Sasha Zabelski, PhD

I don't really post updates anymore but my second dissertation paper was accepted for publication in a journal I have wanted to publish in since the first year of my PhD, so that's pretty cool I guess 😁

GPT-5 regularly asks you why you are not citing its work. GPT-5 always believes your estimator is biased. GPT-5 has more of a comment than a question. Sometimes GPT-5 tells you stories about grad school and expresses regret about getting a PhD. GPT-5's mom wonders when it will start making money.

By most measures (suicide, depression, anxiety), U.S. mental health is deteriorating. Bad time to demolish our mental health infrastructure.

In a new preprint, @albeccia.bsky.social et al survey the damage from recent mental health grant cuts at NIH & SAMHSA.

Check it out: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Counting things is, actually, political. It’s laden with choices about what to count, who gets to count and who gets counted, how to display numbers in ways that shape the possible frames for interpretation or which are more or less accessible, etc

Criminologist analysis: this is fuuuucked.

We've spent the last 20+ years trying to clean up the mess from the last time we did this (not that we ever fully stopped, but still). This is the opposite of evidence-based, if you count empirical research as evidence. Not the type of evidence they use.

Heard from #AHRQ that the entire grants staff has been let go! They are unable to issue funds for grants already funded, let alone fund new grants. This is outrageous and will make Americans poorer and sicker. Why? A brief thread about just some recent AHRQ-funded research: #MedSky #HealthPolicy

A major AI training data set contains millions of examples of personal data Personally identifiable information has been found in DataComp CommonPool, one of the largest open-source data sets used to train image generation models.

NEW FROM ME: new research has found millions of ex's of personal info, including credit cards, passports, résumés, birth certificates etc in 1 of the largest web-scraped datasets used to train image generation AI models.

It's a major privacy violation.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/18/1...

Image of a map of the United States showing all of the public radio stations

With CPB funding being cut, now is a good time to support independent and nonprofit media.

Your local public radio station will need your help and support. If you believe in public media, consider donating to your local station.

Find it here: cpb.org/cpb-station-...

anti-prime sale

FYI Bookshop.org has anti-prime free shipping rn!

So my academic friends who run quant surveys… did we know that qualtrics included a section about using data to train genAI in their privacy statement? Are u including this in ur IRB? Cuz ppl I’m asking say they didn’t know and this is not my neck of the woods (I am a qual researcher lol)

As someone who did molecular simulations in undergrad and grad school, I’m telling you now that a computer cannot fucking know about drug interactions.

Today our @unm.edu @casaa.bsky.social T32 training grant is no longer funded. We are waiting for our renewal that is pending. I spent most of yesterday crying with worry about how I will support our amazing trainees. Today I celebrate them and the joy of seeing them present at CPDD and RSA. 🧵

The poverty line for a 3-person household is $26,650 a year. Most people understand how someone who makes $30K still couldn’t afford health insurance for their family.

But Markwayne Mullin, who got tens of millions of dollars by selling to a private equity firm, doesn’t represent most people.

Lessons Learned from Arkansas’ Experience with a Medicaid Work Requirement  | Milbank Memorial Fund Whether states adopt work requirements voluntarily or implement them pursuant to a federal requirement, they have the advantage of being able to learn from the problems encountered by Arkansas, the fi...

"A 2019 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the work requirement did not achieve the goal of promoting employment among low-income Arkansans, and the uninsured rate among 30-to-49-year-olds in the state increased from 10.5% in 2016 to 14.5% in 2018." 2/2

This is why relying on charity to fund essential services is a truly wild policy choice.

🔎 New preprint out: Preventing and eliminating bots and participant fraud in online surveys: Two case studies from international LGBTQ+ social research. 🌈🎓 #AcademicSky #socialpsyc

Eager for thoughts on our unique approach to tackling significant participant fraud (43%!) in the LEVEL UP! survey 🧵⬇️

Provisions Subject to a 60-Vote Byrd Rule Point of Order Energy and Natural Resources NEPA compliance. These provisions deem offshore oil and gas projects as automatically compliant with the National Environmental Policy Act, nullifying these projects' environmental review processes. (Subsection 102(b)(4) and Subsection 102(b)(5)) Offshore oil and gas leasing. This subsection requires leases to be issued to successful bidders within 90 days after the lease sale. (Subsection 102(b)(6)) Ambler Road. This section requires the Secretary of the Interior to permit construction of Ambler Road, a controversial mining road in Alaska. (Section 201) Mandatory public land sales. This section mandates the unprecedented sale of millions of acres of public land, including from both Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands. (Section 301)

Renewable energy fees. This subsection removes the Secretary of the Interior's discretion to reduce fees for solar and wind projects on Bureau of Land Management land. (Subsection 303(e)) Geothermal leasing and royalties. These sections require the Secretary of the Interior to hold yearly geothermal lease sales and purport to change how geothermal royalties are calculated. (Section 305 and Section 306) Natural gas exports and imports. This section creates a pay-to-play regime for natural gas exports, allowing natural gas exporters to pay a fee to have their project be deemed "in the public interest," which is a requirement for approval. (Section 401)

HUGE: Senate Parliamentarian says that Mike Lee's public land sell-off violates the Byrd rule, requires 60 votes in the Senate. A bunch of other terrible anti-environment provisions do too.

