Prof. Virginia Braun (she/her they/them)

"They were girls who went to school to learn, with hopes and dreams for their future," Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said. "Today, their lives were brutally cut short.”

Read more: https://wapo.st/4r7izC7

Congrats to my colleague Pat the mammoth achievement that is a (first) book - not that common in psychology compared to some other disciplines! And a fascinating topic! Also very envious/admiring that Pat managed to get Bad Bunny at the Superbowl into a scholarly article so quickly. Nice work!!

Screening, sorting, and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review The process of peer review is vital to contemporary science, but is also under enormous strain. This study uses mathematical models to dissect the threats to the long-term viability of peer review, su...

1. Kevin Gross and I have a new paper out today PLOS Biology.

We used economic models based around screening games and the market for unpaid labor to highlight a meltdown cycle threatening peer review.

“'The Unexpected Wheelchair': Exploring U.K. University Students’ Social Perceptions of Dating and Physical Disability Using Story Completion" by @vicclarke.bsky.social and @ginnybraun.bsky.social A narrative design to understand negative social perceptions psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines: Introduction A free online humanities course about how to learn and work and thrive in an AI world.

Really useful... thebullshitmachines.com

Great pair of talks from @carlbergstrom.com at Auckland Uni today - more grist for the upcoming conversations with students about their engagement with learning, their learning/life contexts, and the place (or not) of LLMs in that. And the ongoing existential gaaah of being an academic in the now.

I really enjoyed this interview with Mihingarangi Forbes. In 20 minutes we managed to touch on numerous issues relating to how AI is changing society, issues I've been grappling daily in conversations with colleagues here in New Zealand.

never heard it before either!

Painting by Pete Amato. In the centre of the top half of the painting, is the head and shoulders of a feminine figure with longish purple silver hair splaying out around her. Her eyes are entirely white and she has a green moko kauae on her lips and chin. Her shoulders are covered with a cloak (korowai), decorated with spirals (koru) and saw-edged triangle (niho taniwha), representing new beginnings and strength. To her left are blue green waves, above them darkness, stars and a moon in shadow. Directly above her sits a full moon. To her right float little islands with a tree above them, their roots dangling. Above them sits another half moon, this one sitting in a purple wispy sky. The bottom half of the painting is dominated by a stepped motif symbolising the gain on knowledge (poutama) in the background and a crescent shaped motif (kape) that represents the glow of the moon in the foreground. Long earthworms twist around a fish hook (hei matau). To the bottom and left, twists a dark purple eel. The painting's dominant colours are purple, grey, blue and green.

Not voted in the #BugoftheYear2026 competition? We commissioned Wairoa artist Pete Amato (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Te Wairoa) to show why we think the North Auckland Worm deserves your vote. Check out his amazing painting - Hīnātore! It's only a little smaller than the worm itself :) 1/n

Professors in the Epstein Files Begin to Face Consequences Several faculty members who spoke regularly with Epstein have been stripped of their titles or teaching duties.

Good to see *some* academic institutions starting to reckon with their male academics’ with ties to Epstein.

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Enjoy!!

‘If I think about what this means, I want to cry’: what happens when a city loses its university? When Essex University’s Southend campus opened, it was a message of hope for a ‘left behind’ UK seaside town. Its closure will be felt far beyond its 800 students, some of whom will not get their degr...

"Seventeen years ago, the arrival of a university ... was positioned as a clear message of hope."

“It wasn’t even a sit-down meeting. It was a quick 20-minute zoom call and the decision had already been made.”

A grim read in many respects.

#HigherEd

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Here's the Call for Papers on the journal website with details of the submission process, submission guidelines etc.: think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...

@ginnybraun.bsky.social @eileenjoy.bsky.social

As the UK government relies on media silence to renew arms export licences to Israel, solidarity movements must keep up the pressure, writes Ryvka Barnard

Full article: www.newarab.com/opinion/uk-g...

This…

MBIE has announced the board members of Research Funding New Zealand, the new org that will make funding decisions for NZ's "major public investments in science, innovation and technology"

