As 100 days in office comes up, let’s focus on the next few months:
Trump is trying to stop spending at NIH to justify cutting the NIH budget. Every US scientist should be in contact with their Congressional reps about this.
Get grants and money out the door soon or the money goes away.
Image with three main boxes with recommendations for applied researchers on conceptualization, estimation, and interpretation when using network features. Conceptualization: - Discuss why a network feature should be relevant for a given treatment or outcome - Consider plausible effect size and sample size needed to detect an association with a distal outcome Estimation: - Carefully choose preprocessing and network estimation methods - Follow good practices for predictive models (e.g., cross-validation, out-of-sample validation) Interpretation: - Consider uncertainty in node selection and network feature regression - Compare network features with simpler time series features (e.g., person-specific mean or SD)
Can we use features of dynamic networks (e.g. centrality) to improve treatment selection and outcome prediction?
New preprint on the topic: We highlight the role of uncertainty & introduce a Bayesian multilevel approach for uncertainty quantification of network features 🧵
osf.io/preprints/ps...
To my colleagues in the field, thank you for your kind words and sympathy on Cheri's initial post. I appreciate you all.
If you're attending ICED, I'll see you there. Feel free to reach out if you want to have a chat or grab coffee.
It's upsetting to see projects like this get cancelled. It's upsetting to see the projects I've seen from other graduate students, professors, and other researchers get terminated that cover important topics. It's all upsetting.
Diversity supplements aren't just for ethnic minorities - they are for first-generation college student trainees, trainees with disabilities of any kind, and so much more. They are valuable in helping trainees learn the ins and outs of academia and contribute to science.
I want to believe that isn't the case. But it's hard to reach a conclusion that doesn't lead there.
Diversity supplements are important. I am lucky and blessed to be in a phenomenal lab with an excellent mentor who supports me. Not everyone has that opportunity.
The only key words that could be flagged are from the name of the funding opportunity itself. In the absence of any explicit connection to "DEI" (however this admin defines it), it makes sense that my mentor thinks this was cut because it was a grant to promote diversity in research training.
I know my career hasn't been very long in the field of psychology. I know many of my other colleagues are hurting too, with larger grants covering critical topics becoming terminated as well. It doesn't sting any less though.
Since my first experiences at the FIU Center for Children and Families, I have learned the promise and value of identifying individuals at-risk and intervening before these disorders can become entrenched and enduring. This is the work I've committed my career to.
This work is important. The Harvard STRIPED report estimates that 9% of Americans will have an eating disorder in their lifetime. In the state of Kentucky, children are increasingly using problematic eating behaviors to manage weight - and at younger and younger ages.
Is it because the sample focuses on women/girls? Are we suddenly considering evaluating risk of developing psychopathology as a DEI topic? Are "women/girls" or "eating disorders" the "amorphous equity objectives"? Frankly, if these topics are "DEI", then nothing is safe, and anything can be cut.
The sample would be taken from my mentor's current R01, which follows 400 mother-daughter dyads over the course of two years. I've been thinking deeply about what may have raised a red flag in the eyes of the current administration, but I'm stuck.
But this is a really puzzling point: this supplement was not explicitly researching a "DEI" topic. The terminated project aimed to develop machine learning models to assess for risk of developing problematic eating behaviors such as binge eating, purging, and restriction.
I want to preface this by saying that I think taking into account diversity and being inclusive in our research is of the utmost importance. It is critical, especially when things like eating disorders are impossible to disentangle from lived experience and cultural norms.
Upsetting, but not surprising. We've been anticipating the possibility of this supplement being terminated for a while now, but seeing it actually happen still doesn't feel great. I've had a bit of time to sit with this and have some thoughts.
To those of you that have tweeted some version of “oh so sad about minorities rn” but secretly being relieved it’s not about you, well it just became about all of us
list of banned keywords
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
Our commentary, that will surely spark debate, is now accepted
‘Behavioral Weight Loss Treatment Promotes Weight Loss by Increasing Eating Disorder Symptoms: A Response to Grilo & Pittman (2024)’
in International Journal of Eating Disorders
@uofleatlab.bsky.social
kentucky's lack of stickers for voting is extremely appalling and i think we should honestly make a bigger fuss about it. paper wristbands are simply insufficient.
you're so cringe bestie
I was a little late to this decision but I will be accepting a PhD student in clinical psychology this year!
interested in #eatingdisorders, digital treatment development, personalized treatment, networks, or longitudinal designs -apply!
More here faq: www.louisvilleeatlab.com/join-the-lab...