - but its still shocking and disheartening to see the lack of awards.

Welcome to ABQ!! So thrilled for you to be joining us here. And i second the recommendation from @anthonyperillo.bsky.social on Nexus.

I agree w/ all of the great advice & echo a done dissertation is a great dissertation. It may ultimately become your worse work, and that's okay - you got to wade through the swamp (i.e., ACT). Its also the culmination of your training/ideas, which is pretty great, savor it! Find joy where you can!

The UNM @casaa.bsky.social NIAAA T32 training grant has been renewed, finally! We will be sharing info about a postdoc opening soon. Until then, thanks to all of the comments of solidarity and hope for our training program. We are thrilled to keep training brilliant alcohol researchers.

⚠️ UNM has a new non-clinical PhD program, Diversity & Health Data Science Across the Lifespan! This area adopts a multidisciplinary lens to frame research questions at the intersection of human development, health, and sociocultural diversity.

Details and faculty here: psych.unm.edu/graduate/pro...

Beer Creek is not far from my house (relatively). I will check it out and let you know.

Where?!? That sounds amazing.

2025 just sucks ya'll.

It just sucks.

Everything is complicated and has gotten brutally harder for so many people.

To those who make life easier for folks, thank you. You will be remembered.

To those who deliberately make life more difficult for folks, you will also be remembered.

In flight, pilot Eric Hodges with Laura Ornelas and Katie Witkiewitz in the balloon basket

View of mountains and city from the balloon

View of two balloons with city and mountain in background

The balloon crew with Katie Witkiewitz, Eric Hodges, Laura Ornelas, David Ley, Morgan and Felix

Fridays are also for balloons! Besos Amigos flight with @lcornelas.bsky.social @davidleyphd.bsky.social

Missed you @joshuagrubbsphd.bsky.social

Amazing!! Love it! We should have a painting party when you get to NM!

Ours is actually a competing renewal, and they are also delayed it seems. So much disruption and chaos.

😢😣

Thank you! I'm glad you had the opportunity to know Alan during his time (right?)!

NIDA or NIAAA? NIMH? Or other? It seems NIDA is moving a bit quicker!

That is my sense, although take a look at the output carefully for that variable to make sure the estimates are not whacky.

Captain Haddock looking very frazzled, saying, “What a week, huh?” Tintin leans into the frame and says, “Captain, it’s Wednesday.” Snowy is very excited about the drink he has found.

I've run a lot of MNLFAs and have experienced this a few times. It seems there is probably a negative variance or some other nonsensical value that pops up in an iteration but that maximum likelihood ultimately settles on a value that is non-problematic when it terminates normally. God speed.

Thanks Melissa! Our trainees and mentors make it so wonderful and I crushed to see all of us scrambling. We will persevere, and I wish we didn’t have to do so.