Notices by Cat Hicks (grimalkina@mastodon.social)

I talked to four PhD friends yesterday and every single one of them is looking at jobs outside the US, with different levels of probability, but these are extremely serious people with extremely serious lab infrastructure they would never think about leaving lightly

In our latest episode, Ashley shares the story of the program she's been running for four years -- a program made possible by federal "diversity in science" funding. I'm going to be promoting this one more than usual because it's so personal and important to us, and I hope you'll give it a share and a listen.

https://www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/episodes/16501906-the-nih-pays-off-beyond-our-dreams

I cannot emphasize enough how strange it is to basically be an extremely specialized nerd who has to spend many hours in deep work alone but who also realized that publicly communicating was absolutely key to sharing and protecting everything we love

Thinking of embarrassing myself in new and inventive modalities because I think it would be fun to try to explain my papers in youtube videos now

This!!!!!!!! sucks

(explanation: 10th grade students' perceived self-rated ability against their percentile score on a mathematics test. There is a gender gap at every level of mathematics achievement, ie girls at all ability levels rate their abilities lower than boys)

source: Perez-Felkner, L., Nix, S., & Thomas, K. (2017). Gendered pathways: How mathematics ability beliefs shape secondary and postsecondary course and degree field choices. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 218959.

The NIH pays off beyond our dreams.

In a special edition of Change, Technically, @analog_ashley and I get into the facts of the #NIH : what it does, how it works, and the consequences of disrupting its essential work.

Listen here: https://www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/episodes/16501906-the-nih-pays-off-beyond-our-dreams

"“My family is proud of me,” he says. “My grandfather and great-grandfather are also named Manuel. All the sacrifices they made allowed me to have the privilege of going to school. I’m honored to share their name and be able to say look, we’re graduating.”

“STARTneuro is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” says Vasconcelos. “I love what I am doing, and I wouldn’t be where I am now if not for this program.”"

- Manuel Vasconcelos, one of the students in Ashley's STARTneuro program

"The program was also helpful in paying for school. Vasconcelos had been planning to continue working at Whole Foods during college, but he’s been able to do career-kickstarting lab work instead. He sends a chunk of money home to help his parents cover their monthly expenses, and pays for school with a Pell Grant, UC San Diego grants and subsidized loans."

Source: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/transfer-students-triumph-class-2024#manuel

STARTneuro is one of the programs funded by the NIH ENDURE grant.

I used to social partner dance a lot. In partner dancing, because it's a physical hobby, boundaries matter a lot. One night, I was dancing out at a jam in Seattle and the man who'd asked me to dance kept leading in a really dangerous, uncontrolled way. Typical of people who lead in dancing with a lot of strength but not a lot of technique -- twisted my body in ways I didn't like, wasn't responsive to the obvious weight shifting I was doing to counteract it, so I said, "Stop doing that move."

I strongly believe if we want to define "tech culture" as different than these narratives from the loudest richest voices right now, we need to USE OUR POWER to platform and amplify every example of work and vision that is *different* from this.

I'm not saying I don't understand the venting. I do. But I hope people can reflect that posting famous men's names three hundred times & never once sharing the names and work of good people, fighting important battles, is failing to use a form of power

Some of you may recall that I told Ashley about rubber ducking. Now she has bought a fleet of small rubber ducks for her entire coding in biology class so every student gets one (all typically students who have never programmed/are often very intimidated by learning to code). They're pretty excited.

This may be my biggest contribution to the future of coding.

People who don't pay any of my bills: "why are you researching x when you should research y" 🙄🙄🙄

It is important to not let the window shift on what skills are valued and who is named as "technical" right now. Because that shift is very exploited by forces that are smart about using it to remove anyone who does really challenging social topics work. Some have spent years teaching tech that skills even exist in equity work and social topics :(

Was reminded (thanks @hazelweakly ❤️) of this good essay: https://sashalaundy.com/writing/technical-skills/

We're going to need to get a lot more fluent in the nature of "chilling effects" and their uneven distribution

For example in my experience if you're in a highly resourced area like eng you usually have little idea how much other areas like research are fighting for funds you'd consider a coffee budget. Those funds will increasingly only be available for the least controversial work and people will perceive great social risk for even asking if they're available

Some unsorted thoughts on tech culture right now and how we take care of each other, which are informed not just by being a psychologist in tech but also by a lot of deep reflection with my closest community who are in ecology, teaching, STEM diversity, education policy, public health, fields that are (imho) unfortunately very used to the kinds of pressures we're seeing rise to the surface in tech discourse right now

Good social science makes you feel like you can read the future but it's just because it makes you curious about the underlying belief systems that are already creating the dynamics that are leading to inevitable conflict

It also helps you be ready for the conflict.

You may be thinking to yourself wow I wonder if anyone has ever directly studied brilliance beliefs on software teams and empirically measured them at scale with a couple thousand real developers & 700+ leaders and produced evidence about how brilliance beliefs & contest cultures are associated with lower team effectiveness and lower developer productivity, well 💁♀️💁♀️💁♀️

hit your girl up I did All That And More and I consult if your org needs LESS of this "energy"

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/2gej5

@slothrop I try not to let you guys down

One is Vial et al. (2022): An Emphasis on Brilliance Fosters Masculinity-Contest Cultures

"an emphasis on brilliance has a negative effect on gender diversity because it fosters a workplace climate in which a masculine-coded, competition-based style of interpersonal interaction is perceived to be dominant"

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09567976211044133

The other -- you know I'm always going to recommend Cheryan! -- it's Cheryan & Markus (2022): Masculine Defaults: Identifying and Mitigating Hidden Cultural Biases

https://psycnet.apa.org/manuscript/2020-59614-001.pdf