Ashley Kopec

Ok maybe just a *little* furloughed 🤦🏼‍♀️

You all deserve it. Science deserves it. I’m lucky to have found a job that brings out my best, where I can contribute to the shared mission most effectively.

Hand to god, I thought I was going to be furloughed again next week 🤣 all my summary statements will be out tomorrow, all my reviewers trained, all assignments out… just in case. Just gotta role with the insanity at this point 🧘‍♀️

“The quiet power of program officers lies not in control, but in care. Care for the science, for the people who conduct it, and for the public it is meant to serve.”

👀

I’m so sad to not be at SfN this year! Go get inspired for me and report back please.

I am on it SO HARD 🤣

You are not a schmuck. You cared enough about your colleagues to do everything in your power to get them a fair and thorough review. Because when the SROs return, we can only move to reschedule as quickly as we have all scores to know what will be discussed. You value your community. Thank you.

Agreed! Last round I had a reviewer indicate they couldn’t see them in Edit, but as I said I can’t be sure because I don’t have an option to see in reviewer-view

2) yes, in Read phase, for ~a week prior to the meeting. In the meeting, IAR switches to Edit phase and you can only view (and edit) your own critiques again. Not 100% on that because SROs see different screens from reviewers. But definitely you are encouraged to view other critiques in Read Phase.

1) the last time we postponed and rescheduled (spring), roster membership was left intact and DRR honored extensions and post submission deadlines. Meaning, likely yes for this round of postponements as well. And…

Surely, this is the week fellas! I know the people in the fancy suits can do it!

These study sections are planned to be rescheduled, not cancelled, just like our spring rescheduling. In the latter case, roster membership was honored for continuing submission and 2 week extensions. I would assume the same rules would apply in this case as well.

Schrödinger's employment.

Wouldn’t it be wild if after the shutdown ends, I turn on my computer and work phone for the first time (I’m not permitted to now), and one of my missed emails is a RIF layoff? What a world.

CVS is doing it?! I couldn’t get one at Publix. Making appt now…

The “problem” with vaccines? They so effective at preventing deaths that they create generations of people that question whether disease was a problem in the first place because they have never experienced the horrors of a world without vaccines.

Postdocs applying for K99s, particularly if it's your last opportunity: DO NOT forget to include a foreign justification document if you have any sort of foreign collaboration. Your application will be withdrawn if you don't have that.

❤️🤜🏻

Peer review isn’t perfect. But in some ways, that wasn’t the point of the post, was it?

And a whole lot of reviewers who want to give their colleagues and field a fair shot at progress, even as they themselves struggle. SROs and POs can’t do anything if we can’t get those grants through peer review!

H/T to my NORDP colleague MV. New NIH policies on AI just dropped. (Don't)
Also "no more than six new, renewal, resubmission, or revision applications from an individual Principal Investigator/Program Director or Multiple Principal Investigator for all council rounds in a calendar year."

Also be sure to read the instructions a Forms I SF424. These Fs will have the new format/review instructions so there are different components from the previous NOFOs.

Retiring to post under new Simplified Review Framework?

NYT: One estimate finds that DOGE’s “firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers” will actually COST taxpayers “upward of $135 billion this fiscal year.”

@nytimes.com 🤡
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/u...

If you were planning to submit Neuroscience related T32s to PAR-22-265, PAR-24-126, or PAR-24-108, note those are now expired and you need to submit through PAR-25-168. See this notice: grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

It’s dead

Digging into the reinstated NIH grants. This story is an evolving doozy.

The reinstated grant is an R21 from Seattle Children's Hospital

I was very confused when I read the title:

"An intervention to promote healthy relationships among transgender and gender expansive youth"

1/n