samuel mehr
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mehr.nz
samuel mehr
@mehr.nz
i am a cognitive scientist working on auditory perception at the University of Auckland and the Yale Child Study Center 🇳🇿🇺🇸🇫🇷🇨🇦

lab: themusiclab.org
personal: mehr.nz
intro to my research: youtu.be/-vJ7Jygr1eg
our house has four people and 12 passports, permanent residency visas, PR cards etc; as such, we refer jokingly to "the expat tax" which applies whenever some absurd effort or cost is incurred

depending on the circumstances, the expat tax can be paid in dollars, time, or both
December 7, 2025 at 8:40 AM
manuscript central wrapped (you can only see it after resetting your password)
December 7, 2025 at 7:45 AM
this canadian govt form abbreviated my previous role at harvard; are they wrong? who can say
December 7, 2025 at 3:38 AM
I would read the hell out of a paper estimating, on a weekend day in a house with two young children, the total number of utterances of "mama"
December 6, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by samuel mehr
This is my all time favorite Onion headline (complete with picture to make the joke work), which is apropos today given the passing of architect Frank Gehry.

theonion.com/frank-gehry-...
December 5, 2025 at 10:50 PM
pōhutukawa in full blossom at Onepoto domain yesterday evening. summer has arrived in auckland
December 5, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Pro tip: when making rice krispies treats, brown the butter before melting in the marshmallows, and add a bit of salt
December 5, 2025 at 9:14 AM
chonky birb came to visit my window
December 5, 2025 at 12:48 AM
Practice makes perfect; I'm still working on layered hearts 💕
December 4, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Reposted by samuel mehr
🚨BREAKING 🚨
if you tweet your new paper in red-alert emojis, and the paper has not actually cured cancer, then you should reevaluate your perceived self-importance
November 25, 2025 at 7:58 PM
maybe i'm a sap but I really like the fact that some of the books my kids are reading are the same physical copies that I read when I was their age
December 4, 2025 at 8:47 AM
I saw an academic post that they weren't getting much engagement on bsky and all i could think was 'did you consider doing better posts'
December 4, 2025 at 5:02 AM
As a person who has been rejected by Avid Reader in the past, I take a petty joy in these dismal sales numbers
I am pleased to say that all signs look to the book being an utter flop anyway. This is the Amazon sales rank one day after launch.
December 4, 2025 at 4:29 AM
IKEA opened its first store in new zealand today, a big enough news event in our little country that the prime minister showed up www.tickaroo.com/e/Gl1R2NvhOf...
December 4, 2025 at 3:26 AM
Slack Wrapped
(mine is perpetually adding custom emoji that only I will use)
Rstudio wrapped

bsky.app/profile/sal....
They should do MyChart Wrapped
December 4, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Reposted by samuel mehr
Free business idea:

Coffee shop where people joining a Zoom call are promptly told to step outside.
December 3, 2025 at 6:24 PM
every year around now I re-remember how American-centric academia is, as requests keep flowing in while aus/nz folks turn off notifications and head off for summer holidays
December 3, 2025 at 5:40 PM
playgrounds hit different in NZ, volume 30 (harbourside edition)
December 3, 2025 at 12:43 AM
Reposted by samuel mehr
Can you power your computer by typing?

What the latest What If? video in collaboration with
@minuteearth.bsky.social!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L44...
Can you power your computer by typing?
YouTube video by xkcd's What If?
www.youtube.com
December 2, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by samuel mehr
it's wild that R, the ubiquitous statistical computing language, was co-created by a Māori prof (Ross Ihaka) — and yet the vast majority of scientists who use R don't know

this is like inventing the toaster. possibly the largest impact of a single member of an indigenous community on modern science
December 14, 2023 at 10:35 AM
Reposted by samuel mehr
Dusting this one off
December 2, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Auckland Uni has responded to my OIA request re consultancy spending in 2024-2025

$600k to PWC and $500k to Nous Group for "strategic design, organisational change, transformation
services" etc

This is roughly what our whole faculty of science spent on internally funded postdocs in the same years
What consulting companies is Auckland Uni working with and how much are the companies being paid? - a Official Information Act request to University of Auckland
Could you please provide a list of contracts the University entered into, in 2024 and 2025, with external consulting firms; the topic of the work undertaken (e.g., strategic planning); and the total c...
fyi.org.nz
December 2, 2025 at 4:10 AM
Reposted by samuel mehr
Well this is exciting!

The Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University (@jhu.edu) invites applications for a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member in Cognitive Psychology, in any area and at any rank!

Application + more info: apply.interfolio.com/178146
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
December 2, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Timeline cleanse : wellington's favourite duckling family
December 1, 2025 at 3:02 AM
Reposted by samuel mehr
"Come join us!!!" —member of academic search committee that will receive 200 applications for one role and may in fact hire zero people for it
October 3, 2024 at 6:02 PM