Geerte Slappendel
@geertes.bsky.social
Policy advisor and researcher on EDI in biomedical sciences. Knits her way through meetings.
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
Imagine you are in a post-apocalyptic world with zombies. There is a spray you can use to ward off zombies. It works well, but is short-acting.
Someone made a new spray that is more long-acting. You want to test it out to see the difference.
Someone made a new spray that is more long-acting. You want to test it out to see the difference.
November 22, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Imagine you are in a post-apocalyptic world with zombies. There is a spray you can use to ward off zombies. It works well, but is short-acting.
Someone made a new spray that is more long-acting. You want to test it out to see the difference.
Someone made a new spray that is more long-acting. You want to test it out to see the difference.
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
If someone knits or crochets you a blanket or sweater, they want to keep you warm AND they dedicated many hours of their lives to making it for you.
There's no profit in fiber arts, not when you can get a machine made at Target for 30 bucks. So know fiber artists making for you? Is an act of love.
There's no profit in fiber arts, not when you can get a machine made at Target for 30 bucks. So know fiber artists making for you? Is an act of love.
November 21, 2025 at 4:01 PM
If someone knits or crochets you a blanket or sweater, they want to keep you warm AND they dedicated many hours of their lives to making it for you.
There's no profit in fiber arts, not when you can get a machine made at Target for 30 bucks. So know fiber artists making for you? Is an act of love.
There's no profit in fiber arts, not when you can get a machine made at Target for 30 bucks. So know fiber artists making for you? Is an act of love.
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 12:49 PM
It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
Well slap my ass and call me Suzy
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Well slap my ass and call me Suzy
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
Can’t believe the whole country has to suffer through the return of Dickensian childhood diseases because the worst, most ignorant attention-demanders decided other people’s expertise makes them feel bad
November 20, 2025 at 4:19 AM
Can’t believe the whole country has to suffer through the return of Dickensian childhood diseases because the worst, most ignorant attention-demanders decided other people’s expertise makes them feel bad
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
Things that will get you kicked out of academia forever:
- taking maternity leave at the wrong time
- spending too much time with your kids
- reporting harassment
- not moving every 2-3 years
- taking a partner's job/preferences into account
- mouthing off before tenure
- taking maternity leave at the wrong time
- spending too much time with your kids
- reporting harassment
- not moving every 2-3 years
- taking a partner's job/preferences into account
- mouthing off before tenure
A guy makes ONE tiny mistake (has a years-long friendship with the world's worst sex trafficker; brags about sexually harassing colleagues; is racist; says women are stupid) and his whole LIFE is blown up (does slightly fewer speaking engagements; keeps teaching at #1 university)??!?!?!?!?!
So Harvard is keeping this guy, but Claudine Gay had to step down over ginned up plagiarism accusations and bad-faith accusations of anti-Semitism.
Got it.
Got it.
November 18, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Things that will get you kicked out of academia forever:
- taking maternity leave at the wrong time
- spending too much time with your kids
- reporting harassment
- not moving every 2-3 years
- taking a partner's job/preferences into account
- mouthing off before tenure
- taking maternity leave at the wrong time
- spending too much time with your kids
- reporting harassment
- not moving every 2-3 years
- taking a partner's job/preferences into account
- mouthing off before tenure
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
Happy International Day of LGBTQIA+ People In STEM!
How are you celebrating it?
#LGBTQSTEMDay #PrideInSTEM
How are you celebrating it?
#LGBTQSTEMDay #PrideInSTEM
November 18, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Happy International Day of LGBTQIA+ People In STEM!
How are you celebrating it?
#LGBTQSTEMDay #PrideInSTEM
How are you celebrating it?
#LGBTQSTEMDay #PrideInSTEM
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
Happy LGBTQ+ in STEM Day! I’m celebrating with the dapper Invisible Enby, who is a queer fashion metaphor for the way dark matter shapes visible matter in the cosmos. Want to learn more? Preorder my new book, where they appear! 🧪
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...
November 18, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Happy LGBTQ+ in STEM Day! I’m celebrating with the dapper Invisible Enby, who is a queer fashion metaphor for the way dark matter shapes visible matter in the cosmos. Want to learn more? Preorder my new book, where they appear! 🧪
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
Remember: they used thousands of academic books too! If you’re a scholar, check for your books too. This isn’t just novelists and pop writers, it’s academic books too!
AI advocates have warned that if every author in the class action filed a claim, it would "financially ruin" the entire industry.
Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action
Advocates fear such settlements will “financially ruin” the AI industry.
arstechnica.com
November 18, 2025 at 6:32 AM
Remember: they used thousands of academic books too! If you’re a scholar, check for your books too. This isn’t just novelists and pop writers, it’s academic books too!
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
authors you have the chance to do the funniest thing right now
AI advocates have warned that if every author in the class action filed a claim, it would "financially ruin" the entire industry.
Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action
Advocates fear such settlements will “financially ruin” the AI industry.
arstechnica.com
November 18, 2025 at 4:35 AM
authors you have the chance to do the funniest thing right now
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
Quick cartoon. I was hoping to stay unplugged this week but I saw some news and had to take a break to draw this out. I think we all needed to see it realized.
November 18, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Quick cartoon. I was hoping to stay unplugged this week but I saw some news and had to take a break to draw this out. I think we all needed to see it realized.
I’m going to need all of these people to be better. This is absurd.
POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success
November 18, 2025 at 8:30 AM
I’m going to need all of these people to be better. This is absurd.
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
My most woke opinion is that "woke" at root is a beautiful concept: active socio-political consciousness in the context of the Black American liberation struggle. And the way it's been turned into a sneering pejorative is one of the ugliest things I've ever seen in Western political discourse.
"my least woke opinion is---"
That's enough. We've had enough people indulging in the "thrill of a little conservatism", as a treat. Of considering reactionary thought to be a salacious and taboo in a world descending into reactionary mania.
Give me your MOST woke opinions. We're bringing it back.
That's enough. We've had enough people indulging in the "thrill of a little conservatism", as a treat. Of considering reactionary thought to be a salacious and taboo in a world descending into reactionary mania.
Give me your MOST woke opinions. We're bringing it back.
November 14, 2025 at 12:54 PM
My most woke opinion is that "woke" at root is a beautiful concept: active socio-political consciousness in the context of the Black American liberation struggle. And the way it's been turned into a sneering pejorative is one of the ugliest things I've ever seen in Western political discourse.
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
We should never, ever be assuming that just because our friends and colleagues are strong that they should have to take crap like is described in this thread, and it's our job to try and build a world where they don't have to.
I know a lot of astronomers and physicists tell themselves that I seem like a strong person/ality who can handle anything and I just need everyone to know how fucking sexist and racist it is to simply put it down to “well she can take it”
I’m a person and even if I can why should I have to
I’m a person and even if I can why should I have to
November 16, 2025 at 8:32 PM
We should never, ever be assuming that just because our friends and colleagues are strong that they should have to take crap like is described in this thread, and it's our job to try and build a world where they don't have to.
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
I was in medical school then, having already earned a 3.97 GPA in biomedical engineering. And the president of freaking Harvard said people like me were not suited for science. He still had a high-powered, prestigious career after that but tell me again about how cancel culture ruins men’s lives.
One of my earliest moments of radicalization was in 2005 when Larry Summers said that women biologically have less aptitude for science than men. Following that, scores of equally unimpressive people wrote pieces trying to explain or justify his remarks, when they should have called for his removal.
November 13, 2025 at 3:55 AM
I was in medical school then, having already earned a 3.97 GPA in biomedical engineering. And the president of freaking Harvard said people like me were not suited for science. He still had a high-powered, prestigious career after that but tell me again about how cancel culture ruins men’s lives.
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
I feel that over the last two years I have personally experienced the way social pressures to make conditions better for minorities in STEM have evaporated and while it’s understandable that people are distracted, it’s not acceptable that people are using that as an excuse
November 16, 2025 at 5:27 PM
I feel that over the last two years I have personally experienced the way social pressures to make conditions better for minorities in STEM have evaporated and while it’s understandable that people are distracted, it’s not acceptable that people are using that as an excuse
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
esp in light of this recent research, I just want to recognize the significance of you succeeding anyway, despite this awful barrier. www.nber.org/papers/w34456
The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
November 16, 2025 at 5:38 PM
esp in light of this recent research, I just want to recognize the significance of you succeeding anyway, despite this awful barrier. www.nber.org/papers/w34456
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
Bingo. Corporate welfare is the real welfare you should be talking about.
November 16, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Bingo. Corporate welfare is the real welfare you should be talking about.
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
I truly do not believe that most men, including "the good ones" understand how much of our careers get spent on this.
The skillset I have learned up including how to file protection orders, navigate countless procedures that target survivors, how to protect ourselves, friends, and students...
The skillset I have learned up including how to file protection orders, navigate countless procedures that target survivors, how to protect ourselves, friends, and students...
Imagine the things we could do with our time if we didn’t have to do this bsky.app/profile/chan...
I did my job. And then I did a job that never should have been my responsibility afterwards, sending emails and having meetings about how this was allowed to happen in the first place. Other women scholars had to spend their time explaining to Aspen leadership why this was not ok.
November 16, 2025 at 7:45 PM
I truly do not believe that most men, including "the good ones" understand how much of our careers get spent on this.
The skillset I have learned up including how to file protection orders, navigate countless procedures that target survivors, how to protect ourselves, friends, and students...
The skillset I have learned up including how to file protection orders, navigate countless procedures that target survivors, how to protect ourselves, friends, and students...
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
Thread. We only hear how women are problems. We rarely hear that men are problems. Next time someone mentions a woman and says, "I've heard she's difficult or a problem," ask why. I've done this and have rarely gotten a legit answer.
