Jennifer N. Phillips

Assistant Professor Online applications must be received before 11:59pm on: September 14, 2025 If a date is not listed above, review the Applicant Instructions below for more details. Available Title(s): 270-NN_FACULTY -...

WSU biology is hiring a vertebrate ecologist! wsu.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/WSU_Jo...

If you live in or near the company town of Starbase, TX - let me know what it’s like around launch times? DM’s open here lmk how to get in touch off social or email or ping me on signal. <lora dot kolodny at nbcuni dot com>

Image of the TV series The Magic School Bus accompanied by the following text: Airing on PBS in the mid-1990s, this NSF-funded animated TV show follows Ms. Frizzle and her class as they set off on field trips out of this world, including careening across the solar system, traveling through the human body or visiting the late Cretaceous period.

I was today years old when I learned that the Magic Schoolbus was an NSF-funded project.

If you, like me, had you NSF granted terminated, here’s what I learned from a hopeful meeting with my VP of research:
1. We have 30 days to act! Meet with your admin asap
2. APPEAL: Everyone can appeal! It must go through your institution, there’s a template, sent registered mail. My VP told me ⬇️

Given that habitat loss is demonstrably the single biggest threat to endangered species, this move effectively ends protection for most species, and a lot of things will go extinct.

As NOAA Cuts Continue, Ocean Researchers Worry About Monitoring Programs - Inside Climate News Political storm clouds darkened the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration again this week as the weather and climate agency fired more than 1,000 workers for the second time within five week...

1. We have enough information to act on the climate crisis NOW, even if every single measurement stops.

2. We need to know how bad it's going to get, and if our mitigation efforts are working.

These can be true at the same time.

Web transmission properties vary with a spider’s past and current noise exposure Pessman and Hebets show that the funnel-weaving spider’s past and current exposure to environmental noise shapes web vibration transmission. Under loud noise, rural webs retained energy in longer-rang...

Intriguing paper by Brandi Pessman and Eileen Hebits, where urban spiders faced with high noise levels build more soundproofed webs:
www.cell.com/current-biol...

The 2025 U.S. #StateOfTheBirds report was released today. The report finds that birds continue to decline unabated across most habitats—habitats that are also vital to human well-being.
Read the report & take action! www.stateofthebirds.org/2025/
#bringbirdsback

This animal is on the edge of extinction. Trump just fired the people trying to save it. — Vox In the open grasslands of South Dakota, not far from the dramatic rock formations of Badlands National Park, lives one of the continent’s cutest, fiercest, and rarest animals: the black-footed ferret.

apple.news/ABzuEFuVjS6i...

A partial preliminary injunction is granted on parts of anti-DEI executive orders. The judge noted that the lawsuit is likely to succeed, as the EO is "textbook viewpoint-based discrimination;the provision expressly targets...the expression of views supportive of DEI."
www.aaup.org/news/win-aau...

Elon Musk’s dream comes true: The federal board that protects workers does not exist, at least for now | CNN Business The National Labor Relations Board, the independent agency that is supposed to enforce labor laws for most American workers, has been essentially shut down after President Donald Trump fired one of it...

As of now, the American worker has no protections

www.cnn.com/2025/02/15/b...

The U.S. Department of Labor is organizing a protest. Elon Musk’s staff will be present at the Frances Perkins Building in Washington, D.C., today at 4 p.m. It was mentioned that staff should plan to stay late after the 4 p.m. meeting to assist with setting up Elon Musk staffers into their systems.

If you work in the federal government (particularly civil rights at DOJ) or state or local agencies that get federal funding, and have info about new anti-DEI and anti-civil rights mandates, please reach out to me on signal at nhannahjones.67.

Salmon are ‘coming home’ to spawn in Klamath River after dams are removed Years long fight by local tribes has paid off after four dams, which had blocked passage for fish for decades, came down

🪶 Less than a month after those dams have come down in the largest dam removal project in US history, salmon are once more returning to spawn in creeks that have been cut off to them for generations.Video shows that hundreds of salmon have made it to tributaries.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...

A reminder from the past to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself: the Cuyahoga River caught fire over a dozen times, leading to change in 1969.

Here is an overview of Trump’s reduction in clean water protections during his last term: (1/2)

Universities in Dark Times: Beyond the Plague of Neoliberal Fascism In an era marked by unprecedented threats to democracy from rising authoritarian forces, universities—once celebrated citadels of democratic learning and public service—now find themselves caught in a...

"In this climate, public intellectuals play an essential role as guardians of engaged citizenship and intellectual integrity, equipping students and the public to see that democracy cannot sustain itself passively; it demands an active, vigilant defense." www.counterpunch.org/2024/11/04/u...

The Phillips lab at WSU is busy this winter with undergrads working on habitat mapping of nest sites in Texas and New Mexico! Today we had this red-tailed hawk join the fun!

We are now accepting applications for the UTEP ROADS Post-baccalaureate program! Applications are due March 1st, 2024. See our website for more info! utep.edu/science/ramp/
#RaMP #NSF #UTEProads_ramp #STEM

My awesome collaborator Dr. Jennifer Phillips is looking for a postdoc to join our songbird sensory pollution project in New Mexico this spring!
ornithologyexchange.org/jobs/board/p...

Know any recent PHD’s in bioacoustics, animal behavior, or ornithology? I am looking for a postdoc to start this winter to work on our project understanding sensory pollution effects across biological scales! ornithologyexchange.org/jobs/board/p...

Urban light pollution linked to smaller eyes in birds The bright lights of big cities could be causing an evolutionary adaptation for smaller eyes in some birds, a new study indicates. Researchers found that two common songbirds, the Northern Cardinal an...

New paper out! We found resident bird have smaller eyes in the bright urban core of San Antonio compared to urban edge habitat, while migratory species do not. Bonus find-younger, smaller painted buntings are left to set up on sensory polluted territories

www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Making the switch!