Elizabeth Bonawitz

A scholar examines a postcard in the Harry Ransom Center's reading room. Her photo is framed by a blue square with "FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN" written on each side. That image is positioned in front of a section of the etched windows on the Ransom Center's first floor, which showcase highlights from our collections. More info about the Ransom Center's fellowships: https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/fellowships/

Do you:
-Love #literature? 📚
-Adore #art? 🎨
-Fancy #film or #photography? 📽️📸
-Thrill to the #theater? 🎭
-Relish #RareBooks? 📖

Apply for @ransomcenter.bsky.social's 2026-27 #fellowships!

Learn more & submit a proposal by Nov. 3: www.hrc.utexas.edu/fellowships/

#Humanities #Research #CFP #CFA 🗃️📜

YouTube video by Science To People Born Curious: How Kids Build Theories About the World

Kids aren’t blank slates—they’re born curious!

Today's #ScholarSunday watch/listen: @sciencetopeople.bsky.social's Brinleigh Murphy-Reuter interviews @ebonawitz.bsky.social about how children build theories about the world.

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/28LE...
(YT vid below)

#scicomm #CogSci

the Bayesian Models of Cognition book can teach you a lot about intuitive physics, e.g.:

going to the Exploratorium at SF and looking at the brain/psych exhibit and going Nope, Nope, Kinda, Not Really and then going to the other parts and going Huh, Didn't Know That, Oh Wow

People can infer the magnitude of other people’s knowledge even when they cannot infer its contents Inferences about other people’s knowledge and beliefs are central to social interaction. However, people’s behavior is often consistent with a range o…

Full paper and materials: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Authors: Rosie Aboody, Isaac Davis, Yarrow Dunham (yarrowdunham.bsky.social‬), Julian Jara-Ettinger (julianje.bsky.social���)

Looking forward to #cogsci2025!

Computational Cognitive Development Lab Presents at CogSci 2025 Learning from thought experiments in early childhood Igor Bascandziev, Garvin Brod, Patrick Shafto, and Elizabeth Bonawitz Poster Number: P1-B-9 In Person Poster Session 1 - Thursday, July 31 1-2:15 PM Salon 8 Stumped! Learning to think outside the box in 3-7 year old children Junyi Chu, Misha O’Keeffe, Silvia Kancong Liu, Elizabeth Bonawitz, and Tomer D. Ullman Talks 27.3: Learning and Development 2 Friday, August 1 1-2:30 PM Salon 6

CoCoDev @ CogSci!
Come check out cool work by Igor & @junyi.bsky.social

Anyone looking for a great postdoctoral position? Here's one at Oxford University and they would love to have someone great! It's even out of the US -- a special bonus. Post-doctoral position in developmental/cognitive psychology at Oxford Brookes, UK

my.corehr.com/pls/oburecru...

Read this. The whole thing. Sit with it.

I think the same is true for writing academic papers that develop an argument. It should not be a list. It should build an understanding of how the ideas are related.

New from me and @esranur.bsky.social! In two exps with 3-4-year-olds, we find no differences in kids' reasoning about possible outcomes of an event in different temporal contexts; kids perform the same under physical and epistemic uncertainty psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... #devpsy #psychscisky

I don't remember seeing it anywhere, but I'm famously unobservant to such things... for all I know, it's across my office door.

Lot's of fun doing this interview! Thanks so much to Brinleigh and the Science To People team for giving me the opportunity to talk about curiosity and question asking.

More ways to listen and/or watch:
YouTube : youtu.be/2qTdI9Q82ck?...

Substack: sciencetopeople.substack.com/p/born-curio...

Born Curious: How Kids Build Theories About the World Science To People · Episode

🎧 New episode drop!
Kids aren’t blank slates—they’re born curious!
We talk with Harvard’s Dr. Elizabeth Bonawitz (@ebonawitz.bsky.social) ‬ about how children build theories and ask questions.