This isn't over, but this is a huge win.

www.budget.senate.gov/ranking-memb...

An Onion front page with the headline: Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice Who will stand up for our democracy? This question, fraught in even the most peaceful times, has only grown more pressing as our country approaches its 250th anniversary. Each passing day brings growing assaults on essential liberties like freedom of speech and due process. Meanwhile, our delicately assembled legal system faces a constant barrage of threats. Even as this issue reaches publication, the U.S. military has been deployed against peaceful protesters. We teeter on the brink of collapse into an authoritarian state. That is why, today, The Onion calls upon our lawmakers to sit back and do absolutely nothing. Members of Congress, now more than ever, our nation desperately needs your cowardice. Our republic is a birthright, an exceedingly rare treasure passed down from generation to generation of Americans. It was gained through hard years of bloody resistance and can too easily be lost. Our Founding Fathers, in their abundant wisdom, understood that all it would take was men and women of little courage sitting in the corridors of power and taking zero action as this precious inheritance was stripped away—and that is where we have finally arrived. Now is not the time for bravery or valor! This is the time for protecting your own hide and lining your pocket. Now is not the time for listening to your idiotic constituents drone on about what’s happening to their precious democracy. This is the time for getting down on all fours and grov- eling. Now is not the time to say, “Enough is enough,” and have the tough conversations about resisting the ongoing assaults on American liberty. This is the time to let the wave of apathy and indifference roll over you as you think about getting a really nice renovation to your house in Kalorama. But what can I, one coward, do alone? you might ask.

Donald Trump just unilaterally bombed Iran. A masked gang is terrorizing our streets. America has rapidly devolved into an authoritarian state.

That's why, today, The Onion has purchased a full page ad in today's New York Times with a simple plea to Congress:

Sit back and do absolutely nothing.

Thread: Senate Republicans released initial bill language for their #Medicaid cuts. I am reading the bill now and will highlight key changes from House-passed bill. Topline is provider tax restrictions are worse, will devastate expansion state finances (1/x) www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/do...

Today, NSF added another 500 GRFP awardees, bringing this year’s total to 1500
www.research.gov/grfp/Awardee...

They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling.

Most LLM-based Chatbots are designed to tell you things you're more likely to accept. So if you're in the middle of— or even just susceptible to— crisis, they absolutely can & often will *Affirm That Headspace*. And this has been shown w/ depression, schizoaffective syndromes, & self-harm ideation…

📣 HIRING!

The Health Equity and Action Lab (@ UIUC) is looking for a Coordinator to support an NIH-funded study on parents.

💼 Start by 9/1
📍 Champaign, IL
✍️ Apply: vjrodrig@illinois.edu (CV + cover letter)

RT to help us find someone great! 💜

#AcademicJobs #PsychologyJobs #HealthEquity

Guns are the leading cause of death of kids and teens, and state laws matter A study from JAMA Pediatrics compares states that have permissive gun laws with others that have strict regulations. The states with tougher rules did not see a rise in gun deaths among children and teens.

A study from JAMA Pediatrics compares states that have permissive gun laws with others that have strict regulations. The states with tougher rules did not see a rise in gun deaths among children and teens.

Today's Something Censored - SAMSHA published a groundbreaking report on the harms of conversion therapy - also known as change efforts. The 100+ page report provided key, concrete evidence and tangible next steps to protect all young people.

Health secretary RFK Jr. abruptly fires CDC vaccine advisory panel Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken the extraordinary step of firing the expert panel that advises the CDC.

#Breaking: Health secretary RFK Jr. abruptly fires CDC vaccine advisory panel

www.statnews.com/2025/06/09/r...

🚨 Support Los Angeles immigrant communities 🚨

Please consider donating to one or all of the following orgs:

Immigrant Defenders Law Center: give.immdef.org/donate

LA Jail Support / Bail Fund:
account.venmo.com/u/jailsuppor...

Unión del Barrio:
uniondelbarrio.org/main/support...

We could just house people instead.

Man it really sucks when someone just takes your government funding away out of nowhere on a whim

A sea of colorful columbines

A sea of different colored snap dragons

Multiple varieties of native plants in purple and pink colors

The house we moved in to has a native plant garden that brings me so much joy every day 🥲 also embracing low maintenance gardening 🙌🏻🙌🏻