Elizabeth Bonawitz

YouTube video by Pupsi Billie Eilish - Bad Guy (Pumpkin Cover)

In serious fall mood over here. 🍁🍂

Chestnuts, pumpkins, walks in the forest, please!

youtu.be/DnKOzdEa80A?...

📣 Calling 2nd-year grad students and their mentors:

You just abruptly lost the ability to apply for the NSF grad research fellowship.

Join ~900 others (and growing!) in signing @omfishient.bsky.social's petition to reverse that.

[Or reshare this petition if you're not directly impacted]

Do it yourself: discerning the effects of self-directed activity on conceptual learning npj Science of Learning - Do it yourself: discerning the effects of self-directed activity on conceptual learning

You can learn better by making your own predictions than by watching someone else's predictions, even if they are the same as yours. New computational approach to show the benefits of active/generative learning developed together with the fabulous @ebonawitz.bsky.social rdcu.be/eILdR

No link between paracetamol use during pregnancy and autism or ADHD in children In the largest epidemiologic study to date of the risk of giving birth to a child with autism, ADHD or intellectual disability following acetaminophen use during pregnancy, researchers found no associ...

'Tylenol' is known in the civilised world as Paracetamol

2.4 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019. Studied 186,000 children whose mothers were treated with paracetamol during pregnancy.

news.ki.se/no-link-betw...

NO KINGS Falmouth · No Kings **In America, and Falmouth, we don’t put up with would-be kings.** Our peaceful movement is getting bigger and stronger. “NO KINGS” is more than just a slogan—it’s the foundation our nation was built...

We need to make No Kings 2.0 on October 18 huge. Find a protest near you here:
www.nokings.org#map
And tell everyone you know to be there.
I'll be at this one:
www.mobilize.us/nokings/even...

A highly accomplished university student I know in Gaza who was forced out of her home is now trying to get to safety but her father is injured and cannot walk, taxis are unaffordable, and she has no place to go. The Israelis just cut off internet. Call yr reps to demand a stop to these atrocities!

out now in Open Mind: "People Evaluate Agents Based on the Algorithms That Drive Their Behavior"

by Bigelow & me

Paper: direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

OSF: osf.io/yzbrq/?view_...

🚨 NEW PREPRINT: Multimodal inference through mental simulation.

We examine how people figure out what happened by combining visual and auditory evidence through mental simulation.

Paper: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Code: github.com/cicl-stanfor...

The younger ones always turn first. I know 20 years being established at Harvard doesn't seem young, but all the other trees around it are older. Also, younger ones have more stress *because they're not as established*.

Once it gets tenure, it'll choose to turn later; either that or drop dead.

Global Collaboration to Capture Variability in Child Development - Levante Ensuring that children around the world can flourish is one of the most important goals of our time. Developmental science has made major strides in understanding how children grow, learn, and thrive ...

A first blogpost from the LEVANTE team, introducing our global project perspective.

A good intro if you're interested in learning more about cross-cultural developmental data collection using LEVANTE.

levante-network.org/global-colla...

now i can't unsee that.

a girl doing a handstand at sunset

Same time, different place.

Love those sunsets that really turn your head.

Student newspapers continue to do great work. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

😂

Interested in applying to graduate programs or research positions in psychology? Want more information and feedback on your submission materials? Then Harvard’s Prospective Ph.D. & RA Event in Psychology (PPREP) Is for you!! psychology.fas.harvard.edu/pprep
More info in the link!! Please retweet!

I use the formula (# submissions)*[3/(average # authors on each paper that can review)]

So co-senior authors dilute the requirement & junior/RAs don't count.

I typically end up reviewing more than this but it's good for a ballpark to keep me in check especially for conference papers & grants.

Volunteer Opportunities, Events, and Petitions Near Me · May Day Strong on Mobilize Find events, petitions, volunteer opportunities, fundraisers and more with May Day Strong.

I will be participating in four protests this weekend to resist the ongoing destruction of science, healthcare, and democracy in this country.
Please consider joining one of the many labor day rallies, you can find many of them here www.mobilize.us/mayday/
A few further thoughts in this thread...

Nice write-up of work led by Igor Bascandziev, & with @carenwalker.bsky.social & @adani.bsky.social on a recent project from our Caplan grant.

Thought Experiments Can Enhance Science Learning!

Thanks to Jill Anderson at Usable Knowledge for the interview.
www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable...

Wrote a eulogy for the yellow letters in my office window. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

NSF STEM K-12 (STEM K-12)

🚨 Major shake-up in NSF funding for K-12 STEM ed:

Caps proposals at $750K max for 3 years. Prior cap used to be $5M up to 5 years for some programs.

Archives several existing programs (DRK-12, AISL, CSforAll, TD, parts of ECR:Core). Combines into broad program with much lower expected # of awards.

Kempner Research Fellowship - Kempner Institute The Kempner brings leading, early-stage postdoctoral scientists to Harvard to work on projects that advance the fundamental understanding of intelligence.

If you work on artificial or natural intelligence and are finishing your PhD, consider applying for a Kempner research fellowship at Harvard:
kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/kempner-inst...

close up picture of a golden retriever face snuggling in bed

timeline cleanse

🎵 " gonna be, gonna be golden
we're going pup, pup, pup..."

"...this email rejection is certainly something to take humor in and will give them an additional story to tell at future networking events."

whelp, they changed the link:

news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

📢 Come join us on Sunday, November 9th for the Rutgers Symposium of Learning with an amazing list of speakers and great company! More details: sites.rutgers.edu/symposium-le...

As long as the typo wasn't a very unfortunately dropped "l", it's probably not as bad as a colleague of mine who stated he "invested a lot of effort into pubic service".

YouTube video by EttanEhsan Insights from Harvard Cognitive Development Expert - Prof Elizabeth Bonawitz

Super fun conversation about learning, development, curiosity, and more -- with my youngest (and most precocious) interviewer yet.

Check out the Ehsan Adouane STEM Podcast:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO5m...

YouTube video by EttanEhsan Insights from Harvard Cognitive Development Expert - Prof Elizabeth Bonawitz

Super fun conversation about learning, development, curiosity, and more -- with my youngest (and most precocious) interviewer yet.

Check out the Ehsan Adouane STEM Podcast:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO5m...