Bsky hasn’t heard the story about the time that I was giving a virtual colloquium to the Aspen Center for Physics in September 2020 and Lawrence Krauss, Geoff Marcy, Christian Ott all attended as a group
ACP now has a policy that would prevent this from happening, because of that incident 🔭
ACP now has a policy that would prevent this from happening, because of that incident 🔭
November 16, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Thread. We only hear how women are problems. We rarely hear that men are problems. Next time someone mentions a woman and says, "I've heard she's difficult or a problem," ask why. I've done this and have rarely gotten a legit answer.
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
“Why do women, especially women of color leave physics?”
Oh I dunno maybe because you do have to be fucking crazy on a level to put up with this shit for your entire career and not walk away bsky.app/profile/chan...
Oh I dunno maybe because you do have to be fucking crazy on a level to put up with this shit for your entire career and not walk away bsky.app/profile/chan...
In the meantime, he got the professional networking opportunity, and I didn’t. And Lawrence Krauss gets to write nasty things about me in the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times gets to write about me like I’m a crazy queer bitch who hates men.
That’s the other side of these emails
That’s the other side of these emails
November 16, 2025 at 7:30 PM
“Why do women, especially women of color leave physics?”
Oh I dunno maybe because you do have to be fucking crazy on a level to put up with this shit for your entire career and not walk away bsky.app/profile/chan...
Oh I dunno maybe because you do have to be fucking crazy on a level to put up with this shit for your entire career and not walk away bsky.app/profile/chan...
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
reminder of cryptogyny, the hiding of women's contributions to science, technology, engineering, and medicine:
"although three men received the Nobel Prize for penicillin, women participated significantly in the team effort that brought the drug to medical usefulness."
www.jstor.org/stable/jj.55...
"although three men received the Nobel Prize for penicillin, women participated significantly in the team effort that brought the drug to medical usefulness."
www.jstor.org/stable/jj.55...
November 15, 2025 at 9:08 AM
reminder of cryptogyny, the hiding of women's contributions to science, technology, engineering, and medicine:
"although three men received the Nobel Prize for penicillin, women participated significantly in the team effort that brought the drug to medical usefulness."
www.jstor.org/stable/jj.55...
"although three men received the Nobel Prize for penicillin, women participated significantly in the team effort that brought the drug to medical usefulness."
www.jstor.org/stable/jj.55...
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
HOLY SHIT. They found the genes for fibromyalgia - and it's *not* autoimmune, it's the central nervous system. It's very cool to see some progress made on the thing that's ruined my life since late teenage years!
Medical Republic: 'Fibromyalgia finally gets a genetic fingerprint'
'Additionally, certain risk loci overlapped with long covid (BPTF) and ME/CFS (OLFM4, RABGAP1L/GPR52), two poorly characterised disorders, albeit with different lead variants.'
www.medicalrepublic.com.au/fibromyalgia...
'Additionally, certain risk loci overlapped with long covid (BPTF) and ME/CFS (OLFM4, RABGAP1L/GPR52), two poorly characterised disorders, albeit with different lead variants.'
www.medicalrepublic.com.au/fibromyalgia...
Fibromyalgia finally gets a genetic fingerprint - Medical Republic
A massive global study links the chronic pain condition to 26 genes associated with brain signalling, marking a turning point in understanding its biological roots.
www.medicalrepublic.com.au
November 14, 2025 at 4:09 AM
HOLY SHIT. They found the genes for fibromyalgia - and it's *not* autoimmune, it's the central nervous system. It's very cool to see some progress made on the thing that's ruined my life since late teenage years!
Reposted by Geerte Slappendel
"Unfortunately, it has become clear that the political constraints [..] remain in place [..]. The U.S. Department of State has confirmed this, and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science (OCW) has indicated that it will abide by it."
Bestuursleden Nederlandse tak beurzenprogramma Fulbright treden af vanwege ‘ernstige ondermijning’ door Trump-regering
Bestuursleden Nederlandse tak beurzenprogramma Fulbright treden af vanwege ‘ernstige ondermijning’ door Trump-regering
Zes bestuursleden van Fulbright, een prestigieus beurzenprogramma voor de uitwisseling van studenten tussen de Verenigde Staten en andere landen, zijn opgestapt.
www.nrc.nl
November 13, 2025 at 9:12 PM
"Unfortunately, it has become clear that the political constraints [..] remain in place [..]. The U.S. Department of State has confirmed this, and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science (OCW) has indicated that it will abide by it."
Ive not bought or even reread anything of his since. And that’s entertainment - not representation of the public’s interests with real impact on people’s lives. Do not willingly let yourself be represented by people who are this morally corrupt.
"What if one of YOUR favorite politicians/celebrities/etc is on the list?" Did you all not notice how quickly we dropped Neil Gaiman when we found out about the things he did? Do you know how beloved that guy used to be and how loathed he is now? I think that right there should answer your question.
November 14, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Ive not bought or even reread anything of his since. And that’s entertainment - not representation of the public’s interests with real impact on people’s lives. Do not willingly let yourself be represented by people who are this morally corrupt.