Listen on spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/28LE...

#podcast #children #parenting #teaching

People are talking about the imminent brain drain of US researchers to other countries but that’s not the only way it’s going to look. There is going to be a brain drain out of science and into other US sectors. There are a lot of non-science things you can do with a Ph.D.

This is the epitome of beautiful science: Elegant, interesting, surprising, clear, important, and with a sprinkling of Tomer's humor in the prose.

Even if you don't work in this area, it's a great read -- to remind us of the kind of science we should emulate.

Highly recommend: 10/10

🎈 Out now: 🎈

"The capacity limits of moving objects in the imagination"

(by Balaban & me)

of interest to people thinking about the imagination, intuitive physics, mental simulation, capacity limits, and more

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

search for "marriage certificate" in the US has gone up *substantially*, compared to the average this time over past years

According to the forecasting models, the current steep funding cuts— coupled with the potential dissolution of the agency—could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, averaging more than 2·4 million deaths per year. These deaths include 4·5 million among children younger than 5 years, or more than 700 000 deaths annually.

There is not a single person in the Democratic Party who is treating the death of USAID with the gravity it deserves. There’s no political issue more important than the death of 14 million people, but they’re just delivering boilerplate condemnations and nothing more.

Earlier and drafts of this online resource have been available for a while. I've been assigning chapters for my methods courses. Students (and I!) find it so clear and helpful.

ACT NOW to let your federal lawmakers know that these cuts are bad for their constituents and bad for the country: www.psychologicalscience.org/act-now

A picture of the grants listed that were canceled at Harvard with a big red stamp that says the word canceled

First the NY Times and now featured for being CANCELLED in the Harvard magazine.

Feels like I should have at least been able to tell some inappropriate jokes to get this far...

🚨 Postdoc Opportunity!!!
The Toronto Early Cognition Lab (@UofT) is hiring a postdoc to study early optimism in infants & young children.
Work w/ multi-method approach, amazing undergrads & grads.
Start: Fall 2025 or later.
Details: jessica.sommerville@utoronto.ca
RTs appreciated 💫

Americans overwhelmingly support Education R&D 75% want the federal government to fund research that identifies effective teaching strategies 72% want to increase federal education spending. (Even among Republicans, 54% support spending more.) 62% oppose Trump’s attempt to eliminate the federal Department of Education Thanks to the Learning Agency and Renaissance Philanthropy for this polling, conducted May 2025

Across party lines, voters overwhelmingly support a strong federal role in education generally and in research and development (R&D) specifically.

Additional findings from the poll can be found here: media.the-learning-agency.com/wp-content/u...

Meta-reasoning @ CogSci Workshop Description People are general purpose problem solvers. We obtain food and shelter, manage companies, solve moral dilemmas, spend years toiling away at thorny math problems, and even adopt a...

If you’ll be at #CogSci2025, consider (or at least consider considering) attending our @cogscisociety.bsky.social workshop on meta reasoning
🤔🤨🧐
We’ll be discussing problem selection through various lenses represented by a great lineup of speakers!

In the second most important election happening today, I'm on the slate for potential new members of the governing board for the Cognitive Science Society! If you're a member, check your email for a link to vote and #DontRankCuomo

and totally fine if it is intended as such!

I just get the sense that sometimes people who are *trying* to write a positive eval/letter are thinking "hmmm, I can't write JUST positive stuff, that's not believable", and to those people I say, yes you can

I remember it blew my mind when I learned that some people read a common closing line "Please feel free to reach out if I can provide additional information", as a cue that there was something negative to be discussed that couldn't be put in the letter, and thus a red flag.

We can distinguish positives:
"Tomer was able to learn research protocols with guidance & supported data collection on a control..."

"Tomer quickly mastered all aspects of our research program; he contributed significantly by recognizing a flaw in our design & developing a new critical control..."

me: "I want my research to be featured in the NYT"

Genie: (grinning)