My initial response: 😬🤔🙄WTF

Why are three of them Aus-based? Why such a strong Agri lean? ⚛️🧪👩‍🔬

Special issue of Qualitative Research in Psychology Edited by Virginia Braun, Victoria Clarke, Eileen Joy and Lisa Trainor Call for papers New developments and good practice in reflexive thematic analysis The year 2026 is the 20th anniversary of the publication of the paper Using thematic analysis in psychology in Qualitative Research in Psychology. This paper has gone on to be the most cited qualitative methodological paper of all time according to an analysis by the journal Nature. Reflexive thematic analysis (TA) has transformed the practice of qualitative research in and beyond psychology. This Special Issue will mark this anniversary by exploring good practice and new developments in reflexive TA. We invite both full length papers and shorter commentaries and reflections from psychology and related disciplines. Potential topics include: • The use of reflexive TA to analyse visual and multimodal data • Is an N of one possible? The use reflexive TA in case study research • Beyond consensus and theme agreement: Strategies for using reflexive TA when there is more than one analyst • The use of reflexive TA in creative and arts-based research • The use of reflexive TA in Indigenous research • The use of reflexive TA in participatory designs (including participants as co-analysts) • Extensions of reflexive TA (e.g., frameworks and guidance for interpretative analysis) • Reviews of good (and poor) practice • Combining reflexive TA with other approaches (e.g., combining reflexive TA and narrative analysis; reflexive TA and discourse analysis) • “Behind the scenes”: Reflections on doing reflexive TA • Using reflexive TA in constructionist, critical realist or mixed methods research • Can reflexive TA be a feminist method? A queer method? A critical race theory method? • Doing deductive reflexive TA

• Good practice in teaching and supervising reflexive TA • Methodological pluralism and reflexive TA • Power relations and the politics of interpretation in reflexive TA Abstract submission deadline: 29 May 2026 Submit a maximum 500 word abstract to: Victoria.Clarke@uwe.ac.uk Deadline for paper submissions: 30 November 2026 Please contact any of the editors to discuss potential submissions: V.Braun@auckland.ac.nz; Victoria.Clarke@uwe.ac.uk; Eileen.Joy@auckland.ac.nz; L.R.Trainor@swansea.ac.uk Please note that we do not anticipate having a focus on the use of GenAI in reflexive TA as a Special Issue of QRIP on GenAI in qualitative research is currently in progress.

I'm excited to share a Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Qualitative Research in Psychology on New developments and good practice in reflexive thematic analysis co-edited by me, @ginnybraun.bsky.social @eileenjoy.bsky.social and Lisa Trainor. Please contact any of us if you have any questions.

Professional athletes are being advised not to leave the hotel or go anywhere without their passports while visiting Minnesota.

This is not a country that can safely host international events like the World Cup.

Boycotting is not even a political question anymore. It is a basic issue of safety.

US committee is reconsidering all vaccine recommendations Move is dramatic departure for advisory group under Kirk Milhoan, who says he doesn’t like the term ‘established science’

Prof emerita @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social,
“a founding member of Defend Public Health, said Milhoan “wants to experiment on the people of the United States by seeing what happens as vaccination coverage plummets and infectious diseases spread. This is so dangerous as to approach criminality””

The Jeffrey Epstein files: New Zealand mentioned more than 1000 times New Zealand is mentioned more than a thousand times in the Jeffrey Epstein files released by the US Justice Department.

Stuff takes the incredible journalistic step of *using the search function* to get a "NZ mentioned" headline and then the article doesn't mention either Thiel (a NZ citizen) or Pinker (invited here by the FSU to speak TONIGHT)

www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

Rising abuse against Auckland hospital workers feels ‘uncontrollable’ Nurses say the big jump in reported assaults is due to under-staffing and patient frustration, but Health NZ Te Whatu Ora says it’s because staff are encouraged to report incidents.

Nurses say the big jump in reported assaults is due to under-staffing and patient frustration, but Health NZ Te Whatu Ora says it’s because staff are encouraged to report incidents.

Yeah I am not going to hold my breath on this... 💩

QuitGPT — OpenAI Execs are Trump's Biggest Donors Join the movement. Delete ChatGPT. Cancel your subscription. It's time to quit.

I just joined the #QuitGPT boycott. OpenAI execs are Trump's biggest donors. It's time to quit. Join us: quitgpt.org

I know academics are not *better* humans - but you want good colleagues. And when we think of the power inherent in universities this doubly breaks my heart and makes me so so angry!!!

Wonder how the uni will try and spin that

Cartoon. Big bold black type reads, “Weather! Floods! Disaster!” At the bottom a woman is saying “And climate change?” PM Luxon is saying “Shhh…” and Climate Minister Simon Watts is saying, “Now…” and our Foreign Minister is saying, “Pffft, you’ve been listening to that lunatic fringe group, the World Health Organisation”

Fact: Climate change is making the weather more extreme.
My #cartoon today #NZpol #ClimateChange #Floods #ClimateInaction

We could not agree more @Professor Braun! And if anyone is interested in partnering with Palestinian colleagues for our Frontiers Research Topic, please fill in this form: forms.office.com/Pages/Respon...

I’d love to - though COVID has done me in for at least a month now so this year is not gonna go to plan 😭

What an important topic - when there are such threats and pressures.

With you involved I’m sure it will be great!!